This documentary on the young De Valera and his limerick background is based on Donnagha O’Dulaing’s series   ’A Boy from Bruree’. Presenter Donncha O’Dulaing speaks about how the recording came to be. From his early childhood through to primary school, secondary school, Dev talks fondly of these times in Bruree County Limerick. Dev of his school days in the old school house in Bruree, and how he made a train journey and six mile journey to school for years. There are many aspects to Dev’s youth, Dev the scholar, the footballer, the rugby player, the dancer. De Valera shares stories of his youth: dancing, horses, hurling, his first photograph which he remembers very well as he had to take his first train journey to Limerick city. O’Dualing mentions how the county Limerick accent stayed with Dev to the very end and how they both shared words form the locality. The original series was recorded in the mid sixties when De Valera was in his eighties. One extraordinary factor of this time was that De Valera was blind at the time when reflecting on the past and that his memories came directly from the head and the heart.

Produced by Proinsias O Conluain

Presented by Donncha O’Dulaing

First broadcast 21^st October 1982

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