THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT BEING IRISH - ESSAY SELECTION PART 2

Within the covers of this book, the reader will be able to get a sense of how life was in rural Ireland in the 1950's through to 1961, when my husband Ben emigrated to South Africa. The main threads woven in Part 2 are the joyful and difficult events in his young life that I have tried to gently unravel. I've penned Ben's thoughts and feelings about incidences, as closely as he can remember. I've twisted, bent and upended words; but not quite as well as the Irish do! I've tried to imitate the way an Irish storyteller would tell a tale, using comedic tools of exaggeration and embellishment. The actual people in the essays are as well-rounded as I could make them, considering the scant information I got concerning them and understandably, private areas of his life. ... for example his social life as a teen and his first girlfriend. I wove his comments together with my own knowledge of the feelings and habits of young people. I've used vivid vocabulary and word-play, so as to give his life-story emotional and literary depth. The text is peppered with imagery of birds, flowers, trees, wind, water and the sun.
In contrast to the backdrop of deprivation and struggle for survival, is the breathless beauty of the Irish countryside and the charming and disarming ways of the ordinary, yet extraordinary Irish people.