Vivid Irish evocation of disappearing rural world

Footprint Upon Water

Trevor, as the son of a bank manager who was moved around the country, has the overview of an outsider. In contrast, Fitzgerald (1911-1982), née Gregg, was firmly rooted in the establishment: the daughter of an archbishop, and the wife of Michael Somerville of Castletownshend (a nephew of Edith Somerville, and son of vice-admiral Boyle Somerville).

However, as her 1946 novel We Are Besieged, reissued by the Somerville Press in 2011, showed, Barbara Fitzgerald was a true intellectual with a compassionate understanding of all levels of Irish society during the turbulent years that saw the end of British rule, and the economic stagnation that ensued.