Ellie Garnell

In late 1940s rural Ireland, Clodagh Kelly is a child who learns too early what it costs to be a girl.

In an ivy-choked ruin, she and Marie face a danger they cannot name. Clodagh throws a broken brick to save her friend, and the moment binds them forever.

Ten years on, Clodagh measures her days by bread and cakes at Darcy’s bakery, and her nights by the weekly dance, while Marie drives a van and the local lads mad. Then, at a kitchen table where plates rattle, and voices stay low, Clodagh’s father announces that one of her brothers is being sent away to outrun a scandal at home.

After that, Clodagh can’t go back to the life she was living.

What she keeps, and what she leaves, will make her.

Clodagh of the Country is an Irish historical novella set in the 1940s and 1950s.