All of 1988 Molloy lived in Ireland away from her family in Lancashire. She was in a relationship with Healy from January to August of that year. After teaching at Lumb Bank with Barry Unsworth in England in September, she returned to Dublin and eventually rented a flat in Kilcock, County Kildare. Molloy kept working on a manuscript now titled “Only Talk to the Sea”; however, her editor at Virago Press critiqued the new manuscript very severely. From the unpublished manuscript of “Only Talk to the Sea” it is apparent that the new prose could not make unattractive characters and situations likeable or comical as Molloy had successfully done in No Mate for the Magpie. She tried to write from a third-person perspective that did not bring out her natural ear for language, especially Irish vernacular. By the end of 1988, Molloy claimed to detest Ireland and returned to Lancashire. Brady moved out of the family home in July 1989. Molloy was in and out of the hospital for the last two years of her life. After deliberately taking a handful of pills from her store of prescription “tablets,” Molloy died a few days later, Maundy Thursday, March 28, 1991. The recorded cause of death was “stroke.”