Tipperary author honored with first post-Covid book display at famous bookshop

Tipperary author Brendan Lynch has been honored with a showcase and first launch in 2022 by Hodges Figgis, Dublin’s oldest bookstore.

The launch was carried out by Professor Eoin O’Brien, a friend of Nobel Prize-winning writer Samuel Beckett.

He described Brendan’s There Might Be a Drop of Rain Yet as “a moving memoir which paints a vivid picture of life in his hometown of Tipperary and, later, Dublin”.

Professor O’Brien described the Toomevara author’s accounts of literary and bohemian Dublin as “atmospheric and picture-perfect – I know, I was there then”.

He said There Might Be a Drop of Rain Yet was a rare document of a now overlooked way of life.

“I am so happy that Brendan put the story of Toomevara in the 1950s on paper. It is a valuable contribution to the social history of our time,” Professor O’Brien said.

He advised anyone in Tipperary – or anywhere else – to record their own local history before, as frequently happens, it is “lost in the mists of time”.

The renowned bookstore’s events manager Stephen Devlin said: ‘One of our best customers and most prolific authors, Brendan helps put his native country on the literary map. We’re thrilled to put the pandemic behind us and kick off the year’s program with late launches of his memoir and short story, The Old Gunner.

Brendan’s books are available in Nenagh Bookshop and Casey’s, Toomevara; signed copies of margarretolynsky@gmail.com