“... were mostly old, and the Irish Parliamentary Party had never fully recovered from the fall of Charles Stewart Parnell. (Parnell, first elected to the House of Commons in 1875, and known for his charisma, cunning and strategic skills, was dubbed ‘the uncrowned king of Ireland’. He was brought down in 1890, having been named by William O’Shea as ...”

“... the back of the car, white with tension, clung onto the silk tassels that hung down from the pale wood panels. The year was 1928, and, at that very moment, while they were on their way to Venice, where, as a photograph shows, they would sit on the Lido with the Russian dancers, I was on holiday at Felpham with my nanny, playing on the stony beach with my ...”