Brightening Over Dillon's

Memories of days gone by. 1960s semi-rural Ireland and a schoolboy’s view of life growing up there.

Growing up in the sixties wasn’t always easy: the houses were often overcrowded, with not many facilities such as running water and central heating. School could be quite difficult, with corporal punishment a major issue. It was believed by many teachers that education could be ‘beaten’ into pupils. But life was happy and there was little pressure on children to have this, that and the other.

Most families hadn’t much. There were no computers, with all that entails; no mobile phones and only limited television. Children made up their own games and played football and other sports all year round. They could play very safely outdoors and were free to explore the fields and woods and to invent adventures.

In telling this story, the author has drawn upon his own experiences and those of others too. The picture that he paints captures the atmosphere of that time, the hopes and aspirations of those who lived through it: a period in Irish life that might now appear remote but not so far removed that it has slipped from living memory.

Liam Nevin is a native of County Kildare and now lives in Shepperton, England, with his wife Marlene. In addition to Brightening Over Dillon's, he is also the author of The Tobacco Fields of Meath (first published in 2011) an account of the Randlestown tobacco growing experiment that took place in the county at the turn of the 20th century, in which his grandfather, John Nevin, played a key role.