I undertook my obstetrical training there, from 1969-1973, so I know it well, and recognise many of the features described in the novel’s anonymous hospital as being peculiar to the Rotunda. The setting for most of the action is an unnamed major public maternity hospital on Dublin’s down-at-heel northside (but there is only one such hospital, then as now, so I’m puzzled why the author avoided naming it, and even gives it a false motto- perhaps there’s a story there). I’m confident that the hospital in the story is the world famous Dublin Lying-in Hospital, better known as the Rotunda Hospital (named for the copper cupola over its roof, not for the abdominal profile of its attendees). So what can I add to those reviews? Not much I feel, except that as I have a professional familiarity with the setting of the novel, perhaps a personal insight into certain aspects of this absorbing story might add something to complement other reviews.īriefly, the story covers three days in 1918 (October 31 – November 1) in Dublin, at the height of the Spanish flu epidemic, and just ten days before Armistice day. Since the publication of this novel in July this year, at the height of our first wave of the Australian COVID-19 epidemic, there have been many reviews, mostly very flattering, including one written by Frank O’Shea (a member of the Tinteán editorial team) for the Canberra Times.
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