September 2001

Two elderly men attend the funeral of a stranger in order to pay a debt to that stranger's mother - Maud Gonne MacBride … two Dublin eccentrics weave their ways through the streets in the rare ould times, when Brendan Behan was still in short trousers and Nelson still stood on his column … a lively young nun, exploring an old abbey, discovers what John McCormack left behind …

These are among the many, many stories told, in their own words, by an assembly of men and women who easily recall the early days of the last century when Ireland had yet to become a Republic. Here the reader meets the actor, the sportsman, the religious, the forestry man and musician, the northside Dubliner, the artist, the cattle dealer, the High Court judge, the publican, the huntsman and the emigrant. Each has a story to tell, alive and jumping off the page with an extraordinary intimacy, full of observation, honesty, pathos, sometimes indignation, and always a keen humour.

This is a book of rare authenticity, giving voice to Irish men and women well advanced in years and from all walks of life, who tell their stories with an unvarnished truthfulness and a spontaneous poetry and wit. We shall not see their like again.