Paddy McEvoy

Tipperary is as Fine a Town Paddy McEvoy

This novel is set during World War 2 when many Irish joined the British army and fought against Nazi Germany, even though the Irish government under de Valera had declared for neutrality. In this "What If" novel, author Paddy McEvoy tells the story of a young Tipperary couple, Thomas and Roisin, whose passionate pleas are a major influence on de Valera's imaginary decision to abandon neutrality and fight alongside the old enemy, Britain. After the disasters of Dunkirk and the Blitz, Britain is defeated and occupied. German troops arrive in Ireland, particularly in Tipperary where this story is centred, and the world has changed utterly. This is a story of how occupation has the effect of uniting the warring factions of Ireland, whose Civil War has not long finished. The British and Irish people forget "The Troubles and are brought together in a common struggle that will bind them, and Europe ever-closer in the post-war world. Thomas and Roisin's growing love for each other and their passion to build a better world provide a warm contrast to the hostilities that surround them. Paddy McEvoy was born and raised in Tipperary and educated by the Roman Catholic Christian Brothers, and at University College Dublin. His authentic depiction of the social order in a small Irish town in the 1940s is inspired by his own recollections and those gleaned from a previous generation. After the end of the imagined Occupation, a very different Ireland emerges to take its place in a warmer, peaceful and saner world. This book will appeal to anyone who has a nostalgia for Ireland's past and an interest in Irish history. But the author's vision is a global one of an optimistic world that is still struggling into being. No one knows how close Hitler's military might came to defeating and occupying Britain, and how this might have affected Ireland. The story told in this novel is a What-might-have-been, that came alarmingly close to changing the Irish definition of Emergency.60,000 words; 220 pages.