The Book

Born and bred – and buttered?

I am reliably informed that I was born at a very early age, and began to grow up almost immediately. I cannot comment with any certainty on this, as my memory of the event is rather sketchy to say the least, so I only have my mother’s word for it.  Mind you, her memory of it was well maintained, as it was not an easy birth, and she was inclined to recount the full horrors of it to other mothers at the drop of a hat. Usually with me sitting there, writhing with embarrassment, silently praying for the expurgated version, rather than having to suffer the fully-detailed, blow-by-blow ringside coverage, with inter-round commentaries by W. Barrington Dalby, like the boxing matches Da used to listen to on the radio.

This is the opening chapter of my book, called ‘A Country Glipe’, after the line in my most famous poem, ‘Foreign Feedin’.  It tells a lot of funny episodes from my growing up, on a very backward small farm in 1950s Ireland, with the ‘rooster from hell’ who ruled the backyard with a claw of iron, the calf called Arnold that my sister used to ride on, and the horse called Charlie with his built-in GPS system.

It also contains all the words of fourteen ‘Bard of Armagh’ poems, including the 4 winners.

It is available on Amazon Kindle, price $3.99, or £2.69-ish

It is also available in paperback, from Amazon,  price £7.99, or from the ‘shop’ page of this website, £8.99 incl P & P.