Child of the Irish Border: A Memoir and Family History

A Memoir and Family History is not only a memoir of the author’s early life in several parts of Ireland, both North and South, but also a fascinating history of four disparate families of different religious traditions. Nicholas Fitzsimon’s ancestors include both Daniel O’Connell the Liberator and various northern Irish Protestant doctors and farmers. The book also traces his Catholic Wicklow forbears who produced many soldiers, some who fought as mercenaries in several European wars and others who were loyal soldiers of the British Crown. There was even an ancestor who built what is now the Shelbourne Hotel. The book gives a riveting insight into how these various religious, military and political strands affected the author’s own life.