When I Am Going (Anne Crowley Ford)

DANIEL FORD'S BOOKS > WHEN I AM GOING

When I Am Going: Growing Up in Ireland and Coming to America, 1901-1927

The young woman above is my mother in 1927, just before she set sail for America. The photo is superimposed upon a Google Earth satellite image of the fields around Kilnahone in the County Cork, where Annie Crowley grew up and which she would never see again. In the 1960s, my brother Joe and I persuaded her to write down her memories of Ireland. I read them for the first time one winter a few years ago, and they so enchanted me that I made them into a small book, which you can read in paperback or as an e-book.

From an email: "Good morning, Dan. I have read your mother's story and it is enchanting. I can't make out why so I am reading it again, also for the pleasure of it." Which is exactly the effect I was hoping to see! -- Dan Ford

From the back cover

"The harvest days were so lovely. The air was still and full of ripening grain and flowers beginning to fade away. And one knew that fall was on its way. One evening I was going out and stood at the gate and wondered if there was anywhere in the world a place as beautiful as Kilnahone, the mist rising from the valley below and overhead a large golden moon. It looked like a big golden hoop, and you felt if you reached up you could touch it with your hand."

So writes Anne Crowley Ford in her unforgettable memoir of growing up in Ireland in the early years of the 20th century -- a time of global conflict, rebellion and civil war. She was one of the unpaid soldiers who bested the British Empire in 1921, then had to contend with the army of the Irish Free State.

"When I at last ran into the house, I saw a box of blasting caps in the living room and thrust it down inside my dress, then sat by the kitchen table to keep it concealed just as the soldiers came into the kitchen. They were quite angry, said they were fired on by someone in our house. I pretended to be calm but I wasn't. I just sat there. They searched the house and found a revolver under the pillow in the boys' room."

Buy the print edition

Published by Kilnahone Press as a CreateSpace paperback, 6x9 inches, 90 pages, $9.95. Available from these online retailers:

Or you can get an autographed copy from me (US only). Finally, you may be able to order the book from most your local bookstore with the ISBN 978-1478104315 (probably with a surcharge).

And of course it's an e-book. The price is $4.99. Get it at:

Question? Comment? Newsletter? Send me an email. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

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