Defying the Curse - Maria O'Rourke
After a career in teaching spanning thirty years, Maria O’Rourke is now a full-time writer, having completed a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. She draws on her own experiences in personal, work and family life to bring out what is universal in each individual experience. Writing both prose and poetry, her favourite genre is historical fiction. She has recently been awarded the Wild Atlantic Writing Award for this genre as well as being shortlisted for the Anthology Short Fiction Competition, The Farnham Flash Fiction Competition and the Liberties Press Humorous Short Story Competition. She has been published by The Blue Nib, The Ogham Stone and The Galway Review. Mother to three grown-up children, she lives in Carlow town with her husband, David.
GENRE: Historical Fiction
Blurb:
There was a curse on the ‘Big House’. A local peasant foretold that the family would someday be ‘ruled by a cripple!’ So, when a son was born without any limbs, it seemed the premonition had come true. But nobody could have foretold what the boy would achieve and how his name would go down in history as one of the most remarkable Irishmen to ever live. An amazing story of 19th century life, love and courage that reached across continents and social classes.
