Humour and heartbreak in Mayo memoir that reflects on fostering in Ireland in ‘80s

A NEW book filled with pathos and humour gives an insight into fostering in Ireland in the 1980s by someone at the heart of it.

Welcome to the house of fun, the inspiration behind Parcels in the Post - Growing up with Fifty Siblings.

It’s the early 1980s and Fiona Neary and her family have recently moved back from England to the family farm outside Castlebar. Fiona’s huge-hearted mum decides to take in foster children - a decision that will change all their lives.

Over the next decade, a procession of faces passes through the house. Every child has their own story, and each story claims a little piece of Fiona’s heart. Some of the children stay a few weeks; some months, and then years.

All of the children, as well as Fiona and her family, must pass through a chaotic system: where a judge’s decision can alter a child’s life, for better or worse; where emergency placements can break up siblings; where the foster family are often left in the dark and with little back-up.

There are some like spinning dervishes, others almost mute, runaways and tearaways and babies whose smiles soften even the hardest town gossip.

A book filled with pathos and humour, Parcels in the Post is both a memoir of a loving household and snapshot of the fostering system in Ireland.

Neary writes through the eyes of her teenage self, trying to navigate those most intense years, working part-time in a local chip shop, studying for the Leaving Cert and heading away to college. Hard enough for anyone without coming home eash day not knowing for sure if another child would be at the dinner table.

Full of tender and poignant recollections, at time hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking, Neary's book is at all times compelling.

Fiona Neary is a well-known figure in Castlebar and the wider Mayo area. She worked in social care herself, co-founding the Mayo Rape Crisis Centre, and is currently co-director of the Linenhall Arts Centre in Castlebar. Parcels in the Post is her first book and is due for release on May 3, published by New Island Books.