I didn't know what I didn't have

A love for home is a hard thing to beat, as summed up in this beautifully written story by DAMIAN MCCARNEY with author Monica Argue Bahm about her book 'Five Stones in a Bovril Bottle: Growing up in Ireland in the 1950's'

She had left County Cavan almost three decades earlier as a 14-year-old with her parents as they sought a new life in the States; an escape from the poverty of a small farm in the 1950s.

Returning to her Fairtown home with her husband Joe, and two teenage daughters Cathy and Brigid, she had planned to regale them with the stories of her childhood.

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