The Team captures the sense of going back home

One of the best things about Bernie Comaskey's new book is how it conveys the sense of going home.It's something that generations of Irish people wished for, as so many went abroad for work - that feeling of going back home, where the characters in the pub and dodging about the place are so familiar.The Irish pub. The rural pub in particular.Murtagh's is the pub at the hub of Bernie's fictional Ballymona, and from the opening lines of The Team, he captures the atmosphere of a pub in a small town with such accuracy and feeling that this reader felt he was walking in the door on a stormy night to a place full of warmth - warm air from the fire (and the know-it-alls) and warm welcomes from the publican and the regulars.How's this for an opening line?"There was a good turf fire blazing in the grate of Murtagh's bar, or as Johnny the publican might say; 'a roaring fire going nowhere only up the chimney'."Those words and the following paragraphs set the scene for what is to come: a complex tale of a people who desperately want to prove their worth on the hurling pitch (hurling, mind, not football, though they will accept the big ball as a compromise, and to get their way in the longer term), people with their strengths and failings, working and home lives, backgrounds, complications and motivation.It's the characters that make any story, of course, and the re-establishment of the Ballymona hurling team is the backdrop that allows the author to introduce his cast, the likes of Johnny Murtagh and his family - including the wild and reckless Siobhan; Noel 'The Moaner' Fagan; the Star (Sean McGuigan), or the Stud, as he could have been named, according to the Moaner; the Master, Little Willie and many more.Johnny Murtagh, for example is a pillar of wisdom and common sense, a diplomat and a politician who was able to keep everyone on board; The Star is a complicated, charismatic character, as good with women as with engines and with political views that might challenge some. But they are just two of a huge cast we get to know at the chapters fly by.Bernie keeps his reader abreast of events in the wider world too, from Dáil elections and the IRA hunger strikes, and even a reference to an aeroplane hijacking in which one of the book's characters, Christy Larkin, got caught up (though he promised to tell them nothing but let them in on a secret - that Ballymona would win the 1982 senior hurling championship!).But the constant is the narrative of the reforming hurling club, the politics of dealing with neighbouring clubs and the county board, and the opposition from Jamestown, dealing with the Land Commission to get a few acres for a field and the egos of players and would-be players.There are clever teasers here and there to keep the reader interested and keen to know what happens next, and great references to things that mean something to us, the readers, such as the pub's regular musician singing a Bunch of Thyme and when Jack Flynn saw an ad for a new turf cutting machine in The Farmer's Journal.Mostly though, The Team is about the life of small town and rural Ireland, young people meeting and getting together, older people who deal with things employing the wisdom of their years and the critical role the GAA plays in such a community.It's a good read and the 300-plus pages are packed with detail. Look out for characters you might recognise...Review by Brian O'Loughlin