Writing as Brigid Carrick
Bridget Hertaeg is a retired general nurse and midwife, born and raised in Dublin. She qualified in Ireland before emigrating to Melbourne in November 1969, where she married and raised a family.
At the age of ten, Bridget joined The Catholic Girl Guides of the Diocese of Dublin and remained a Girl Guide until she was eighteen. She was appointed Assistant Patrol Leader, Patrol Leader and Flag Bearer. She earned 21 merit badges and won the organisation's “First Aid Cup.” She returned to Guides as a Cadet, Assistant Captain and Captain after completing her general nurse training. With the Guides, Bridget hiked in the Dublin mountains, camped in Fernhill, Wicklow and remains in touch with several Girl Guides in Dublin.
Part of her midwifery training was on district, and this took her into the slums of Dublin. Here, she was shocked by the poverty and appalling conditions in which poor people, often with large families, were forced to lived, trapped between the laws of the Irish Government, which criminalised contraception and the Catholic Church, which deemed it a mortal sin.
Bridget’s first short story was published in New Idea in 1996. More recently, she has rediscovered her enjoyment of creative writing, and thirteen of her short stories have been accepted for publication in anthologies and a magazine, proving it’s never too late to write and to have a first novel published.
Bridget’s writing influences include Anne Enright, Maeve Binchy, Frank McCourt, Ian McEwan, and Jennifer Worth (Call the Midwife). Her first novel set in Dublin during the early 1970s, titled The Belfast Express, is about to be published.
Bridget is also working on a full-length memoir and a novella about her childhood summer holidays at the beach, in their family's converted railway carriage.
Bridget Hertaeg’s short stories accepted for publication,
- Virtual Granny, New Idea 1996.
- Lest We Forget, published in Reset Anthology. Hawkeye, Sydney 2021. Ailish and the Phoneline Courage Anthology 2022.
- Learning to say goodbye the Dublin Way in AAWP, the Slow Canoe. 2021
- Loss of a Baby in Survival Anthology Hammond House, London, 2020.
Others on website www.brigidcarrick.com