In 1993, aged twenty, Carmel Mc Mahonย left Ireland for Newย York,ย carrying two suitcases andย a ton of unseen baggage. It took years, and aย bitterย struggle with alcohol addiction, to unpick theย intricate traumas ofย her past and present.
Candid yet lyrical, In Ordinary Time mines the ways that trauma reverberates through timeย and through individual lives,ย drawing connections to the events andย rhythms of Irelandโs long Celtic, early Christian and Catholic history. From tragically lost siblings to the broader social scars of the Famine and the Magdalene Laundries, Mc Mahon sketches the evolution of a consciousness โ from her conservative 1970s upbringing to 1990s New York, and back to the much-changed Ireland of today.
