Description

‘People Like Us’, by best selling writer, Julie Parsons, tells the story of her Irish Protestant family. Using letters, diaries, personal memories and historical records, she pulls back the shutters and sheds light on their lives. Some came to Ireland in Cromwell’s army, their descendants doctors, giving succour to the famine poor, providing maternity care to the women of inner city Dublin, and teaching generations of medical students. Others were clergymen who dedicated themselves to their parishes, and shopkeepers, hard working and ambitious, their shops gone now, but their names still known in the towns of the Midlands. Julie’s parents, Elizabeth Chamberlain, a clergyman’s daughter from Dun Laoghaire, and her father, Andy Parsons, a doctor from Greystones, Co Wicklow, both served in the 2nd World War. Her mother, a naval officer; her father, received the Military Cross for Gallantry at the battle of El Alamein. He was subsequently lost at sea in the South Pacific when Julie was a child. His loss compelled her to seek out those who went before and bring
them back to life. A fascinating story told by a superb storyteller.