Writing a memoir is a personal and somewhat intrusive exercise; it can be a duty, it can be a compulsion. Premonition falls+ into the latter category and even now I have to ask why. Having spent much of my life entertaining the thought, my natural inclination always was to turn away. I’m a horse vet, not a writer. But there we are.

Certain inclusions were critical. The silver spoon in Derrygarron which, though I was tiny then, still sits like a beacon in my mind. Then there was the barn they lived in after being ejected from their home and the nearby strong flowing stream that spouts out of a hole in the ground - their water source, no doubt. It still spooks me. Imagination still asks how they managed to survive the trauma, how they died and why they were shunted into a hovel.

Then there was the constant mention of Ballyaddon itself. I found a contact on Google and went there. As a boy in Portlaoise, there was a drip-drip of more information; though my experiences there as a student would be even more significant. This was my first time to feel like a voyeur, particularly when meeting members of families whose past interlinked with those of mine.

I’ve met many prominent people over the course of my life, but how come I met the man who blew my father off the road in an ambush – nearly 40 years later? And the very family who chased the Moores out of Laois; the people my family bought their land from after eviction. Meeting two ex-Black and Tans later was equally strange. Why these things? Then Fermoy, where the same theme carried on and why did it feel so familiar? And G M? God help us.

You might know the answers better than me after you’ve read this book.