Valerie Cox – författare

INCLUDES INTERVIEWS WITH BERTIE AHERN, MARY KENNEDY, SEAN O'ROUKE, MARY COUGHLAN AND MANY OTHERS. What was life like for Ireland's grandparents when they were young?What has changed for the better? What values do they wish to hand down?In these pages, grandmother and chronicler of times past Valerie Cox talks to fellow grandparents, creating an unforgettable trip down memory lane. Through schooldays, dating, jiving, child-rearing, working life, holidays, fashion and more, memories are shared of a pre-digital age when the world seemed smaller and community life was central. They also describe the magic of the grandparent-grandchild relationship, and their hopes for the upcoming generation.Full of tender or surprising reminiscences from across Ireland, along with revelations on what truly matters in life, When I Was Your Age includes contributions from some of Ireland's best known grandparents - a beautiful gift and a time capsule for the future.

Includes interviews with Mary Kennedy, Sean O'Rourke, Mary Coughlan, Bertie Ahern and many othersWhat was life like for Ireland's grandparents when they were young?What has changed for the better? What values do they wish to hand down?In these pages, grandmother and chronicler of times past Valerie Cox talks to fellow grandparents, creating an unforgettable trip down memory lane.Through schooldays, dating, jiving, childrearing, working life, holidays, fashion and more, memories are shared of a pre-digital age when the world seemed smaller and community life was central.They also describe the magic of the grandparent-grandchild relationship, and their hopes for the upcoming generation. Full of tender or surprising reminiscences from across Ireland, along with revelations on what truly matters in life, When I Was Your Age includes contributions from some of Ireland's best-known grandparents - a beautiful gift and a time capsule for the future.

'An incredible portal to our past' The Sunday TimesOn 7 January 1922, Ireland became a free state. Born into that era of turbulence and hope were the twenty-six women and men whose stories and memories of a lifetime are captured by cherished Irish journalist Valerie Cox. From living memory come stories of the arrival of electricity, story-telling at 'rambling houses', raising a family in an earlier era, the scourge of TB, the big snow of 1932 and hiding out when the Black and Tans raided. These evocative pieces reflect both a simpler time and a tougher one, where childhood was short and the world of work beckoned from an early age.Growing Up With Ireland is a compelling portrait of an Ireland in some ways warmly familiar, and in others changed beyond recognition, from those who were there at the beginning.'A comprehensive and evocative insight into a century of Irish life ... a valuable record' Irish Examiner

A PEOPLE'S PORTRAIT OF A PERIOD OF MOMENTOUS CHANGE IN IRISH HISTORY.Independence Memories is a fascinating social history, from living and inherited memory, of the period surrounding Irish Independence and the Civil War.It was a time of violence, of death, of emigration, of families divided into pro- and anti-Treaty, Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera. Against a tapestry of safe houses and mountain hide outs, people fell in love, raised families and laid the foundations of the country we live in now.We read the story of Galwayman Michael Feerick, who rode his white horse through the streets of Dunmore, shouting 'blackguards' at the Black and Tans. We meet the two Mollys, Dublin street traders and runners for Michael Collins, who sewed bullets into the hems of their long skirts.We relive the attack by the Black and Tans on the home of gamekeeper John Vahey and we hear from the Kavanagh family who were offered £1 for every year of the life of their 19-year-old daughter, Mary Ellen, shot dead in Buncrana.And, memorably, 107-year-old Máirín Hughes shares fascinating recollections of being kept in school in Killarney when there was an attack on the RIC barracks down the road. A wonderful compendium of stories and memories by Ireland's oldest citizens, from the much-loved author of Growing Up With Ireland.