Ireland, Present Day

The majority of A Ghost in the Throat is set in twenty-first century Ireland. Doireann lives with her husband and three children in rented apartments. When she moves to Kilcrea, the narrator remembers that the graveyard in Eibhlín Dubh’s poem was also named Kilcrea.Her habitation of the same landscape as Eibhlín allows Doireann to research and explore the poet’s past through site visits. Throughout the novel, the narrator travels throughout Ireland to visit the homes and towns where the poet lived in the eighteenth-century.

Kilcrea

Kilcrea is the town that Doireann moves to at the outset of the novel. As she drives to the new town, Doireann remembers that Kicrea is also the name of the cemetery where Art O’Leary and his first son are buried. She visits the graveyard in hopes of discovering more about Eibhlín Dubh’s...