Traveller now an author
Reproduced with the kind permission of the Donnybrook-Bridgetown Mail
By Nina Smith
28 Jan, 2010

The Irish are renowned for their love of song and literature. One local Irish emigrant has written a book.
From Irish firebrand to Donnybrook author, Geraldine Hallahan’s life story has taken her halfway across the world, to many off-the beaten-track places and involved many interesting chapters.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Geraldine came to Australia on her own as a young adult after a fit of temper about the Irish government. “I was working for the government,” she explained.
“Payday came and we were given our pay envelopes and in them was a note.
“Due to a clerical error we’d all been overpaid five pence a week and, as it was two to three weeks before the end of the financial year, they had to recover it all at once.”
Angry that the government had not simply taken out the overpayments at the same rate, instead of leaving her and her fellow workers with a pittance for the week, Geraldine left.
"I rang the Australian embassy in a fit of pique, after reading A Town Like Alice, and never looked back,” she said.
On arriving in Australia, Geraldine stayed in Perth for a few months before heading over the Nullarbor to Sydney.
I ended up being a live-in nanny to a little boy,” she said.
We’d go out on walks and talk about whatever we saw and we’d end up with all the dogs in the neighbourhood following us.”
Sydney proved a lively place for Geraldine, who had the occasional interesting encounter with Lady Luck.
After being `discovered’ around a campfire in Lightning Ridge, she sang on a TV show and then ended up with her own half-hour program singing on the radio.
A trip to Kathmandu and a year in New Zealand later, Geraldine fulfilled her dream of working as a postie.“I always wanted to deliver mail on horseback and I was offered a horse to do it, but I never got around to it,” she said.
After she’d been in Sydney for 10 years, Geraldine decided to go home to Ireland for three years.
“I thought it might be prudent to look at the rest of Australia first,” she said. “I bought a Greyhounds pass to go around Australia.”
Her first stop was Birdsville. There she met future husband Ron at the local pub.
" Neither of us go to pubs, but that was the only place to go in Birdsville,” she explained.
“I started talking to him because I thought he looked like one of those characters who live in the outback. It turned out he was from WA. We met but I had my plans, so we were like ships passing in the night for a minute. " We stayed in touch.”

Dear Grandpa Pencil plans to run more hints and information on writing and publishing your own children's books over the coming months but in the meantime you might like to check out Geraldine's Blog where you can get a little more information on her quest.
With community funding in constant short supply might I suggest to all who love children and their education that you consider purchasing a copy of this wonderful book and donating it to your primary school or public library?