This is hard reading if you are a farmer, as many of you certainly are.

It was an Eastertide evening in Boston many decades ago and Liam MacGabhann, the young reporter from Valentia Island who was covering one of Éamon de Valera’s fundraising trips to the States for Fianna Fáil, was just finished writing his report of the day’s events for the family newspaper The Irish Press when the knock came on his hotel door.