Orna Ross

Facing the birth of her child, and single motherhood, Jo Devereux has spent the last six months in Mucknamore, the Irish village she fled 20 years ago. A trunk of letters and diaries left by her grandmother and great-aunt has revealed a heartbreaking legacy of bitter secrets....

After 20 years away, Jo Devereux flies home to Ireland for her mother’s funeral—the mother she hasn’t spoken to for more than two decades. Every minute there reminds her of all the reasons she left, and she has no desire to reacquaint herself with her home village....

When Mercy Mulcahy was 40-years-old, she was accused of killing her elderly and tyrannical father. Now, at the end of her life, she has written a book about what really happened on that fateful night of Christmas Eve, 1989....

Welcome to the imaginative world of Irish poet Orna Ross. If you’re a fan of Maya Angelou, John O’Donoghue, Mary Oliver, or the ancient wisdoms of Rumi or Kabir, you’ll find poems here that are likely to inspire you....

Here are poems that offer shifting interpretations of identity, poems that rework ancient Irish blessings, poems about life and liberty and the conditions for happiness....