was the benefactor of the Abbey Presbyterian Church in Parnell Square, popularly known as Findlater's Church.

His nephew Billy, a successful solicitor and proprietor of the brewery, was elected a liberal MP for Monaghan and supported Gladstone in the passing of the first Land Act securing rights for the tenant farmers. His cousin, the author's great-grandfather John, expanded into a full range of groceries and brought the company, with 12 branch shops, to the stock market in 1899.

Adam, the author's grand-uncle, an expansionist businessman, was a prominent liberal unionist and on good terms with the constitutional nationalists.He championed local government and other necessary reforms, added two variety theatres to the family's activities (one in Belfast) and made some bad investments in a distillery and in copper mining in Lake Superior.

Seven Findlaters went to war in 1914/18 and four did not return home. The Gallipoli story is told in detail. A year later the author's maternal grandfather, Harry de Courcy-Wheeler, as staff captain to General Lowe, had the unenviable task of taking the surrender from the leaders of the 1916 Rising. The prowess of the Wheelers in the field of medicine is told with some amusing anecdotes.

Grandfather Willie was dealt a difficult hand in the first quarter of the century but, as a committee member in the Chamber of Commerce, contributed to the Treaty negotiations setting up the Free State in 1922 and three years later had his own personal showdown with trade unionist James Larkin.

Dermot, the author's father, put his training as a certificated grocer to good effect during the Economic War in the thirties, and steered the company through the intricacies of the Emergency in the forties, but in doing so fell out with Seán Lemass, the then Minister in charge of Supply.

Throughout the book great attention is paid to social detail, to the way people spent their money, to what they ate and drank, and how they lived. A charming chapter describes the careers of the author's aunts whose story spans the whole twentieth century, including their involvement in the Countrywomen's Association, the Girl Guides, good works for their church, and their love of gardening.

The development of the supermarket industry is told in the post-war chapters which cover the painful but ultimately successful transition from old Findlaters to new, which is now one of the country's most successful wine distributors.