Part memoir, part family history, part Irish history and part Enniscorthy geography, this introspective history takes an interesting but at times painful journey through the “hidden Ireland”, from 1916 until the present day. Felicity Hayes-McCoy weaves into it the story of her family, particularly that of her grandmother’s cousin, Cumann na mBan member Marion Stokes, who raised the Tricolour at the rebel headquarters in Enniscorthy at Easter in 1916. Hayes-McCoy, who has lived in England for most of her adult life, provides extensive explanations for familiar episodes in Irish history and gives phonetic pronunciations for Irish expressions, giving the impression she is writing for a foreign audience. Her retelling of the disgraceful “Tailor and Ansty” west Cork saga, among other stories, is welcome and, as the tailor Tim Buckley observed, it was a native government that suppressed stories that had been told by the fireside for generations – and labelled those who told them as morons and moral lepers.
