Irish Country

Barry Laverty, M.B., can barely find the village of Ballybucklebo on a map when he first sets out to seek gainful employment there, but already he knows that there is nowhere he would rather live than in the emerald hills and dales of Northern Ireland. The proud owner of a spanking-new medical degree and little else in the way of worldly possessions, Barry jumps at the chance to secure a position as an assistant in a small rural practice. At least until he meets Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly. The older physician, whose motto is to never let the patients get the upper hand, has his own way of doing things. At first, Barry can't decide if the pugnacious O'Reilly is the biggest charlatan he has ever met, or the best teacher he could ever hope for. Through O'Reilly Barry soon gets to know all of the village's colorful and endearing residents, including: A malingering Major and his equally hypochondriacal wife; An unwed servant girl, who refuses to divulge the father of her upcoming baby; A slightly daft old couple unable to marry for lack of a roof; And a host of other eccentric characters who make every day an education for the inexperienced young doctor. Ballybucklebo is long way from Belfast, and Barry is quick to discover that he still has a lot to learn about the quirks and traditions of country life. But with pluck and compassion and only the slightest touch of blarney, he will find out more about life-and love-than he ever imagined back in medical school. Patrick Taylor's An Irish Country Doctor is a charming and engrossing tale that will captivate listeners from the very first page-and leave them yearning to visit the Irish countryside of days gone by.

Welcome to the Village of Ballybucklebo. Come and say hello to Dr. O'Reilly's odd-as-two-left feet patients, his housekeeper, Mrs. "Kinky" Kinkaid, and O'Reilly's pets, Arthur Guinness, the beer-swilling black Lab and Lady MacBeth, the demonically possessed white cat. And of course, to young Dr. Barry Laverty. After Barry's first month as an assistant to crusty Dr. O'Reilly, he has been offered a permanent spot. But Laverty's excitement is dashed when one of his patients unexpectedly dies. The damage to his reputation is enormous, and he and O'Reilly must work to resolve the question of Barry's responsibility for the death. They also have to figure out how to save the four-hundred-year-old village pub. Plans are afoot to not renew the hundred-year lease and instead transform the old pub into a sparkling new tourist trap. To make matters even worse, Patricia Spence, the love of Barry's life, announces she is trying to win a scholarship to distant Cambridge University, all the way in England.... Beautifully evocative of a gentler, simpler time, Patrick Taylor's An Irish Country Village magically captures the charm, wit, and ribald humor of a vanished Irish countryside and its people.

In An Irish Country Christmas, the third book in Patrick Taylor's Irish Country Books, Barry Laverty, M.B., is looking forward to his first Christmas in the cozy village of Ballybucklebo, at least until he learns that his sweetheart, Patricia, might not be coming home for the holidays. That unhappy prospect dampens his spirits somewhat, but Barry has little time to dwell on his romantic disappointments. Christmas may be drawing nigh, but there is little peace to be found on earth, especially for a young doctor plying his trade in the emerald hills and glens of rural Ireland. Along with his senior partner, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly, Barry has his hands full dealing with seasonal coughs and colds, as well as the occasional medical emergency. To add to the doctors' worries, competition arrives in the form of a patient-poaching new physician whose quackery threatens the health and well-being of the good people of Ballybucklebo. Can one territory support three hungry doctors? Barry has his doubts. But the wintry days and nights are not without a few tidings of comfort and joy. Between their hectic medical practice, Rugby Club parties, and the kiddies' Christmas Pageant, the two doctors still find time to play Santa Claus to a struggling single mother with a sick child and not enough money in the bank. Snow is rare in Ulster, and so are miracles, but that doesn't mean they never happen. . . .

Fans of Patrick Taylor's books know Mrs. Kinky Kincaid as the unflappable housekeeper who looks after two frequently frazzled doctors in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. She is a trusted fixture in the lives of those around her, and it often seems as though Kinky has always been there. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Some forty-odd years before and many miles to the south, the girl who would someday be Kinky Kincaid was Maureen O'Hanlon, a farmer's daughter growing up in the emerald hills and glens of County Cork. A precocious girl on the cusp of womanhood, Maureen has a head full of dreams, a heart open to romance, and something more: a gift for seeing beyond the ordinary into the mystic realm of fairies, spirits, and even the dreaded Banshee, whose terrifying wail she first hears on a snowy night in 1922. . . . As she grows into a young woman, Maureen finds herself torn between love and her fondest aspirations, for the future is a mystery even for one blessed with the sight. Encountering both joy and sorrow, Maureen at last finds herself on the road to Ballybucklebo---and the strong and compassionate woman she was always destined to become. An Irish Country Girl is another captivating tale by Patrick Taylor, a true Irish storyteller.

