What is healing? What is wisdom? How do we find meaning in a world so broken? These are the questions Harry Barry ponders as he shares a picnic with his wife, overlooking the Irish Sea at Clogherhead in Co Louth, in his seventh decade on this earth.
These questions and this landscape are pivotal to Barry’s memoir. Another pivotal presence is Sr Kieran Saunders. Barry describes her as his guide and monitor. She seems to pervade this memoir as the protagonist and catalyst for a life lived beneath the surface seeking healing, wisdom and meaning.
Barry lets us in on his sometimes difficult childhood; marked by moving house six times as a child, prolonged illness, bullying and physical and emotional abuse at boarding school. He describes how “living in a constant state of fear has left trauma and psychological scars that remain with me to this day“.
In Beneath The Surface Barry lyrically recalls an Ireland of the 1970s and 1980s that to a younger generation will seem like centuries ago. He dispassionately describes an Ireland where the Catholic Church loomed large and those in privileged positions occupied them with impunity. To some who lived through those decades, this may appear as a rose-tinted view of an era marked by secrecy and conservatism.
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The physical landscape is a formative presence in this memoir; from east coast to west coast, Barry is rooted in the Irish landscape, describing Co Clare as his “spiritual home”. It is this landscape and its inhabitants, past and present, that slowly and generously whisper some answers to Barry’s questions about healing, wisdom and meaning.
In no small part the answer is about service to our fellow humans. This idea of “service” he sees as being ingrained into the consciousness of his generation; maybe passed down from a generation who lived through famine and war. Barry’s idea of service is not a romantic one; it is multifaceted, filled with grit, joy, laughter and sacrifice; just like his memoir.
Paul D’Alton is a clinical psychologist, teacher, researcher and writer
