Contents

Title Page

Illustrations

1 Omagh — Strabane — Father Gearóid’s memories — Loss through tuberculosis

2 Inchicore — ‘Blackbird Soup’ — The Volunteers

3 Back in Strabane — A ghost in the house

4 Free from school — Attempts at teaching us — A care-free life — Smoking

5 Beside the Mourne — My mother’s people — My uncle in jail — The day of the threshing — Brian looking for a job

6 Strabane before the border — My uncle Joseph — At the rehearsals

7 In Tullamore — The roads in the Twenties — The age of the bicycle — The Black and Tans — Soldiers in the house

8 My father’s library — How we made films

9 Playing croquet — Hens and cocks — Building houses — Another visit from the soldiers

10 Move to Dublin — Gardening — Chess — Koltanowski — My father a commissioner — Literary work — Concerts — The McManus family — Our relationship with our father

11 More about our father — His death

12 At school at last — A bout of fighting

13 The stones that fell from heaven in Herbert Place

14 Blackrock College — Father John Charles McQuaid — An Fáinne — Tearing down Union Jacks — The first sentence Brian published

15 Clochaneely in 1927 — Céilithe in Coláiste Uladh — The great change

16 The one-legged woman

17 A journey on our bicycles — Threatened at Dowra — An abandoned house — At Loch Meilbhe — In the Gaeltacht

18 Poaching expedition to Gleann Bheatha

19 Brian at the University — ‘President’ of the L&H— Brian’s gift for debate — Frank Ryan — An invitation to join the IRA — Billiards and poker

20 Richard McManus — Passing time in Williamstown — Spearing flatfish

21 The magazine Blather 

22 Theses on Brian’s work — An Béal Bocht 

23 ‘He has his trade without learning it’ — Pooka in the bedroom — Brian’s way of writing

Plates

Copyright