Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899. Despite her Irish birth, she is primarily remembered as an Anglo-Irish writer, and for her brilliant accounts of London during the Blitz.

During the years of World War II, or the Emergency as we knew it, she made several trips to Dublin. Her accounts of this trip ended up on the desk of British state intelligence and Downing Street. She tells us much about Ireland during the war, where tea, the cinema and more besides was deeply missed.

You can listen here.