BY BERNIE NÍ FHLATHARTA

If there’s one message to take from Invisible Threads, a new travel book by Galway woman Marguerite MacCurtin, it’s that people are the same the world over, no matter what their race, culture or traditions.

The book, by Marguerite, who is originally from Dunsandle outside Loughrea, will be launched this Friday night, March 3, at 6pm in Charlie Byrne’s bookshop in Galway City.

Published by Beehive, an imprint of Veritas, it’s a collection of essays inspired by her travels on the world’s seven continents. It contains accounts of some of her exotic, exciting and sometimes perilous trips to places like Egypt, Tibet, China, Vietnam and Jordan, just to mention a few.

The pieces are written by a naturally curious adventurer who really explored the places she visited. MacCurtin talked to everyone, including a member of the Stasi who boarded a train she was travelling on in East Germany in 1989, to do a passport inspection. It was probably one time she should have remained silent.

But MacCurtin who has a great sense of humour, has been blessed with good experiences, some of them leading to lifelong friendships. In another era, she might have been an explorer and in her own way this book shows that Marguerite MacCurtin is an explorer of sorts, with a touch of an anthropologist about her.

While this is her first book, she has previously written for RTÉ’s Sunday Miscellany and The Irish Times, And Ireland’s finest travel writer, the late Dervla Murphy, described the essays in Invisible Treads as “the genuine article”.

The book has already been launched in Dublin, where Marguerite lives with her husband, Frank Flannery. Two more events are being planned elsewhere in the country. The Galway launch, this Friday, Friday, March 3, in Charlie Byrne’s, will be by Marguerite’s brother-in-law, Fr Tony Flannery.