it began ....
In the summer of 2009 I visited my ninety year old aunt in Dublin.
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As we looked through photos, and Aunt Ann got down on her knees to drag further boxes of such treasures from under the sideboard, (eschewing any offers of help from me) the subject of the uncle she’d never met arose. “Patricia, you’re good at that googly thing, you go on your computer and find out what happened to Uncle Murt in Gresson Street. My parents were such Victorians that they never really told us.”
This book is the result of that request.
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THE LAUNCH - 25th April 2017 at the Consulate of Ireland Árd Chonsalacht na hÉireann, Hong Kong. Enormous thanks to Consul General Peter Ryan, Vice-Consul Caitriona O'Sullivan and all their team for an wonderful event.
and so almost eight years later ...
I am a writer and researcher on the lesser known aspects of Hong Kong's history prior to 1941. Stumbling over an article concerning the death of my great-uncle in 1918 when an inspector in the Hong Kong Police, I quickly became immersed in the social history of colonial Hong Kong.
As a specialist recorder teacher, in a career spanning three decades and more, I have had the joy both of introducing thousands of young children to music and developing the skills and musicianship of senior students to diploma level and beyond. Now I have scaled down this side of my life to give more time to writing - and to spend more time in Hong Kong doing the research!
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I continue to explore the contributions made by working-class Irish in the colony, but next in line is a book about some of the criminal women of early twentieth century Hong Kong: fraudsters, arsonists, murderers and one ‘neighbour from hell’.