Mary Ann Hart

The Pirates of Clontarf Mary Ann Hart

Polly O'Brien is a girl of twelve who is deperatly trying to save her father from the clutches of alcoholism. While attending Catholic school in the 1950s, she aspires to write and figure out life's mysteries without much help from anyone. She has never been the most popular girl in her class which is one mystery she is trying to figure out. While living a mundane and frustrating existence, she writes a book with the help of a ghost. Polly is visited by a spirit as she tries to write a tale about the Irish Potato Famine. The phantom helps her to write by relating her own personal Famine story, and offers Polly some advice. Dailearie O'Donovan, the visitation, tells a tale of trying to save Ireland. By pirating and taking grain to county Mayo where their relatives have previously died, she and her brothers hope to make things better. This narrative describes substance abuse, coming of age before the age of information and the Internet, and the horrors of the Irish potato Famine. It recounts real horror that is often experienced by children and adults alike that have lived with a person suffering from substance abuse. Both the spirit and Polly find solutions to the devastating problems they both encounter.