He has just published the third book in that series, "Shannon," a tale set in western Ireland in the years following World War I. It follows hard on The New York Times bestselling novel, "Ireland," (2005), and "Tipperary" (2007).
In between, the prolific writer produced a nonfiction book, "Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea" (2006) and he is already deep into his fourth volume, "Blarney," a story about the great general election in Ireland in 1932. (In the 1932 general election, Fianna Fáil scored a decisive victory paving the way for Eamon de Valera's government to sever remaining constitutional ties with Great Britain and to introduce a new constitution that made Ireland a republic in all but name.)
"I am well and truly immersed in writing my next book at the same time that I am promoting 'Shannon,'" Mr. Delaney said this week. "There is an old saying, 'If you can't ride two horses at once, you shouldn't be in the circus.' The more productive you are, the more productive you become."
Mr. Delaney says he plans to write the entire history of Ireland through novels "to see if, by the end, I can understand the place." He uses his protagonists, and their interactions with others, to explore not only the plots of his books, but also to set forth the history, legends and mythology of a many-layered land.
He said that as he writes, he continues to find out things about his native land that he never knew before, and that he has discovered a "brilliant people" with a strong sense of individualism and a literary and intellectual bent that has stunned the world.
"There is an intellectual liberty there because we have had to fight so hard for freedom," he said. "That tiny island had to overturn what was then the biggest power in world and it did it with a handful of boys. Then we went for education big time, and with education we learned to be political."
The first book in the series, "Ireland," traces the first 2,000 years of Irish history and legend through the device of an itinerant storyteller. The history of the land is revealed story by story.
In the second book, "Tipperary," a manuscript written by Charles O'Brien, a 19th-century Anglo-Irish itinerant healer and occasional journalist, is discovered 75 years after his death. The narrator adds his own commentary to O'Brien's complicated saga, creating what Library Journal called "a glowing composite of a volatile Ireland." Both books won critical acclaim.
Mr. Delaney's current novel picks up the long, convoluted history of Ireland during its civil war. His protagonist, Robert Shannon, is a young American priest from New England who has come back from service as a chaplain at Belleau Wood in World War I, suffering from shell shock and demoralized by the corruption he encountered when he returned to the Boston archdiocese. He is sent to Ireland by the church in hopes that he can find his way back to mental health.
Mr. Delaney said that in creating the book he called on youthful memories of shell-shocked veterans in Irish villages, who lolled around village centers, "their mouths gaping and eyes rolling, looking into the distance." Robert Shannon is in much the same condition.
"Robert Shannon means to walk up and down the Shannon River until he puts his feet in footprints of his ancestors," he said. "The exercise of the book is to see if he can find his way back. What he doesn't know is that the archdiocese has put a safety net under him. They have written to people saying, 'If you see an infirm young American, catch him if he falls.' People respond to him and take him into their homes. They tell him stories and the mythology of Ireland.
"But no one told him he would land in the middle of a civil war," Mr. Delaney continued. "This is a story of healing and recovery-this is a man who has healed many people and now he needs healing. The book is about what decisions will he make."
Robert Shannon is put in place to learn the rich history of his ancestral land, but his fate remains clouded until the end. Even the author did not know his future. "The book starts very slowly and builds and builds," he said. "I did not know how it would end until the last few paragraphs. I had to leave it to the characters. But here is a clue: when there are great changes in a man's life, there is always a woman nearby."
While the books are a series, Mr. Delaney does not adopt one voice or literary device in presenting his stories. "They are all very different books, quite deliberately so," he said. "I hate the idea of writing the same book twice."
In "Tipperary," for instance, he adopted a formal Victorian kind of writing that some younger readers found too slow. "But those who got the 19th-century thing completely loved it," he reports.
He recently subjected himself to receiving direct feedback from fans at Tipperary Reads programs in his natal county. "People are passionate about books," he reported. "People would come up to be with all of the books. There intensity of attachment has startled me. It was absolutely riveting to hear their take on a novel ["Tipperary"] I had written from afar. To go back and face your own people, having written about them is daunting."
He said his listeners were "very, very generous" in their appreciation of the novel, but that when pressed by the author, provided some things they wished he had included in the books.
Mr. Delaney will read from "Shannon" for fans in this area Saturday at 4 p.m. at Oblong Books in Millerton, N.Y.
Like its predecessors, "Shannon" has garnered immediate critical acclaim, with Library Journal highly recommending it and the Washington Post terming Mr. Delaney "an engaging, often compelling storyteller."
He knows his subject well. He was born in Tipperary, where after an unhappy start in the banking industry promoted by his practical parents, he edged into a career as a broadcaster with RTE radio and television, the Irish state network. In the mid-1970s, he went to work for the BBC, reporting current affairs in Dublin at the time of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland.
"I covered the southern end of that, where it was just as fierce," he said this week. He called this week's eruption of violence in Northern Ireland is "loathsome."
"It's appalling," he said, "and the big worry is how it will be handled. In the 1970s, the authorities over-reacted and the police took on powers they didn't have. The people were so frustrated and a peaceful movement became violent."
He said the perpetrators of the current acts are probably a small group of no more than 15 or 20 persons and predicted they will be arrested quickly. "It's been 11 years since there was any violence and the people there will be horrified," he said, adding that there is unanimity of opinion among the Irish, north and south, that the country should be reunited. But, he said, it will not happen as a result of militant extremists.
"It will happen by stealth," he said. "It will happen economically, because it is better."
His own career prospered as a result of his early reporting about the turmoil and later he moved to London where he inaugurated "Bookshelf" on BBC Radio Four. On television, he wrote films for Omnibus and other arts programs, and in the early 1980s hosted his own talk show, "Frank Delaney," featuring an array of cultural and literary personalities. Mr. Delaney also created "Word of Mouth," BBC Radio Four's highly rated show about language, and wrote and presented "The Celts," a six-part television series seen in 40 countries and available in video and DVD formats. Later he hosted the BSBSky/Fox Network international Cable TV show, "The Book Show."
He is married to Diane Meier, with whom he maintains homes in New York City and Kent. For more information about the Millerton reading, call 518-789-3797.
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