Looking Down, Looking In

This family saga was inspired by a 1935 photo of two brothers and their young wives, their older sister and mother. The reader embarks on a journey based on the collection and recollection of family tales liberally embellished with pure fiction, travelling from Connemara in the far west of Ireland through to Kent in the south-east of England, over seven decades of the twentieth century. We experience the patriotism and the bigoted nationalism of the times, the religious devotion and intolerance, the turbulence of the earlier Irish ‘Troubles’ and of World War Two. We also experience the turbulence within growing families in a challenging and changing world, plus the enduring influence of class snobbery, when prospective daughters-in-law are viewed as ‘not quite suitable’ over two generations.