In The Bird Woman, Kerrie Hardie has introduced an intriguing heroine in Southern Irish Catholic Ellen
McKinnon. Ellen has clairvoyant visions that seem to be the start of her troubles. She leaves her husband and
moves to Northern Ireland to live with Liam, who insists that she use her visions, which have mutated into her
ability to cure the sick. Ellen never comes to term with this gift -or curse, as she would call it.
Ellen marries Liam, and they have two children. She is settling when she has to confront the idea that Liam
has had an affair with one of the few people who has befriended Ellen. Then she must go home for her mother’s
funeral. Her mother has treated Ellen with less than a mother’s love since she left her first husband.
Three strands keep the novel moving at different levels. There is the friction that is always present between
Ellen and her family (especially her mother); there is the constant comparison of the cultures of Northern and
Southern Ireland; and there is the constant decision as to how Ellen will use or not use her talents.
I find Ellen to be a complex character who changes as time and situation demand, and at her mother’s funeral
she begins to make some sense of her life. A good read.