Welcome to Patrick Taylor's Irish Country Books and the colourful Ulster village of Ballybucklebo, where two doctors work hand in hand to mend the bodies and spirits of the town's diverse and engaging inhabitants. But who is looking after the wounded hearts of the doctors? In An Irish Country Courtship, after less than a year, young Barry Laverty, M. B., is settling in to the village, with only a few months to go before he becomes a full partner in the practice. He's looking forward to becoming a fixture in the community, until an unexpected romantic reversal gives him second thoughts. Will he truly be happy tending to routine coughs and colds for the rest of his career? After all, even when a more challenging case comes along, like a rare tropical disease, all he can do is pass it on to a qualified specialist or big-city hospital. As much as Barry enjoys the rough and tumble of life in County Down, is running a humble GP's shop all he wants out of life? Barry's mentor, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly, is going through some personal upheavals as well. After mourning his deceased wife for decades, he's finally allowed a new woman into his life. But this budding courtship is not going over well with Kinky Kincaid, the doctors' redoubtable housekeeper, who fears having her position usurped by O'Reilly's new flame. Tact, diplomacy, and a fair amount of blarney may be required to restore peace to the household. Meanwhile, life goes on in Ballybucklebo, presenting both doctors with plenty of distractions from their own troubles. From a mysterious outbreak at the local school to a complicated swindle involving an unlucky racehorse, the two partners will need all of their combined wit and compassion to put things right again--just in time for their lives to change forever.

Patrick Taylor's devoted readers know Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly as a pugnacious general practitioner in the quaint Irish village of Ballybucklebo. Now Taylor turns back the clock to give us a portrait of the young Fingal-and show us the pivotal events that shaped the man he would become. In the 1930s, fresh from a stint in the Royal Navy Reserve, and against the wishes of his disapproving father, Fingal O'Reilly goes to Dublin to study medicine. Fingal and his fellow aspiring doctors face the arduous demands of Trinity College and Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital. The hours are long and the cases challenging, but Fingal manages to find time to box and play rugby-and to romance a fetching, gray-eyed nurse named Kitty O'Hallorhan. Dublin is a city of slums and tenements, where brutal poverty breeds diseases that the limited medical knowledge of the time is often ill-equipped to handle. His teachers warn Fingal not to become too attached to his patients, but can he truly harden himself to the suffering he sees all around him-or can he find a way to care for his patients without breaking his heart? A Dublin Student Doctor is a moving, deeply human story that will touch longtime fans of the Irish Country Books series as well as readers who are meeting Doctor Fingal O'Reilly for the very first time.

An Irish Country Wedding is another heart-warming addition to New York Times bestselling author Patrick Taylor's Irish Country series. Love is in the air in the colourful Ulster village of Ballybucklebo, where Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly has finally proposed to the darling of his youth, Kitty O'Hallorhan. There's a wedding to be planned, but before O'Reilly can make it to the altar, he and his young colleague, Barry Laverty, M.B., must deal with the usual round of eccentric patients-and crises both large and small. Being a G.P. in a place like Ballybucklebo often means more than simply splinting broken bones and tending to aches and pains. It can also mean helping a struggling young couple acquire their first home, clearing the name of a cat accused of preying on a neighbor's prize pigeons, and encouraging a bright working-class girl who dreams of someday becoming a doctor herself. And, if you're Barry Laverty, still smarting from a painful breakup, there might even be a chance for a new romance with a lovely school teacher, if her passionate political convictions don't get in the way. Much has changed in Ballybucklebo, and bigger changes are in store, but the lives and practices of these Irish country doctors remain as captivating and irresistible as ever.

Fans of Taylor's bestselling Irish Country novels know Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly as the irascible senior partner of a general practice in the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. Newly married to his once long-lost sweetheart, he's ready to settle into domestic bliss, but there's always something requiring his attention, be it a riding accident, a difficult patient with a worrisome heart condition, a spot of grouse-hunting, or even some tricky shenanigans at the local dog races. The everyday complications of village life are very different from the challenges Fingal faced nearly thirty years earlier, when fresh out of medical school, the young Dr. O'Reilly accepts a post at the Aungier Street Dispensary, tending to the impoverished denizens of Dublin's tenement slums. Yet even as he tries to make a difference, Fingal's tireless devotion to his patients may cost him his own true love…. Shifting back and forth between the present and the past, Patrick Taylor's captivating Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor, brings to life both the green young man O'Reilly once was and the canny village doctor listeners have come to know and admire.

Fans of Patrick Taylor's bestselling Irish Country novels know Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly as the irascible senior partner of a general practice in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. But there was a time, shortly after arriving in Ballybucklebo, that Dr. O'Reilly was not widely accepted by the villagers. This touching short story tells of how O'Reilly, with a little help, began to overcome their objections. Whether you're visiting for the first time, or you're a long-time resident, you'll enjoy this fun glimpse into life in Patrick Taylor's village of Ballybucklebo.

