P.S. Look out for snakes

Brian Farrell (1929–2014) was one of the most respected broadcasters and academics of his generation, known and loved for his coverage of current affairs on RTÉ. The woman behind Brian’s public figure was Marie-Thérèse Dillon, with whom he enjoyed a long and happy home life along with their seven children.  In 1954, when Brian travelled to Harvard to complete his Master’s degree, he and his then fiancée Marie-Thérèse wrote to each other on a daily basis. Their correspondence makes up this absorbing and special book, edited by the couple’s daughter, Miriam.

The letters not only provide a personal insight into a unique Irish couple at the beginning of their life together but are also a real-time commentary on social and political life in both Ireland and the United States in the mid-1950s.  Brian Farrell writes of the political contrasts of an idealistic post-war America also at the height of the McCarthy era. Marie-Thérèse’s letters discuss an Ireland slowly becoming a modern state and where their future may or may not lie. In between, they reflect on the personal challenges of their young lives, and swop vital news of friends and family.