Maeve Binchy reveals her tough schooldays in upcoming book essay

It is not a "strategy." It is the truth. I was there in that priest-ridden, poverty-ridden hell.

Each county in Ireland's 26 counties didn't have its own spin on life fifty years ago. It varied considerably within counties. What those who emigrated and those of Irish descent in the US want to hear is drunkeness, poverty, misery and starvation to justify their emigration. We'll see if Binchey follows that strategy.

There is no one answer as to how life was in Ireland fifty years ago.I would suggest that each County had its own spin on the day to day events with one common thread running through all thirty two Counties.I look forward to her views as she looks back.

In order for any book about events in Ireland to be interesting and sell heaps of copies, it has to protray Irish culture, traditions and customes in a very negative way. Suck was the case of Frankie McCourt's "Angela's Asher". The book that became a best seller leaves the readed with th impression that drunkeness, poverty, starvation and misery were widespread in Limerick in the 1940s. We don't know what "Let it be Told" contains about the experiences of Irish schoolgirls a half century ago, but Alice Taloyr's "To School through the Fields" puts a fairly spin in the life of schoolgirls in northwest Cork, and makes for very interesting reading.