Doctor O'Reilly heeds the call to serve his country in Irish Doctor in Peace and At War, the new novel in Patrick Taylor's beloved Irish Country series Long before Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly became a fixture in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, he was a young M. B. with plans to marry midwife Dierdre Mawhinney. Those plans were complicated by the outbreak of World War II and the call of duty. Assigned to the HMS Warspite, a formidable 30,000-ton battleship, Surgeon Lieutenant O'Reilly soon found himself face-to-face with the hardships of war, tending to the dreadnought's crew of 1,200 as well as to the many casualties brought aboard. Life in Ballybuckebo is a far cry from the strife of war, but over two decades later O'Reilly and his younger colleagues still have plenty of challenges: an outbreak of German measles, the odd tropical disease, a hard-fought pie-baking contest, and a local man whose mule-headed adherence to tradition is standing in the way of his son's future. Now older and wiser, O'Reilly has prescriptions for whatever ails…until a secret from the past threatens to unravel his own peace of mind. Shifting deftly between two very different eras, Patrick Taylor's latest Irish Country novel reveals more about O'Reilly's tumultuous past, even as Ballybucklebo faces the future in its own singular fashion.

Long before Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly came to the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, young Surgeon-lieutenant O'Reilly answered the call of duty to serve in World War II. Fingal just wants to marry his beloved Deirdre and live happily ever after. First he must hone his skills at a British naval hospital before reporting back to the HMS Warspite, where, as a ship's doctor, he faces danger upon the high seas. With German bombers a constant threat, the future has never been more uncertain, but Fingal and Deirdre are determined to make a life together . . . no matter what may lie ahead. Decades later, the war is long over, and O'Reilly is content to mend the bodies and souls of his patients in Ballybucklebo, but there are still changes and challenges aplenty. A difficult pregnancy, as well as an old colleague badly in denial concerning his own serious medical condition, tests O'Reilly and his young partner, Barry Laverty. But even with all that occupies him in the present, can O'Reilly ever truly let go of the ghosts from his past? Shifting effortlessly between two singular eras, bestselling author Patrick Taylor continues the story of O'Reilly's wartime experiences, while vividly bringing the daily joys and struggles of Ballybucklebo to life once more in An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea.

It's the winter of 1967 and snow is on the ground in the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, but the chilly weather can't stop love from warming hearts all over the county. Not just the love between a man and woman, as with young doctor, Barry Laverty, and his fiancee Sue Nolan, who are making plans to start a new life together, but also the love of an ailing pensioner for a faithful dog that's gone missing, the love of the local gentry for the great estate they are on verge of losing, or Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly's deep and abiding love for his long-time home and practice. For decades, ever since the war, Number One Main Street, Ballybucklebo, has housed O'Reilly and his practice. In recent years, it has also opened its doors to O'Reilly's wife, Barry Laverty, and a new addition to the practice, Doctor Nonie Stevens, a sultry and occasionally prickly young woman who may not be fitting in as well as she should. It is to Number One that patients young and old come when they need a doctor's care, for everything from the measles to a rare and baffling blood disease. An unexpected turn of events threatens to drive O'Reilly from his home for good, unless the entire village can rally behind their doctor and prove that love really can conquer all. An Irish Country Love Story is a new and heartwarming installment in Patrick Taylor's beloved bestselling Irish Country series.

An Irish Country Practice is the twelfth heartwarming installment in New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author Patrick Taylor's beloved Irish Country series. Once, not too long ago, there was just a single Irish country doctor tending to the lively little village of Ballybucklebo: Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly. Now his thriving practice is growing by leaps and bounds. Not only has O'Reilly taken a new trainee under his wing, Doctor Connor Nelson, he's also added a spirited Labrador puppy to his ever-expanding household at Number One Main Street. Meanwhile, his trusted partner, young Doctor Barry Laverty, finds himself wondering if he's truly ready to settle down and start a family with his lovely fiancée, Sue. As the doctors cope with domestic and professional challenges, they also look after their patients and their ailments, including a mysterious cough, a housewife whose frequent 'accidents' may have a disturbing cause, and a respected colleague who might be succumbing to an old vice. All is not sickness and worry, however. There's plenty of joy and merriment to be found as well, from a visiting circus to racing to sailing . . . and maybe even a happy ending or two. This touching audiobook is as warm and cozy as the lovable town in which it takes place.

