The Yew Tree at the Head of the Strand

From seaside summer holidays to vacations at an uncle's farm to everyday life in the town of Newry, this evocative and humorous memoir conjures a vivid picture of an ordinary—yet fascinating—Irish childhood in the 1940s and 1950s. Brian Cosgrove here describes a large, affectionate family dominated by the figures of his father, a hard-working pub owner, and his mother, an "ordinary/extraordinary" woman who died following a long battle with cancer when the author was nineteen.

The world Cosgrove meticulously recreates is one of carefree adolescent adventure, of comic books, boys' adventure stories, and popular films. But—as he sees more clearly looking back—every aspect of the life Cosgrove describes is permeated by the influence of a Catholic—and frequently Irish Nationalist—ethos, and as he explores his childhood, the social and political issues of twentieth-century Irish history reveal themselves in unexpected ways.

Lighthearted and serious in turn, The Yew Tree at the Head of the Strand brings to poignant life a world made beautiful and fascinating not by the false light of nostalgia, but through the sharply rendered details of everyday existence.