Search results for ""Author Alice Taylor""

Alice celebrates the special moments and the everyday blessings of life. Come sit awhile with Alice Taylor. Take a little time out – to rest, to think, or just to be. Life can race along at a fast pace, sometimes almost stampeding us along with it. What a pity not to slow down and take the time to enjoy little things, or simply doing nothing or chatting with a good friend. Sometimes Alice finds a comfortable place to sit, maybe a low wall, a garden seat or a grassy bank. A place to let the mind calm down and let thoughts drift. With this book she invites you to share the special moments of life.

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Alice Taylor brings the reader with her on her 80th birthday year. Alice had a big birthday on the horizon, the village was about to celebrate many milestones, and she had just received the gift of a book focusing her on the art of living well. So she decided to write about her year as it unfolded, to keep a journal of the big events, and record the twists and turns normal life brings to all of us in just one year. But 2018 turned out to be far from normal, with storms, snow blizzards, blistering sun, severe drought and water shortages. She describes the challenges of all these dramatic weather changes. Alice began the year wondering how she would feel about reaching eighty. She was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was just another milestone on a journey that is still varied and interesting. Here she writes about these feelings, and the many pleasant and challenging events of her eightieth year.

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Set in rural Ireland in the early 1960s, a sequel to The Woman of the House and Across the River, House of Memories concludes the story of two neighbouring farms and their feuding families. Following his brutish father's death, young Danny Conway strives to rescue the family farm from ruin. When all seems hopeless, help comes from the most unexpected quarter. A story of grief and trying to cope with loss, but also of resilience in the face of family tragedy. No one knows the minutiae of country life as Alice Taylor does, and again she displays her unique ability to capture its rhythms and cadences.

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'A delightful evocation of Irishness and of the author's deep-rooted love of the very fields of home' Publishers Weekly Alice Taylor’s classic account of growing up in the Irish countryside, the biggest selling book ever published in Ireland, beautifully reproduced with photographs from Alice's life. If ever a voice has captured the colors, the rhythms, the rich, bittersweet emotions of a time gone by, it is Alice Taylor's. Her tales of childhood in rural Ireland hark back to a timeless past, to a world now lost, but ever and fondly remembered. The colorful characters and joyous moments she offers have made To School Through the Fields an Irish phenomenon, and have made Alice herself the most beloved author in all of the Emerald Isle. A must-have for fans of Alice Taylor.

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The Phelans have owned Mossgrove for generations. The small, rural Irish farm has been the pride of them all until Ned's wife, Martha, arrives and begins to undermine generations of hard work and happiness. She resents the deep history of the place and sets about making it her own, shutting out what is left of Ned's family. She is particularly jealous of Ned's sister, Kate, a local nurse and doting aunt to Martha's children. When Ned dies suddenly, Martha puts Mossgrove up for sale in hopes that it will be bought by the neighbouring Conways, who have long coveted the Phelan farm. What she does not realize are the lengths to which Kate and the hired hand Jack will go to keep the land in the family ...

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Alice Taylor remembers her childhood home – the farm with all its tools and animals, the home with its equipment for living, its daily challenges, constant hard work, and its comforts too. She describes the huge open fireplace where all the cooking was done, where the big black kettle hung permanently from the crane over the flames; here the family sat in the evenings, talking, knitting, going over the events of the day, saying the rosary. She experienced the sow being brought indoors to have her precious brood of bonhams. She recalls the faithful, beloved horses and their wonderfully varied outfits – one set of tackle for each job they did on the farm; the ritual of lighting the oil lamps – from the fancy one in the parlour to the tiny one under the Sacred Heart picture; the excitement of threshing day and the satisfaction of a good harvest – the stations, the neighbours, and later the local dancehall and cinema. All the jobs and tools of a way of life long gone live on in the hearts of those who were formed by it. Here Alice Taylor celebrates them all with love. 'magical … reading the book, I felt a faint ache in my heart … I find myself longing for those days … it is essential reading.' Irish Independent

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‘We walk in the footprints of great women, women who lived through hard times on farms, in villages, towns and cities. The lives of these women are an untold story. This book is a celebration of the often forgotten “ordinary” women who gave so much to our society.’ Alice Taylor Alice salutes the women whose energy and generosity made such a valuable contribution to all our lives. '[It] warmed my heart and reminded me of the value of family, friendship and community... I was enthralled... wonderful.' Irish Independent on And Time Stood Still

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'A delightful evocation of Irishness and of the author's deep-rooted love of the very fields of home' Publishers Weekly Alice Taylor’s classic account of growing up in the Irish countryside, the biggest selling book ever published in Ireland. If ever a voice has captured the colors, the rhythms, the rich, bittersweet emotions of a time gone by, it is Alice Taylor's. Her tales of childhood in rural Ireland hark back to a timeless past, to a world now lost, but ever and fondly remembered. The colorful characters and joyous moments she offers have made To School Through the Fields an Irish phenomenon, and have made Alice herself the most beloved author in all of the Emerald Isle. A must-have for fans of Alice Taylor. Illustrated throughout with evocative photographs, with a new introduction by the author, looking back at her breakthrough book twenty five years later.

