Meet the Locals: Alice Taylor — Innishannon’s Beloved Author

Innishannon is home to one of Ireland’s most beloved writers — and her books about this very corner of Cork have been read by millions around the world.

Some places are lucky enough to have someone who can put their character, soul, and beauty into words. Innishannon has Alice Taylor.

Alice Taylor is one of Ireland’s most successful and widely read authors, and she has made Innishannon her home. Her books — warm, wise, deeply rooted in the rhythms of Irish rural life — have found readers not just across Ireland and Britain, but in translation around the world. To read her is to understand something essential about what it means to grow up in a place like this, in a community like this.

Her Books

Alice Taylor’s writing career took off with the publication of To School through the Fields, a memoir of childhood in rural Ireland that became a phenomenon — beloved for its warm humour, its vivid evocation of a vanishing world, and its deep affection for the people and places of Cork.

Her many books include:

• To School through the Fields — the book that introduced her to a global audience
• Quench the Lamp
• The Village
• Country Days
• The Night Before Christmas
• Across the River
• House of Memories
• The Gift of a Garden
• And Time Stood Still

Her books are available in bookshops across Ireland and online. If you are visiting Innishannon and want to take a piece of the village home with you, picking up one of Alice’s books is the perfect memento.

Part of the Community

Alice Taylor is not simply a famous name associated with Innishannon — she is an active, generous, and deeply engaged member of the village community. Over the years, she has been involved in fundraising for parish events and charities, contributed to the refurbishment of the local church, and worked to preserve and celebrate local history.

Her continued presence and contribution to village life is a source of enormous pride to the people of Innishannon, and a reminder of what is possible when someone uses their gifts in service of the place they call home.

A Literary Pilgrimage

For readers of Alice Taylor’s work, a visit to Innishannon carries a special resonance. The village she has written about so lovingly is still here — the river, the woods, the pubs, the church, the community. Walking its streets feels, for her readers, like stepping into the pages of a book.

Pick up her books before you come, read them on the way, and arrive in Innishannon with new eyes.

→ Plan your visit to Innishannon