An Irish Country Cottage is a charming audiobook in Patrick Taylor's beloved New York Times and internationally bestselling Irish Country series. The New Year brings challenges and changes to the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. The Christmas holidays have barely passed before a fire engulfs the humble thatched cottage housing of Donal Donnally and his family. Although the family escapes the blaze more or less unsinged, Donal, his wife, their three small children, and their beloved dog find themselves with nothing left but the clothes on their back. Good thing Doctors O'Reilly and Laverty are on hand to rally the good people of Ballybucklebo to come to their aid. Rebuilding the cottage won't be quick or easy, but good neighbors from all walks of life will see to it that the Donallys get back on their feet again, no matter what it takes. Meanwhile, matters of procreation occupy the doctors and their patients. Young Barry Laverty and his wife Sue, frustrated in their efforts to start a family, turn to modern medicine for answers. O'Reilly must tread carefully as he advises a married patient on how to avoid another dangerous pregnancy. As a new and tumultuous decade approaches, sectarian division threaten to bring unrest to Ulster, but in Ballybucklebo at least, peace still reigns and neighbors look after neighbors.

An Irish Country Family is a charming entry in Patrick Taylor's beloved internationally bestselling Irish Country series. Before Doctor Barry Laverty joined Doctor Fingal O'Reilly's practice in the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, he was an intern, working long hours, practicing new medical techniques, falling in love, and learning what is most important in the medical field for a family physician-the bonds of family, friendships, and human kindness. Years later, Barry practices everything he has learned in Ballybucklebo, a lovely village where neighbor looks after neighbor. And while his own efforts to start a family with his wife Sue have been frustrated, the community around him couldn't be stronger as they work together to show their solidarity. Shifting effortlessly between the two time periods, bestselling author Patrick Taylor continues the story of these beloved characters while vividly bringing the daily joys and struggles of this delightful Irish village to life.

In the close-knit Northern Irish village of Ballybucklebo, it's said that a new baby brings its own welcome. Young doctor Barry Laverty and his wife Sue are anxiously awaiting their first child, but as the community itself prepares to welcome a new decade, the closing months of 1969 bring more than a televised moon landing to Barry, his friends, his neighbors, and his patients, including a number of sticky questions. A fledgling doctor joins the practice as a trainee, but will the very upper-class Sebastian Carson be a good fit for the rough and tumble of Irish country life? And as sectarian tensions rise elsewhere in Ulster, can a Protestant man marry the Catholic woman he dearly loves, despite his father's opposition? And who exactly is going to win the award for the best dandelion wine at this year's Harvest Festival? But while Barry and Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly and their fellow physicians deal with everything from brain surgery to a tractor accident to a difficult pregnancy, there's still time to share the comforting joys and pleasures of this very special place: fly-fishing, boat races, and even the town's very first talent competition! Welcome back to Ballybucklebo, as vividly brought to life by a master storyteller.

December 1965. 'Tis the season once again in the cozy Irish village of Ballybucklebo, which means that Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly, his young colleague Barry Laverty, and their assorted friends, neighbors, and patients are enjoying all their favorite holiday traditions: caroling, trimming the tree, finding the perfects gifts for their near and dear ones, and anticipat December 1965. 'Tis the season once again in the cozy Irish village of Ballybucklebo, which means that Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly, his young colleague Barry Laverty, and their assorted friends, neighbors, and patients are enjoying all their favorite holiday traditions: caroling, trimming the tree, finding the perfects gifts for their near and dear ones, and anticipating a proper Yuletide feast complete with roast turkey and chestnut stuffing. There's even the promise of snow in the air, raising the prospect of a white Christmas. Not that trouble has entirely taken a holiday as the season brings its fair share of challenges as well, including a black-sheep brother hoping to reconcile with his estranged family before it's too late, a worrisome outbreak of chickenpox, and a sick little girl whose faith in Christmas is in danger of being crushed in the worst way. As roaring fireplaces combat the brisk December chill, it's up to O'Reilly to play Santa, both literally and figuratively, to make sure that Ballybucklebo has a Christmas it will never forget! Bonus: This heartwarming Yuletide tale also includes several mouth-watering recipes, straight from an Irish country kitchen.

Long before Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly made most readers' acquaintance in Patrick Taylor's bestselling novel An Irish Country Doctor, he appeared in a series of humorous columns originally published in Stitches: The Journal of Medical Humour. These warm and wryly amusing vignettes provide an early glimpse at the redoubtable Dr. O'Reilly as he tends to the colourful and eccentric residents of Ballybucklebo, a cozy Ulster village nestled in the bygone years of the early sixties. Those seminal columns have been collected in The Wily O'Reilly: Irish Country Stories. In this convenient volume, Patrick Taylor's legions of devoted fans can savor the enchanting origins of the Irish Country series... and newcomers to Ballybucklebo can meet O'Reilly for the very first time. An ex-Navy boxing champion, classical scholar, crypto-philanthropist, widower, and hard-working general practitioner, Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly is crafty and cantankerous in these charming slices of rural Irish life. Whether he's educating a naive man of the cloth in the facts of life, dealing with chronic hypochondriacs and malingerers, clashing with pigheaded colleagues, or raising a pint in the neighborhood pub, the wily O'Reilly knows a doctor's work is never done, even if some of his "cures" can't be found in any medical text!