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The third volume of Alice Taylor's unique memoir of life in the Irish countryside. A massive bestseller with universal appeal.

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In a series of vignettes of life in her village, Alice Taylor reasserts the priorities of public space and local community. The Parish evokes and explores the positive values of community, which could be renewed and reinvigorated for a present and future that achieves harmony between comfort and the pressing need to respect the environment.

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Alice Taylor’s gripping sequel to The Woman of the House. At Mossgrove, the Phelan family farm, long-time hired hand Jack plays peacemaker as widow Martha Phelan battles her young son, Peter, who wants to modernize the farm. Tensions on the home front are bitter enough, but at the Conway farm across the river, more trouble is brewing. Slovenly Matt Conway feels trapped and abuses his wife, Biddy. Spurred on by a misguided belief that the Phelans got the best of him in a loan to buy land, he keeps vigil at a fence post plotting revenge ...

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Alice's garden is her refuge. Inherited from Uncle Jacky, she introduces the great variety of plants and objects she has gathered everything, of course, with its own unique and fascinating story, brought to life by a master storyteller.

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Alice has known, loved, and lost many people throughout her life. Here she talks about her special people, her memory of what meant so much to her about them. She remembers her husband, father and mother, a beloved sister, her little brother Connie, and many others. She tells how she coped with the emptiness she felt when they died, of the seeming impossibility of moving on with life after such deeply felt loss, when time stood still. This book is a sharing – it lets the reader in on a story and celebration of life in its intimacy, its small, precious moments. When we experience grief, sharing in someone else’s story can help us more than anything, and in the hands of master storyteller Alice Taylor, we may find our own solace and the space to remember our own special people.

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This is the first full-length study of Scottish royal government in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ever to have been written. It uses untapped legal evidence to set out a new narrative of governmental development. Between 1124 and 1290, the way in which kings of Scots ruled their kingdom transformed. By 1290 accountable officials, a system of royal courts, and complex common law procedures had all been introduced, none of which could have been envisaged in 1124. The Shape of the State in Medieval Scotland, 1124-1290 argues that governmental development was a dynamic phenomenon, taking place over the long term. For the first half of the twelfth century, kings ruled primarily through personal relationships and patronage, only ruling through administrative and judicial officers in the south of their kingdom. In the second half of the twelfth century, these officers spread north but it was only in the late twelfth century that kings routinely ruled through institutions. Throughout this period of profound change, kings relied on aristocratic power as an increasingly formal part of royal government. In putting forward this narrative, Alice Taylor refines or overturns previous understandings in Scottish historiography of subjects as diverse as the development of the Scottish common law, feuding and compensation, Anglo-Norman 'feudalism', the importance of the reign of David I, recordkeeping, and the kingdom's military organisation. In addition, she argues that Scottish royal government was not a miniature version of English government; there were profound differences between the two polities arising from the different role and function aristocratic power played in each kingdom. The volume also has wider significance. The formalisation of aristocratic power within and alongside the institutions of royal government in Scotland forces us to question whether the rise of royal power necessarily means the consequent decline of aristocratic power in medieval polities. The book thus not only explains an important period in the history of Scotland, it places the experience of Scotland at the heart of the process of European state formation as a whole.

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Relax with Alice, sit and chat over a cup of tea, as she invites you into her life. See an old press overflowing with the linen collection of two generations, the oil lamps and clocks inherited and collected over many years, and the books of people who once lived here. Alice tells you of the sad loss of her beautiful dogs Kate and Lolly, friends of the heart, and takes you around her village to meet her neighbours, join a meitheal to plant trees, and visit the fairy doors in the nearby wood. But Alice’s home and community are not a perfect place: hear about the split in the local GAA club, blocked off rights of way, the donations of the local canine population on the footpaths! Visit a restored famine graveyard and hear about the landlords who once owned this village and the landmarks they left on the landscape and the people. This is life in a small Irish village in 2016, one hundred years after the Rising. This Bestselling book is coming in paperback edition.

