Tara Maher
Eamon O’Leary recalls a time before the internet and smartphones in his debut book I’m a Big Boy Now.
The broadcaster tells tales of his childhood in the late 1950’s and 1960’s, when he and his friends would get into all sorts of mischief. “A time of cowboys, hopscotch, playing football on the road, and all the lessons that go into becoming a Big Boy” he told The Carrigdhoun.
He describes the book as a “passport to an Irish boyhood in a less frantic, more adventurous age, reliving a time of skinned knees and home-made go-karts, clean dirt, Saturday night baths and the kind of sweets that’d nearly cost you your teeth, back when it always seemed to snow at Christmas, the summers were long and golden and the friendships were forever.”
Eamon penned the book following retirement. He needed something more than hacking up the golf course to keep himself occupied and got a notion to start writing short stories.
“Unfortunately, I'm ashamed to admit, I was at an immediate disadvantage because at school I didn't see the point in studying English. I was one of those geniuses who thought being able to speak the language was sufficient! Therefore, metaphors, hyperbole, onomatopoeia and the rest of the gang were, and still are, a bit of a mystery.”
The book came to him during a stroll on the Crosshaven to Carrigaline walk, remembering his father who worked for Coras Impair Eireann, the forerunner of Irish Rail and BusEireann.
“Every time he got promoted and got the princely monthly increase of two and sixpence, he was transferred. That was the practice and the time and so, like nomads we covered the length and breadth of the country. I'd no shortage of material.”
The book takes readers far and wide across the country, from Dublin to Kerry, from Roscommon to Cork, chronicling “not just the lessons and adventures that turned me into a Big Boy, but also the air of the time and place that was 1960s Ireland.”
The process has been an incredible learning experience for him.
“I'm not able to type and it's agony using, at snail's pace, the two-finger method of typing. Punctuation is always a problem! When finished, I close the file and let it hibernate for at least three months. It's a tip I picked up at an early stage and it's amazing the changes one makes on reopening the file. I've learned that the secret to success is - edit, edit, and then edit again.”
For Eamonn, this book is a labour of love, not a one way ticket to fame and fortune. “I’m fortunate in that I found a publisher who covered all the costs and they will make a few bob if it sells. Anyone hoping to make money from publishing a book is in dreamland.”
The book will be released this month, and Eamon hopes people will enjoy the book as much as he enjoyed writing it.
“I'll be happy to take four copies, put a little note in each and put them away for my grandchildren. And who knows when they grow up and read it, maybe one of them might proudly say - "My Granda wrote this."
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