"Once, he thought someone had broken into the house," Sadie said to you as you sat on her knee, dramatising the memoir. Despite her tone, which she was keeping upbeat, her eyes were sad.

"He got so scared, he ended up nearly blowing his own hand off trying to grab my gun," she chuckled, lips upturning as she remembered it vividly. "Turns out, it was just a bat that'd flown in through the window. Your poor father gained about twenty grey hairs that day from stress."

He was gone, killed like livestock by O'Driscolls, but your mother was determined to make sure his memory stayed alive in you.