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The Irish nana is a repository of family history, memory and lore. Sometimes, like the Italian nonna, she is also a ‘walking cookbook’, carrying the old knowledge of how things were best done. Alice’s own grandmothers, Nana Taylor and Nana Ballyduane, were the first generation after the Great Famine, born in the 1860s. These women taught their families the Irish traditions and habits of homemaking that survived for centuries, and are now almost gone. Now Alice herself is a nana too, and this book takes us through three generations and almost a century and a half. She explores the old and the new, the ‘then’ and ‘now’, the nana of yesteryear and of today, with her characteristic empathy and love.

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In Tea for One, Alice Taylor celebrates the little moments that bring us joy After many busy years raising a family and running a business, Alice is now living alone – with all the challenges and pleasures that brings. From improving her painting to perfecting her garden, exploring family histories and reclaiming her mother’s art of tea-making, Alice celebrates the small acts that fill her days and make her happy.

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Alice Taylor takes a look back at the well-used schoolbooks she used in her youth in the 1940s and 1950s. Flicking through the pages of the books and recalling poetry and prose she learned at school, Alice reminisces about these texts, how she related to them and how they integrated with her life on the farm and in the village. In her warm, wise way, Alice reflects on poems and stories on topics ranging from birds, trees and nature to fairy tales and legends, and ties them in with her own knowledge and memory of traditional country life. Containing the text of the poems that readers will remember from their own school days, and evocatively illustrated with photographs of the school books and Alice’s notes on them, as well as nature, flora, fauna and objects associated with schools of old, this is a reminder of childhood days and a treasure trove of memory.

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Let Alice Taylor encourage you to live in the now, to really live your experiences and to treasure the special moments in your life. With Alice as a guide, explore the steps and ways to live a conscious life and focus on the goodness of the world around us. Alice's beautiful and captivating writing is an act of mindfulness in itself, and she shares her favourite moments in life, encouraging us to ponder our own. Alice also inspires the reader to be attentive to the here and now and embrace moments as they arise. A beautiful and enchanting book by a bestselling and celebrated author.

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A rich collection of articles on multiple aspects of Anglo-Norman and Norman studies, forming an indispensable addition to an understanding of this important period of history. This volume of Anglo-Norman Studies demonstrates yet again the multi-disciplinarity and European range of the series. As befits the proceedings of a conference held in Normandy at Bayeux, it contains two articles on the renowned Tapestry, and a consideration of the campaign of 1066; there are also several papers on the medieval duchy, their topics including its early tenth-century origins, the abbesses of Norman nunneries, abbatial investitures in the context of religious reform, the reign of Robert Curthose, the charters of a major aristocratic family, and historical writing in and around late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Normandy. Alongside these are articleson landscape and belief, villein manumissions and the theology of the incarnation, the evolution of criminal law in Scotland, Bohemond of Antioch, the architectural historian John Bilson, and important aspects of twelfth-centurypoetry. David Bates is a Professorial Fellow at the University of East Anglia and was until recently a Visiting Professor at the University of Caen Basse-Normandie. Contributors: Lesley Abrams, Bernard S. Bachrach, Steven Biddlecombe, Alexandrina Buchanan, Howard B. Clarke, Edoardo D'Angelo, Gregory Fedorenko, Jean-Hervé Foulon, George Garnett, Véronique Gazeau, Paul R. Hyams, Sylvette Lemagnen, Monika Otter, Daniel Power, Alice Taylor, C.S. Watkins.

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Essays consider the changes and development of Scotland at a time of considerable flux in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The years between the deaths of King Mael Coluim and Queen Margaret in 1093 and King Alexander III in 1286 witnessed the formation of a kingdom resembling the Scotland we know today, which was a full member of the European club ofmonarchies; the period is also marked by an explosion in the production of documents. This volume includes a range of new studies casting fresh light on the institutions and people of the Scottish kingdom, especially in thethirteenth century. New perspectives are offered on topics as diverse as the limited reach of Scottish royal administration and justice, the ties that bound the unfree to their lords, the extent of a political community in the time of King Alexander II, a view of Europeanization from the spread of a common material culture, the role of a major Cistercian monastery in the kingdom and the broader world, and the idea of the neighbourhood in Scots law. There are also chapters on the corpus of charters and names and the innovative technology behind the People of Medieval Scotland prosopographical database, which made use of over 6000 individual documents from the period. Matthew Hammond is a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow. Contributors: John Bradley, Stuart Campbell, David Carpenter, Matthew Hammond, Emilia Jamroziak, Cynthia Neville, Michele Pasin, Keith Stringer, Alice Taylor.

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