Love Loss and Secrets

Cat and Martha’s Story

  ‘Love, Loss and Secrets’ tells the story of Catherine Kinsella (Cat) a young woman growing up in Southern Ireland in the 1960’s. She is the oldest daughter of working-class parents. Her mother and Nana Maureen, the mother of Cat’s absent father, do their best to bring up the family within a village community against the backdrop of the Catholic Church.

Love and Loss are themes that pepper Cat’s teenage years. She becomes pregnant at fifteen to the son of her employer who tells her that he loves her. She gives birth to her baby Liam Peter at Bessborough, a mother and baby home where she is forced to give him up for adoption having cared for him until he was four months old. On her return to the village, Cat soon realises things will never be the same again.

After her mother’s sudden death, Cat struggles to find her place within her family. She is offered a job at the local General Store becoming friendly with Martha, the daughter of the store’s owners. The friendship develops quickly into a relationship in which for the first time in her life Cat is made to feel special. The two embark on a summer full of stolen moments, teenage lust and lasting friendship.

When events bring the relationship to a premature end, Cat leaves the village and moves to Dublin. She takes with her the secret of her part in her mother’s death, unresolved feelings about her love for Martha and the emptiness that she still feels for Liam Peter her baby.

‘Cat and Martha’s Story’ is just that, their story, told as excerpts from Cat’s diary and a series of letter’s and postcards between the two.