<p>Máire Cruise O'Brien explores the republican and revolutionary connections of her family as she was growing up, the fallout of the Civil War, and life in the Irish-speaking districts of Ireland almost a century ago.<br>Máire spent two years studying in post-war Paris where she met Beckett and Sylvia Beech, among others. She became the first ever Irish woman diplomat, a role which took her to Spain in the time of Franco, the General Assemb...