HE has interviewed hundreds of people over more than 40 years, but a handful stand out for Eddie Lenihan, among them the late Jimmy Armstrong of Quin. Back in 1982 Eddie’s book Long Ago By Shannonside brought Jimmy’s stories to the public, and he has now published a revised addition with some extra chapters, entitled The Man In The Big House. Eddie visited Jimmy numerous times in the early 80s at Our Lady’s Hospital in Ennis, where he lived for years, although Eddie says it is highly dubious that a man like him should have been there at all. In the preface to The Man In The Big House Eddie writes of Jimmy’s delight when the original book came out as it showed he was in a place that he didn’t need to be. “This was proof, if proof were needed, that he was a man of sound mind.” Jimmy petitioned successive Ministers for Health for a review of his …
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