Brightening Over Dillon's

Memories of days gone by. 1960s semi-rural Ireland and a schoolboy's view of life growing up there.

Growing up in the sixties wasn't always easy: the houses were often overcrowded, with not many facilities such as running water and central heating. School could be quite difficult, with corporal punishment a major issue. It was believed by many teachers that education could be 'beaten' into pupils. But life was happy and there was little pressure on children to have this, that and the other.

Most families hadn't much. There were no computers, with all that entails; no mobile phones and only limited television. Children made up their own games and played football and other sports all year round. They could play very safely outdoors and were free to explore the fields and woods and to invent adventures.

In telling this story, the author has drawn upon his own experiences and those of others too. The picture that he paints captures the atmosphere of that time, the hopes and aspirations of those who lived through it: a period in Irish life that might now appear remote but not so far removed that it has slipped from living memory.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A native of County Kildare, Liam Nevin lives in Shepperton, England with his wife Marlene, where he is now retired having worked for forty-one years at Heathrow Airport. He has two children and three grandchildren.

He writes on Irish and local history, in both fictional and non-fictional styles.

His first book, The Tobacco Fields of Meath (2010), came about as a result of research into his family history and the discovery of a wealth of information on tobacco growing left by his grandfather, John Nevin, in Randlestown, Navan, County Meath.

Brightening Over Dillon's (2016) combines the experiences of family and friends whom he grew up with, in a small village in Ireland of the 1960s. Of it, he says that it is an attempt to paint a picture of that time. "It is not intended as a wholly historical account of the period, or of any particular family of that time but I tried to include many actual events in Ireland, as they occurred."

Of The Dawning of the Day, Liam recalls that the genesis for this lies in a story that his mother used to relate to him as a young boy, of a soldier being fatally wounded in a field that they would pass on their Sunday walk. The incident occurred during Ireland's civil war (1922-23), and it stoked an interest in him that he would often return to.

Dettagli