Rathcormick: A Childhood Recalled

Description

Set in 1950s rural Ireland, Rathcormick is an engaging tale of a large and happy family: a stern and domineering Papa, a warm and practical Mama, their two daughters and six sons. For Homan, the youngest, life is a free-spirited awakening in a world of old-fashioned virtue and frugality. But no boyhood lasts forever, and an abrupt turn of events signals an end to the idyll. Rathcormick is an unforgettable and enduring memoir: funny, compelling and original.

About the Author
Homan Potterton was Director of the National Gallery of Ireland (1980–8), and Editor of Irish Arts Review (1993–2002). After the publication of Rathcormick: A Childhood Recalled, he published a follow-up memoir, Who Do I Think I Am?, in 2017, and a novel, Knockfane, in 2019, both with Merrion Press. Potterton passed away in 2020.

Praise for Rathcormick
‘A wholly delightful family memoir of lace-curtain Protestants in 1950s rural Ireland – an Irish seam that is rarely tapped for its considerable riches’
— William Trevor, Guardian, Books of the Year

‘Not a wet miserable childhood, à la Frank McCourt, but a Protestant childhood and one that makes for hugely enjoyable reading’
— Independent on Sunday

‘Beautifully crafted – lively, elegant … A classic memoir’
— The Irish Times

‘Moving, funny and bleak by turns, there is nothing sentimental about it’
— Times Literary Supplement