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Acknowledgements

This book’s making wasn’t entirely of my own doing – far from it. My darling Sini must take the lion’s share of the credit for ensuring I got this book over the line. Thanks for putting up with me and for all the heavy lifting over this past few months. I love you.

Thanks to my English teachers in school – Mrs Tumelty, Mr Ritchie and Ms Kelly – for developing my love of the language, encouraging me, and believing in my potential. Ms Kelly said I could be a writer but that I’d need a good editor. Luckily, I found one in Des Fitzgibbon, who acted as my touchstone and whetstone throughout.

Thanks also to Katherine Fox and Christian Dupont at Boston College for granting permission to use my father’s photographs for this book. I’m also grateful to Catherine Giltrap at Trinity College Dublin, for her help, support and friendship.

Thanks to my da for getting the photographs print-ready for this book, and for all the encouragement and positive feedback along the way.

Thanks to my mother for instilling in me a love of books from an early age, and for encouraging the university route. I still remember the day you took me down to join Downpatrick library and to buy my first books at the Music and Book shop.

Thanks to Seppo Vehviläinen for help with my old back and for the use of your summer cabin.

Thanks to Billy O’Callaghan, one of my favourite writers, for your endorsement in the Foreword. It means the world to me.

Thanks to Medbh McGuckian, Michael Longley and Adrian Rice for sharing your thoughts on the book. This was unexpected and immense.

Thanks to Dearbhaile Curran for taking the time to proof much of the manuscript.

Finally, thanks to Conor Graham at Merrion Press for seeing the potential in the book from early on, and for offering me the launching pad for my poems.