A scattered memoir that took me almost a year to finish and only made me wish Terry had handed the pen to his mother. 

I came to this memoir hoping for personal, behind-the-scenes insight into Éamon de Valera's life from his son, but left feeling underwhelmed. 

While the writing is fine and there are moments of genuine interest, the book suffers from scattered chronology and all too frequent digressions. Terry de Valera often starts an intriguing anecdote about his father or another key figure from Irish history, only to veer off into unrelated side stories about distant Spanish or American relatives or minor acquaintances. 

Without a doubt, the extracts included from the diary of Sinéad DeValera –wife to Éamon and mother to Terry– were the strongest parts of the book. Her practicality and determination truly balanced her husband’s eccentricities and political savvy, adding a dimension to the De Valera story I hadn’t previously considered.