Growing up in Ireland. . - Reviews - An Irish Childhood - book review

Contemporary Review, August, 2002 by John McGurk

An Irish Childhood. Peter Somerville-Large. Constable. [pounds sterling]14.99. 245 pages. ISBN 1-84119-457-3.

There is a genre of memoirs of Irish childhoods that certainly goes back to the eighteenth century: aristocratic, sophisticated in their classical and literary allusions, and redolent of the wealth enjoyed at least by the parents and grandparents. Such memoirs are naturally far removed from the poverty-riven atmosphere and harsh realities say of the recently widely acclaimed, and execrated, Angela's Ashes. So too is Peter Somerville-Large's Irish childhood.

As we expect from the author of Irish Eccentrics and The Grand Irish Tour the author's childhood memories are elegantly written, affectionately recalled in a vivid narrative that shares with the reader the sights, sounds and sensations of an Irish world that is now vanishing except for the perennial renewal of nature in the countryside. His childhood was a privileged one: the Dublin town houses in the best residential areas, the houses in the country which seem to be full of eccentric relations including Edith Somerville, the co-author of The Irish RM, Somerville and Ross, and the twenty acre island in Co. Kerry. Though Unionist, the Somervilles were passionately Irish -- Cousin Edith, the writer, had her own theory of the Somerville brand of Irishness which she expressed: 'I have a theory that people living on the land, devouring its fruits and associating with the people of an adopted country creates a closer kinship than blood'.

Critical readers may very well be sceptical of remembered conversations, and the embroidering of anecdotes in the re-telling, especially when they end 'and that's the honest God's truth'. However Peter Somerville-Large's memories have an authentic and enchanting quality as he evokes the world of his parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. The chapter on his grandfather is a delight; he was a Church of Ireland canon, who believed not only in a God of love but a God of anger and was also a regular correspondent to the Irish Times, and a voluminous diarist. Likewise the chapter 'My Uncles' takes the reader into the period of the Second World War, or the Emergency, as it was known here in Ireland. And, like his surgeon father, these uncles were high tension live wires of nervous energy so there is nothing dull about the author's relations or his telling of them.

Many people on the fringes of his family come to life in brief deft phrases. Molly, a servant, had the disconcerting habit of periodically dropping on her knees for a quick prayer. Mrs Casey, a housekeeper, was known in the family as Sisyphus from her habit of continually putting things away. Mrs Penrose, a neighbour, had all 'the hallmarks of Anglo-Irish eccentricity' ... including 'an Edwardian schoolgirl's dialect in a high-pitched voice'. These and more can be met within this literary treat which is further enhanced with a selection of pictures, all too few, from the family photograph album.