For the young people of today, the 1950s seem like another age. But for those born around then, this era of childhood feels like yesterday. 1950s Ireland was the age of De Valera and John Charles McQuaid.

It was the age before television, before Vatican II, and before home central heating. It was a time when motor cars and public telephones had wind-up handles, when boys wore short trousers and girls wore ribbons, when nuns wore white bonnets and priests wore black hats in church.