Cáiltemore

For the past five years, the town of Cáiltemore has lived in my mind. From the three story buildings, shops and pubs of Market Street to the fragmented and increasing polarised housing estate of Glencrowe, every corner of this town has grown inside me, as real and vibrant as the people who populate it.
I have spent afternoons among the evergreens on River Glás Drive, looking out over the Old Windmill and the even older river. I've walked the road from Market Square to the old workhouse, beneath the railway bridge and the ominous high walls of the train station.
I've spent nights in O'Leary's and Murphy's, watching as Fr Bishop drunk himself towards and end or maybe a new beginning. I've sat with Georgina in her little house in Lower Glencrowe, looking out over The Green, where children no longer play, and the boarded up houses of the ghost estate.
I've seen it all, inside my mind, but up until now I've never put pen to paper to draw it.  So here is it, rough and very much not to scale, maps of the town of Cáiltemore, the Glencrowe Housing Estate before the housing boom, and the same area after the boom, with the ghost estate of Lower Glencrowe.

Cáiltemore
This right here is an overhead map of Cáiltemore. On Market Street we have the offices of the Cáiltemore Tribune, workplace of Georgina Carroll, as well as McMahons's shop and the three market street pubs: O'Leary's, Murphy's and the Breakaway Arms. On Abbey Street we have the church, the council offices and the local cafe. On our way out of town we have both upper and lower Glencrowe, the workhouse and water tower, and River Glás.


Upper and Lower Glencrowe
And then there's Glencrowe itself, the scene of much of the action in the novel. Both the old housing estate and the new ghost estate hang over ever page of the novel, a silent reminder of the friction that is threatening to boil over in the town. Glencrowe is also the home of Fr Bishop, Ben Dyer, Georgina Carroll and Maggie.  






The Glencrowe Housing Estate (2004)
The old Glencrowe housing estate, as it would have look around 2004. The Green still dominated the vista, as does the Parochial House, whose large grounds separate the houses of Glencrowe from the ruins of the old workhouse and water tower. 







Find out more about Georgina HERE