Mayo mourns the untimely passing of gifted author
Author Helen Falconer is pictured with her book 'The Dark Beloved' outside her home in Ross, Killala.
The untimely passing of author Helen Falconer at the age of just 66 has robbed Mayo of an immensely talented writer who was a tireless promoter of the local arts scene.
A native of Devon in England, Helen had lived at Ross in Killala for the past 25 years with her husband Derek and family. She was already a critically acclaimed author by the time she moved to Mayo, having spent her early career as a London-based journalist for the newspaper. Her books, and , were published by Faber & Faber and won widespread praise from reviewers in the , the , the and many other publications.
In 2015, Helen launched the first book in her trilogy, which was set in North Mayo and aimed at a teenage audience. The three books were published by Penguin/Random House and again won plaudits for their authenticity and superb storytelling.
From the moment she arrived in Killala, Helen immersed herself in the artistic community in North Mayo and conducted workshops for writers while also taking part in various community initiatives in her adopted hometown. She was also heavily involved in Ballina Arts Centre in recent years, using her peerless writing skills to promote various events at the centre.
Helen was a regular contributor to the and her articles always attracted a fantastic response from readers.
"Helen was one of the most naturally gifted writers to grace the pages of the over the last 25 years," said editor James Laffey. "She had such an effortless command of the written word and it was always a pleasure and a privilege to publish her material - be it the various articles we commissioned from her over the years or her outstanding work for Ballina Arts Centre.
"She had a great respect for all artists - not just writers - and conducted fascinating interviews with many of the artists who staged shows and exhibitions at Ballina Arts Centre over the last decade. Whether they were an established name or someone just starting out in their career, Helen gave them all equal billing.
"Helen was such a compassionate, decent person, and that shone through in her writing, along with her inimitable sense of humour. She was just a wonderful, talented human being and we are all so shocked and saddened to learn of her passing.
"On behalf of all the staff in the , both past and present, I want to extend sympathy to our friend and former colleague Derek; to her children Jack, Molly, Imogen and Sean, her extended family and many, many friends. Helen will be deeply missed and fondly remembered by all who knew her."
Helen is being waked at her home in Ross today (Sunday) from 2pm and a celebration of her life will be held in St Patrick's Church, Killala, tomorrow (Monday, February 3rd) at 12 noon followed by burial in Killala Cemetery.
* As a tribute to Helen, we are reprinting (below) an article she wrote for the for Christmas 2020 about her early days in Killala. It captures the brilliance of this uniquely gifted writer.
It’s quite a culture shock to move from a city of nine million people to a town the size of Killala in north Mayo, and I’m still not quite sure why… Something to do with being in shock after giving birth to twins? Anyway, my husband was Irish and loudly convinced that the Mayo countryside was the only place on the planet to rear children.
My oldest son was already in college – having survived a London childhood – but luckily there remained one sensible person in the family, our four-year-old daughter Molly. She was surprised but interested in the idea of moving to Ireland. She loved her Irish grandmother, who lived in Limerick. The seal of approval.
And so to Killala we came.
We asked our landlady for the address of our new house, so our letters could be forwarded. The address, she said, was Kilroe, Killala. Yes but… House number? Street name? Postcode?
“Don't worry, the postman knows all about you.”
On our first evening in this numberless, streetless house, I got in a terrible panic because the back door didn't have a bolt on the inside, and I knew that having a back door which didn't triple-lock was exactly like placing a large sign in our window saying “feel free to kill us all and rob everything”.
A nice chap promptly arrived to fix a bolt on the door.
While watching the repairman at work, Molly asked him if there were any good schools in Killala; she needed to get out of the house and away from the twins. Turning to her seriously, he said:
“Well, I’m the headmaster of Killala National School, and personally I think it’s quite good.”
So that was decided then.
After a weekend trying to buy school stuff which had all been sold out since August (a new concept to a Londoner – things can sell out?) a uniform was acquired and off she went on Monday.
She came home that afternoon very annoyed at how we’d failed her as parents. She had been handed an extremely important piece of information that we’d omitted to tell her.
“There’s a very important person in the sky called God, and we have to believe in him otherwise we’ll all be in trouble.”
Of course, this was not how God had been explained to her by the teacher, not at all, but Molly was no fool and had deduced that if good things came from believing in God then bad things surely came from not believing in Him. I could see why she was indignant that no one had warned her about this.
To be honest, it came as a surprise to me that Molly had never heard of God – I mean, there are churches in England and many people get married or even have funerals in them. WAFOs, English vicars call their fickle constituents – Weddings And Funerals Only.
But Molly had never been to a wedding and in England the only funeral you get to go to uninvited is your own.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Molly decided that in face of this gap in understanding between her teacher and her parents, that she would make up her own mind about God when she was eight years old – which clearly stood for “full-blown adult” in her mind.
Notwithstanding such alarms, we settled in well. Killala was adorable and the weather, especially, was an unexpected delight. Who said it rained in Ireland? Liars. We had moved here in October, and the days were stunning – mild, blue, dry. If October was like this, what was the summer going to be like? We looked forward to it in happy anticipation.
Molly discovered that our landlady made boxty and so disappeared down the hill every morning to demand breakfast – fresh hot, buttery boxty bliss. She also discovered that Martina did a wonderful beef roast on Sundays, and was very generous to small visitors who appreciated the local cuisine.
Another magical neighbour (thank you, Madge) came to help with the twins while I finished off a book I was writing. The book was set in London, which kept seeming further and further away and increasingly unreal – a weird experience.
It was in early December when I realised that Christmas was going to be different in Killala: longer, sweeter, more… Christmassy. In London, life is very busy, Christmas is just one day (despite the constant commercial hype) and all the present and food shopping gets done on Christmas Eve (a mistake, by the way, which I never made again after my first year in Ireland.) Here in Killala, the run-up to Christmas felt different.
Molly was mad to go to the turning on of the Christmas lights. I'd never heard of this experience before. So off we set up the town, hand in hand – her and me, and Derek pushing the twins in their double buggy. There was a frost in the air which pinched our noses, and the sky was a deep rich blue like the sea had washed over us.
There in the centre of Killala, up past the cathedral and the round tower, the pink-faced school children were playing carols on tin whistles outside the local shop. A wooden ladder leant against the wall of the old chemist, and the priest gave a blessing and some buck climbed the ladder and strings of pure white lights came on all over the town.
Then Santa rode into town on a lawnmower with the bells ringing and set up shop in the post office, and the kids queued to see him and came out hyper and sticky with sweets. We adults ducked into the pub where the coals were ablaze and had hot ones while Molly enjoyed one of Aidan’s finest Shirley Temples and the twins drowsed with their bottles in the heat of the fire.
Home again, home again, under the white lights and then under a sky full of stars, and the moon casting a silver path over the sea, and a hint in the air of the snow to come; Molly as happy as a child could be and the twins finding her very amusing.
White Christmas in Killala! Well, there you are darling Molly, I thought to my atheistic self. No need to wait until you're eight. If God is anywhere, somehow, for sure He is here.
