LEAVING DUBLIN: WRITING MY WAY FROM IRELAND TO CANADA

Leaving Dublin:
Writing My Way From Ireland to Canada

A Memoir

ISBN 978-1788769648
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Brian Brennan had reached the pinnacle of his career as a newspaper journalist when a tense confrontation with management forced him and his editorial colleagues to walk a picket line for eight months.

Before that, during his 25 years at the Calgary Herald, the Irish-born former musician and radio news announcer had evolved into an award-winning columnist and features writer. Then this totally avoidable strike put his career in jeopardy.

Would there be any going back for him? Told here for the first time, with passion, candour and insightful commentary, is Brennan’s gripping story of that long-drawn-out labour dispute and the events that preceded and followed it. 

Hear what Brennan had to say on CBC Radio One’s As It Happens after the strike ended:

The strike clearly was a traumatic event in Brennan’s multi-faceted career. But there were other, less stressful, more rewarding moments. If you enjoyed reading Russell Baker, Walter Cronkite, Pierre Berton and other journalists who wrote about the lows and highs of their media careers, you’ll love Brennan’s engaging autobiographical account of what it was like to leave music and radio behind for a job at a Canadian regional newspaper that aspired to greatness before its owners sacrificed journalism at the altar of profit.

Read what Brennan wrote about the book on the Irish Times website.

Watch the trailer Brennan created for the book.

Watch Brennan launching the book at Christ Church, Elbow Park, in Calgary on Sept. 6, 2011.

Add this memoir to your library today and discover why one Canadian newspaper – like its counterparts elsewhere – now exists as a faint shadow of what it used to be between the 1970s and the beginning of the 21st century.

Hear what Brennan sounded like, as he recounted in Leaving Dublin, when he made his shaky debut as a radio news announcer on CJCI Radio 620, Prince George, in September 1970:

Hear Brennan’s more polished presentation as a CJCI newscaster in January 1972. It includes a clip of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau predicting that a $10 billion transportation corridor for oil and gas, coupled with a north-south highway from Northern Alberta to the Beaufort Sea, would become a reality in the Mackenzie Valley within ten years:

“Brian Brennan’s arrival in Canada in 1966 was met with a pleasant, brief chat by an immigration officer who closed with, “Welcome to Canada, sir. Make us better. Leaving Dublin shows how an immigrant with limited financial means, but with imagination, charm and a passion for learning, managed to find a way to devote much of his life to telling Canadian stories that simply need to be told. He heeded that immigration officer’s assignment. He made us better.” – Bob Blakey for bookclubbuddy.com

“I certainly never would have expected to be engaged by the travails of an Irish lad learning to play the piano in the early 1950s, or the start of the same youth’s career as a clerk in the Irish civil service, or even scuttlebutt from the Canadian music scene in the 1970s. But the pagesflew by! And, by god, they will for you too if you just face the inevitable and buy a copy.”– David Climenhaga for rabble.ca

“Brian Brennan’s memories of his childhood in Dublin, before heading off to seek a new life for himself in Canada, are amusing, charming, and filled with loving warmth. This is the Dublin and the Ireland that I remember, too, not at all like the place of misery depicted in Angela’s Ashes. A most enjoyable read!” —Dermot Desmond, Irish businessman and financier, Chairman of International Investment and Underwriting

“Brennan modestly says this is ‘the story of an ordinary immigrant from Ireland’, though I must disagree. It is a tale of a remarkable life in Ireland and Canada told with flair and extraordinary skill. Brennan takes the reader on a journey that is both poignant and humorous and spans six decades. You’ll not be disappointed if you go along for the ride. Don’t take my word for it. Read the book.” —Patrick Taylor, New York Times and Globe and Mail best-selling novelist

To read a review of Leaving Dublin by Marilyn Jones of mediamag.ca, please click HERE.

ISBN: 9781926855745 (paperback)

ISBN: 9781926855752 (ebook)

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