Christy Brown Memorial Site

The legacy of the Irish Novelist & Poet Christy Brown

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  • My quest to find Parbrook in Somerset ...
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  • The narrow and endless roads seem to be no match for a wheelchair user.
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  • Persistently the narrow roads move on.
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  • Breathtakingly beautiful countryside...
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  • And another enchanting field of green...
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  • Out in the open…
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  • one can barely get enough of the views…
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  • But where does that leave a wheelchair user in the early 80's???
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  • Enchanting and tranquile if one is mobile.
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  • A trap if your body refuses to follow your command!
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  • My heart is getting heavier...
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  • My thoughts are on Christy Brown and the last year of his life.
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  • At long last … Parbrook after 20 minutes drive.
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  • The village is very conservative, people keep themselves to themselves.
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  • No pub, no shop, no surgery, no busses….. this raises a huge amount of questions.
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  • Outside the core of the village properties are very spaciously spread.
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  • There is no watchful community like in Dublin. There is no neighbourhood that watches, knows everyone and cares for their own.
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  • Everything is alien, isolated, depressively silent.
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  • While I was there on different occasions I have not seen a single person on the streets or children playing. Not even a dog barking.
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  • How could Christy survive here … away from the lively atmosphere of Dublin that inspired his art and his writing.
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  • If it is true that his wife used to leave Parbrook for days at the time. Who looked after Christy, who fed him, who looked after his hygiene, who spoke to him, who loved him???
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  • The mind cannot help but feel the darkness surrounding those days.
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  • Christy began to drink more than ever and his ability to write diminished quickly.
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  • He was not in control any longer. The support network he was once the central point off was no longer there.
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  • What made his wife Mary Carr encourage him to move to Parbrook in England, so far away from Christy's home?
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  • Maybe the truth will never fully be known.
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  • Later on a person who lived in Christy's house came forward. He handed me a photograph taken by him from the inside over the surrounding fields. Please see it in "NEWS"
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