Writer Alice Taylor: ‘Growing up in the country, death wasn’t sanitised. It was right there, under your nose’

Writer Alice Taylor: ‘Growing up in the country, death wasn’t sanitised. It was right there, under your nose’

At 87, celebrated Cork writer Alice Taylor reflects on grief, her delight in a changing Ireland and the fallen tree that inspired her latest book ‘Weathering Storms’

Author Alice Taylor, who recently released her latest book 'Weathering Storms', in her garden at her home in Innishannon, Co Cork. Photo: Daragh Mc Sweeney

‘Donald Trump sending Rory McIlroy a message to congratulate him on the golf win!” laughs Alice Taylor, in her joyous Cork accent. “God, everything is grand if you use social media with a bit of cop on.”

Like McIlroy and Shane Lowry, the age-defying matriarch of Irish literature is still on a high when we speak a couple of days after the end of the Ryder Cup. Sh