''An incredible portal to our past'' The Sunday Times

On 7 January 1922, Ireland became a free state. Born into that era of turbulence and hope were the twenty-six women and men whose stories and memories of a lifetime are captured by cherished Irish journalist Valerie Cox.

From living memory come stories of the arrival of electricity, story-telling at ''rambling houses'', raising a family in an earlier era, the scourge of TB, the big snow of 1932 and hiding out when the Black and Tans raided. These evocative pieces reflect both a simpler time and a tougher one, where childhood was short and the world of work beckoned from an early age.

Growing Up With Ireland is a compelling portrait of an Ireland in some ways warmly familiar, and in others changed beyond recognition, from those who were there at the beginning.

''A comprehensive and evocative insight into a century of Irish life ... a valuable record'' Irish Examiner