Renowned author William Trevor, who died on Monday aged 88, always claimed to have a huge affection for the town of his birth.
He was born at Upper Cork Street, Mitchelstown in 1928, and in August 2004, he visited the town where a plaque to his memory was unveiled in the town square.
William Trevor spent the first three years of his life in the town and said he could remember the day his family left.
Speaking on his visit to the town he said: “When we moved, I remember having lunch in the diningroom of the Bank of Ireland”, he said. “My father was a bank official and that is why we moved around so much”.
He said that during the years when he was moving from place to place with his family, Mitchelstown ‘persisted’ throughout his childhood.
He recalls a farmer by the name of Ned Quinn, who would send the family a turkey every year, wrapped in brown paper, no matter where they were located.
“I said to my father, ‘isn’t it kind of him to send us a turkey?’ and my father said that it was. But then he said: ‘That’s Mitchelstown for you!’
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