Nana was a formidable figure back in 1930s Dublin. The story goes that when her eldest daughter May, my aunt, was invited to the church wedding of her Protestant best friend, the local parish priest came to the front door.

“She’s not to go,” he said. “The archbishop won’t allow it.”

“I don’t care if the Pope himself says she’s not to – she’s going!” was Nana’s reply.

Nana, let me tell you, was a loyal Catholic. One of my earliest memories as a boy is watching the wonderful pageantry of the Corpus Christi procession wending its way along the streets beneath the upstairs windows of her house, out of which were draped the Vatican and the Irish flags.