An out-of-print wartime memoir by a Cork doctor is back on the shelves following the intervention of the late travel writer Pete McCarthy, who read the manuscript during his research for the widely acclaimed McCarthy's Bar.
The English author was in MacCarthy's bar in Castletownbere in 1999 when the pub's owner, Adrienne MacCarthy, gave him a copy of A Doctor's War by her father Aidan. Pete McCarthy was gripped by the doctor's wartime RAF experiences and told her the book was "unputdownable" and worthy of republication.
Cork publishers Collins Press decided to republish the book this spring to coincide with the city's tenure as European Capital of Culture.
McCarthy agreed to write a foreword for the memoir and was going to help publicise it.
However, tragically the 51-year-old travel author died of cancer last August leaving a wife and three children.
A Doctor's War has been republished and is available in bookstores across the country.
It recounts the life story of RAF medical officer Dr Aidan MacCarthy who served in France, survived Dunkirk, and went on to further wartime adventures in the Pacific.