By BRIAN O’RALEIGH

Passage to     Inis Mór

Could a Legend Save a Life?

When 38-Year-old Conor O’Rourke arrives in Ireland after an absence of thirty years, his life is in bits. His marriage has fallen apart, his advertising agency in Australia is bankrupt, and he’s hearing poetic voices in his mind urging him to return to his childhood home, the remote Island of Inis Mór. His grandmother has contacted him, saying that she is dying and must speak with him, but when he arrives on Inis Mór, a hauntingly lonely, starkly beautiful island in Galway Bay, she has already passed, leaving him a cottage and a dilapidated old sailing boat. A mysterious old seaman appears, offering to help rebuild the boat and, as they work together, the old man tells Conor stories of Ireland. Stories of the Selkies, (the seal people) stories of Irishmen sailing around Cape Horn, stories of the Banshee and Cú Chulainn, the Hound of Ulster. Legends of courage, purpose, and passion that could help redeem Conor’s broken life, if only he can muster the courage to follow his heart.

“O’Raleigh’s new book: Passage to Inis Mór – reminds one of the great Irish writers, such as Sean O’Faolain and Benedict Kiely.” Frank O’Shea – The Australian Irish Echo.

A memoir By BRIAN O’RALEIGH

Waiting for Walter

“Deserves ranking with Angel’s Ashes.” – The Australian Irish Echo

Growing up in his parent’s hotel in Blackpool, Brian never knew why his family fled Ireland but he learned early to escape his father’s demonic rages by slipping away from the Alexandra Hotel to the beach and the Kathleen R, the fishing boat that was to become his refuge and his sanctuary. Later, forced to flee England, Brian arrives in Australia seeking to overcome his dependency on alcohol and the damage he is wreaking on the lives of those he loves. In a style that is both raw and compelling, Waiting for Walter tells the riveting story of Brian’s childhood, his triumph over alcoholism, his inspirational journey towards recovery, and ultimately to the realisation that he was shaped and prepared during his childhood years for the meaning and purpose of his life.

 Memoir. Part 2 – By BRIAN O’RALEIGH

Waking Walter

In 2011, Dr Graham Baker was therapist and confidant to some of Hollywood’s major players. Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Spielberg, Barbara Streisand, and Cher, were among a host of celebrities he claimed had either read his books or attended his workshops. And, with his TV program nominated for major awards, it was clear that this charismatic, ‘Guru to the Glitterati’ had struck a profound and resonant chord in the hearts and minds of Middle America.
But when Brian O’Raleigh invites Dr Graham Baker to Sydney to train Australian therapists, he is exposed to the pop- psychologists shadow side. Waking Walter reveals the hypocrisy, greed, and fatally flawed philosophies lurking beneath the guru’s slick public facade. Issues that would destroy the integrity of the tour, bankrupt O’Raleigh, and create an international legal battle as some of Australia’s leading layers battled it out in the courts.

By BRIAN O’RALEIGH

Poetry of Inis Mór

Poems from the novel Passage to Inis Mór. Complete and unabridged.

The poems on the following pages were neither planned nor were they intended. They came rushing out one day in a café by a beach, on the Island of Bali, Indonesia, as if impelled by some other hand. My intention that day had been to begin writing a new book, Passage to Inis Mór. instead, I wrote the following poems.
Sometimes I wonder if it was the spirit of that island that evoked these words and images, for the Balinese, although an entirely different race and culture have much in common with the Irish. Its people are still closely bound to their families and their land. There is a spiritual heart to the island that one can sense wherever one goes. And their Hindu beliefs, which have supported them for millennia, are represented everywhere. Statues, paintings and carvings of their gods and demons inhabit every garden, field, village, and home.
The poems came first. Later, as I began to write the story of an old Irish Seanachie and a young man who rebuild an abandoned wooden sailing boat together, each poem fell naturally into place in the same order in which they were written.
I have not questioned this. I believe poetry, like painting, sculpture, music, dance, and all other forms of creativity come from the soul and therefore can only be understood in part by the questing mind. I offer them to you now as the carrier, rather than the actual creator, of these verses.

Brian O’Raleigh
The Island of Bali

By BRIAN O’RALEIGH

Quest for Meaning

“Every human life contains a potential.” – Carl Jung

Surveys carried out in developed nations over the past ten years revealed that as many as 75% of people working in Western economies are disillusioned, bored, or just downright unhappy with the work they are doing for a living. At a more worrying level, the use of illegal drugs has multiplied in these workplaces, as has the use of alcohol, marijuana, and various other types of ‘happy pills,’—drugs often used to offset boredom, apathy, and frustration. Violence in the workplace has also escalated dramatically in these industries and in some companies, employees are now required to undergo random drug tests or face instant dismissal.
These are alarming facts and, if it is true that such large numbers of people are unhappy with the work they are engaged in, then we must ask ourselves, could this modern phenomenon be a causal factor behind the rampant social, cultural, and psychological problems that are creating havoc in much of the developed world?
We live in a world where many of the old beliefs, standards, and mores, have proven to be either illusory or false, and many people, both young and old, feel betrayed by politicians, power mad presidents, and multi national companies, in a world where money appears to be more important than people, families, and our communities. A world where our young see little or no hope for their futures. A dystopian world, polluted and despoiled, dominated by the insidious lust for endless profit.
In this extraordinary book Brian O’Raleigh outlines the problem, what the problem is costing ourselves and our planet, and a breathtaking and inspirational solution that every human being is capable of achieving. This is a must read .