Leighlin Road

This memoir tells the story of the first twenty-one years of my life, growing up and coming of age in the working class Dublin Corporation housing estate of Crumlin.

Although humorous when telling my tale, the book also includes stories of abuse, death and loss. The chapters unfold from my unlikely birth – the youngest of fifteen children – to Crumlin life, the death of my brother Paddy in a London road accident and the abuse I suffered through a 'Christian' Brother at school. From a little boy priest in Blackrock College and then as an apprentice projectionist in the Kenilworth Cinema and a year as clapper/loader in Ardmore Studios. The story goes on through my difficult teenage years of alienation from my father and his death at the age of seventy, a month before my 21st birthday and a few months before my marrying my pregnant 18-year-old girlfriend. That marked the end of my life in 147, Leighlin Road and the start of my life as a married man and father-to-be.

This book will be of interest to anyone of a Dublin/Irish heritage who will understand my journey. Back in my day emigration, particularly to England, was part of Irish life and that is reflected in my story.

I am an experienced storyteller and now I am finally telling my own story of the years that formed the man I am today.