Frank O’Connor’s memoir ‘An Only Child’ is an evocative work detailing his upbringing in poverty in his native Cork. He fought in the Irish War of Independence and supported the Anti-Treaty side in 1922 for which he was interned for a period of time. O’Connor served as a director of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in the 1930s, collaborating on many of its productions.

O’Connor’s writing on ‘His First Confession’ is pure comedy as he tells the priest he planned to kill his grandmother because “she’s an awful woman… she takes porter, father, and snuff, father.”

In ‘The Rising of the Moon’, an anthology of Irish stories directed by John Ford, one of O’Connor’s finest works is treated beautifully by the great director.