Over My Shoulder is an unashamedly nostalgic account of a happy Presbyterian family in the 1940s and 50s border town of Cavan. Although a mixed community, made up mainly of Roman Catholics, the author recalls no animosity based on religion. She has no ghost to lay, no sordid secrets to disclose making this folk-history, written mainly from the view point of a child-adolescent, all the more unique.

It is a light hearted factual account of the lives and concerns of people in those largely unsung times in that place. There's an emphatic spiritual thread running throughout. As well as both humour and pathos; the authors love of life is apparent.

Other themes which come through strongly are the serenity and happiness attainable through simplicity, humanity's never ending hunger for 'something other' and the cheerful hopefulness and sense of comunity now in danger of being lost. In its focus on the simple and the spiritual, this book might well be an inspiration in these times of environmental awareness, globalisation and universal fear. It doesn't merely give a factual account of old days and old ways but interweaves narrative and description with the author's own spiritual development and her eventual ministry in the Church of Ireland.