Concepta McNamara found out that putting an ocean between you and your problems doesn’t stop them from travelling with you – because healing and coming to terms with your life is what she calls ‘an inside job’.

When the Galway native left Ireland for America at the age of eighteen, 37 years ago, she wasn’t flying Ryanair – but if she had been and if they’d put a price on her emotional baggage, she’d have been bankrupt before leaving Shannon.

Except Concepta – Connie to her friends and family – didn’t even realise until much later that she was trying to escape her past, because at that point she still hadn’t remotely come to terms with it.

She has now and that’s been the way for over 30 years. She also has written two books, the first documenting her own shocking story and the second to help others who might have shared any aspect of her journey.

That first book, Freedom/Saoirse, traces her life from growing up impoverished in Corrandulla, in what she calls an “emotionally constipated home”, to revealing the misunderstood pain she carried from years-long abuse by an uncle – now deceased – and subsequent addictions and alcoholism that were triggered by the abuse.

She thought moving to America would be an escape – but she discovered it all came with her anyway. And that led her on a gruelling, dark and lengthy journey into sobriety, joy . . .and freedom.

A massage therapist and relationship coach she now lives in Dedham, about 20 minutes from Downtown Boston where she has her practice, Minds and Massage. And she has just published her second book, A Freedom Formula, motivated by her own journey of self-exploration.

Caption: Triumph over adversity…Corrandulla-born author Concepta McNamara at the Galway launch of her two books. Photos: Eanna McNamara.

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