Cissie's Abattoir

Cissie Hamm, free-spirited and glamorous, once served early-morning coffee to Jackie Kennedy Onassis and believed that housework consisted of matching belts to the correct coats.

A ray of light in the puddle-grey town of Waterford in the 1960s and 1970s, she was both abattoir-owner and guest-house landlady.

She was exactly what every self-proclaimed nancy boy needs in his life.

Aeibhear's personal voyage takes us through the buildings of his childhood city, his grandmother's abattoir, the mental hospital where his father works, and the Folly Church where he serves as an altar boy.

It is the story of a city and the story of his journey from fear to pride.

But the most important character throughout is the entertaining, fashion-conscious, poker-playing Cissie, his lively and witty little grandmother.

She taught him by example how to survive and prosper, and how to live with style and verve. From the book: 'Living happily on the edge of Cissie's life all through my childhood had been all that I had wanted, but it, amongst other things, meant that I could never talk to the very ones I now longed for: boys of my own age. At the core of my dawning understanding of sex and romance was the absolute certainty that I would always be outside it, undesired, unwanted.

I could imagine sex between men quite easily; I just couldn't imagine ever being involved in it.

In this disturbing world of unfulfillable desire, I was scared.

Cissie's abattoir saved me.'