Anam Cara

Acknowledgments

I WISH TO THANK: DIANE REVERAND, my editor at HarperCollins; Kim Witherspoon and her agency, for her confidence in the work and for its effective mediation; John Devitt, who read the manuscript and offered a creative and literary critique; Dr. Lelia Doolan, who gave a wonderfully encouraging and rigorous critical response to the text; David Whyte, for his brotherly care and our conversations about the world of the imagination; Barbara Conner, for all her work and support; and especially Marian O’Beirn, who suggested this book on longing and “our hunger to belong” and who read and reread successive drafts, keeping a critical eye on structure and content and whose friendship and inspiration are generosity itself; the memory of my former teachers Professor Gerard Watson and Professor Tom Marsh and Miceal O’Regan, O. P., for his wisdom of spirit; to my family, for the shelter, support, and understanding; to Conamara and Clare, for their mystical spirit which awakens such longing and offers such a tenderness of belonging. Agus do mo cáirde a thug foscadh, solas agus solás.