This Boy's Heart

Scenes from an Irish Childhood

By: John Creedon

Narrated by: John Creedon

John Creedon’s scenes from an Irish childhood paint a colourful and sometimes hilarious picture of a changing Ireland and the growing pains of boyhood.

Set in a city-centre household bustling with humanity, the cast includes a dozen children and another dozen adults, including aunts, an American writer, an African doctor, and a Scottish bookie. The streets outside overflow with brewery horses, beat clubs, dance halls, nuns, priests, a Turkish delight shop and a pub where a child could sit up on a high stool and smoke his cigarette in peace.

Creedon spent the sixties striding the streets of inner-city Cork, with summers ‘farmed out’ to friends and family in the countryside. His stories are set in wildly contrasting worlds, from urban exotica to spacious meadows, from tales of the open road to his classroom of over fifty boys. These are stories of friendship, fun, family and folklore. The result is a heart-warming and revealing journey into an Irish boyhood.

©2024 John Creedon (P)2025 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

'A thing of beauty. I adored it. Full of heart and warmth and humour, this is a book to lift your spirits.' (Donal Ryan, author of Strange Flowers)

'This Boy's Heart is so filled with joy, happiness, and almost relentless wonder that a reader will inevitably wonder if John Creedon wore rose-tinted glasses as he wrote.' (Irish Examiner)

Absolutely Brilliant!@

I ordered this book for my dad who grew up in Blackpool, Cork until 14 years of age when he emigrated to NY. My dad now nearly 80 enjoyed every minute of the wonderful storytelling by the author, John Creedon. The book brought back so many memories and laughs.. we would listen to it in the car on our way somewhere or just relaxing at home... a wonderful book of stories and scenarios to which he could relate... and the narration was the icing on the cake! Thank you Mr. Creedon for making my dad laugh in what has been a truly tough year for him since we lost my mom in June.