‘People Like Us’ is award-winning writer Julie Parsons’ first non-fiction book. Written as a series of imagined conversations between Julie and her mother and father, using letters, diaries, memories and historical records, Julie tells the story of her Irish Protestant family.
They were soldiers, clergymen, shop keepers, musicians and poets. Some came to Ireland as part of Cromwell’s army. Their descendants were doctors, giving succour to the Famine poor and providing maternity care to the women of inner city Dublin. Many were clergymen, ministering to parishes throughout the country. Both her parents served in the 2nd World War; her mother, Elizabeth Chamberlain, a clergyman’s daughter from Dun Laoghaire was a naval officer. Her father, Andy Parsons from Greystones, received the Military Cross for gallantry as a doctor at the battle of El Alamein in 1942. He was lost at sea in the South Pacific 13 years later. Irish men and Irish women, part of our shared history. A fascinating story told for the first time by a superb story teller.
‘An extraordinary work of art… To sustain such a conversational structure for so long is a fabulous feat. The content really grabbed me. We probably all have these sorts of lives in our own families. Excavating them is the issue. You have been a consummate archaeologist. All I can say that your evocation had me
there; all the time throughout the book. A wonderful piece of writing.’
Ian d’Alton, author of ‘Southern Irish Protestants – Histories, Lives and Literatures’.