Local author Suzanne Strempek Shea to visit ICC with Mags Riordan

An Irish mother loses a son to a tragic drowning in Malawi.

One year later, the mother travels the 5,000-plus miles to the central African country to say goodbye and leave a stone marker in his memory in the town where he died. She sees the abject poverty, and returns to build and run a medical clinic, which opens in 2004.

A few months after that, Bondsville author Suzanne Strempek Shea meets the mother – Margaret ‘Mags’ Riordan – at the Big E, and is so moved by her story that she is inspired to write a book.

Strempek Shea’s book, This is Paradise: An Irish mother’s grief, an African village’s plight and the medical clinic that brought fresh hope to both, was released this spring by PFP Publishing of Boston, and has been met with enthusiastic support across New England, and beyond. She travels in September to Ireland to showcase her work, and to help raise funds for the cause that is already dear to many hearts there.

Strempek Shea and Riordan will discuss their work at an ICC event on Sunday, October 19. The 2 pm event at the Elms College Alumnae Library lower level is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Strempek Shea said the idea for the 293-page book grew from the 2004 meeting with Riordan. It was five years after Billy Riordan died while swimming in Lake Malawi in Cape Maclear, a small village that he loved because it reminded him of his hometown, Dingle, Co. Kerry. Billy was just 25 when he died in 1999.

Strempek Shea was working at the Big E in West Springfield, selling clothing and gifts for Dingle Linens in the Young Building. Riordan had a small stand there, where she was selling African trinkets and trying to raise interest – and money – for her new clinic in Malawi.

“I was listening to Mags tell her story over and over. She’d only usually tell up to the point of founding the clinic and people would usually walk away,” she recalled. “I wanted to know the rest. I went over and introduced myself. I wanted to know the rest of the story. I went home at one point and said to Tommy (Shea, her husband) ‘This is a magazine piece, this woman is amazing.’ Tommy said, ‘No, this is a book.’ So I agreed with him,” she said.

Though she didn’t approach Riordan about the idea for the book for three more years, the seed stayed with her and even grew as she got to know the woman who left a secure job as a high school guidance counselor in Dingle to a poor village in Malawi, where she continues to work and expand her clinic.

Getting Riordan’s story took Strempek Shea to both Ireland and Malawi, where she met with friends and relatives of both Riordan and her late son, and saw for herself the clinic that treats all manner of physical malady, including HIV/AIDS, which is rampant in the African country.

“Malawi was very eye opening for somebody from a first world country. I think everyone should go to a place where people are in need, poor. To go to this place that is at once so beautiful, but people are so in need of the basics that we take for granted, like education, health care, food, clothing,” Strempek Shea said.

“If you have a pair of flip flops, that indicates you have some means, that someone is working in your household. Most people are barefoot. It’s not what you’re used to. People were just lovely, welcoming. They clearly love Mags and what she’s doing. There was also a strong story to tell, I felt lucky having the chance to be there, get to know the clinic and a few of people involved,” she added.

Proceeds from the book are being donated to the Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic in Malawi.

Written by Mary Ellen Lowney.