Maura McRobbie is a Glasgow based writer of Scottish/Irish descent. Her first novel Howth was published in 2019 and is the semi-biographical story of her grandmother Florrie who grew up in Dublin in the early twentieth century, before coming to Scotland in 1918. The novel explores the social, cultural and religious differences of the time and the barriers Florrie faced.
Maura’s second novel ‘Vikings and Skylarks on Cumbrae’ was published in August 2022. It is children’s fiction for the 9 – 12 age range and is set on the Isle of Cumbrae in Scotland in 1263, before the Battle of Largs. Moranna, a young Scots girl befriends Sten, a Danish boy living in the Viking longhouse on the island. How will the Battle of Largs decide their fate? It has been Highly Commended by the Scottish Association of Writers.
Maura has edited a memoir by Padre José Dillon, a Divine Word Missionary priest who has spent 50 years in Brazil. Originally from Dublin, he arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1973 at the height of the military regime. In the 1980s he served as a priest in the remotest regions of the River Amazon, in Santarém, where he travelled between communities by riverboat and by bike. There were no alternative transport links to reach the people. In the 1990s he returned to Sao Paulo where he worked in the favelas, setting up herbal remedy treatments and alternative therapies to improve the lives of his parishioners, many living in poverty where crime and drugs abuse prevailed. A keen mountaineer and nature trailblazer, he has climbed mountains in Brazil and Europe and has found solace in the outdoors where all the world’s problems seem to disappear. In more recent years he has sadly witnessed the destruction of the Amazon rainforest under the Bolsonaro presidency, and as a Liberation Theologist, he has continually fought for the rights of the poor. Now, as a new era dawns with President Lula, Padre José feels there is new hope and a new promise for Brazil in the years to come.
Before writing, Maura was a primary depute head teacher and has contributed to educational magazines and press throughout her career. She also worked in educational research and wrote Teacher’s Guides for Channel 4 Schools. She has a Masters Degree in Education from Glasgow University and a Leadership Qualification from Strathclyde University.
She is a member of Bearsden Writers and serves on East Dunbartonshire’s Arts Council (EDAC).
