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AN IRISH BOOK OF LIVING AND DYING

AN IRISH BOOK OF LIVING AND DYING

$30.00

In this irreverent and riotous memoir, Griffin teaches us how to live forever – or die trying. He advises clients to pass on their stories, and this unputdownable rollick – from the back streets of Dublin to the wilds of Australia – is his crack at practising what he preaches.

Edition: Paperback
Extent: 364 text pages, paperback
Publisher: Vivid Publishing
Memoir Published: August 2021
ISBN: 978-1-922565-52-5

Buy the book now for $30.00 plus $15.00 postage & handling within Australia, for International postage cost, please contact us for a quote.

Donal is a dear colleague of mine seeking to help families, his own and all others flourish. This is his story of his emigration from Ireland to Australia and both a lament and a heroic seeking and finding of self. It is a journey with many twists and turns leading to the emergence of a great soul.

James (Jay) E. Hughes, Jnr
Author of “Family Wealth: Keeping it in the Family” and among others “The Cycle of the Gift: Family Wealth and Wisdom”

The Irish are better than most at living and dying. They invented the craic, an almost indefinable eruption of song, blarney and laughter. They invented the wake, which is much the same thing with the addition of the dear departed. In this delightful memoir, Donal Griffin polishes the tradition with elegant gusto.

Mike Carlton, Australian Broadcaster

SYNOPSIS

In this hilarious, charming and occasionally melancholy memoir, Donal Griffin teaches us how to live forever – or die trying.

As a succession lawyer, he encourages clients to draft more than a sterile Will; he advises them to pass on their stories, in all their grit, graft and glory. The Irish Book of Living and Dying is his crack at practising what he preaches.

From the back streets of Dublin to the phosphorescent oceans of Australia, this is the irreverent tale of an always hopeful search for truth and other ephemeral things that may have always been just within his grasp. Everyone has a story but migrants also have a movie in their heads.

Sprinkled liberally with the immortal words of Wilde, Yeats, Joyce and Beckett, it’s an unputdownable rollick that will slap you in the face with the Salmon of Knowledge, leave you hanging for a pint with the lads, and make you think about your family.

With any luck, when you arrive at the final full stop, you might just be inspired to share your very own story, too.

PRAISE FOR AN IRISH BOOK OF LIVING AND DYING

“this book has really cemented how important the conversation should be with those that we love on how we wish to be remembered – not by wealth or in theory but through the essence of who we are.”

Marisa Broome CFP®, Chair Financial Planning Association

“May its humour and deft recollection of 50 years of being, encourage all of us to take the chance to think about our own Legacy and how we might tell our own story because there are some things ‘we do take with us’ that others might like to know. “

Keith Drewery, KPMG Enterprise

“In this wonderful book, Donal immerses us in what he describes as the Irish ‘condition’ through his witty discussions of growing up in Ireland: parenting Irish-style; Joycean feasts for dinner; custard cream biscuits; glimpses of summer; Beckett on a bus. And of course death and dying as framing everything … with deep and tender insights into family relationships, especially father-son relationships; with special and interesting references to our great Irish literary heroes. This book is truly a wonderful odyssey in the style of great Irish writing”.

Marie Leech, Chair of IGS School

“Family businesses need to think, talk and write down their succession plan. In this book, succession specialist Donal Griffin has done those things for his family. He has also done this to inspire other families by celebrating an ordinary story, learning from experience and sharing his learnings. I encourage all family businesses to do the same. It was also a good read with some universal truths, even though the story is very Irish in many ways.”

Garry Beard, AH Beard Pty Ltd

“Beautifully written with true Irish literary style, this book tells us a lot more about legacy and succession than one would normally learn from a “professional”. The challenges of power dynamics in families, of inheriting and passing on wealth and values – these are the themes of all great art and literature. Donal knows this, and his insight is worth discovering.”

Richard Milroy, Founder & Director, Private Wealth Network

“Griffin has written this memoir as a gift for his young son. It tells of Griffin’s upbringing in 1970s and 80s Ireland and the route, personal, emotional, professional, that took him to the other side of the world. An aperture into Irish social history during a time of rapid transformation, this reflection on how we live, die and talk to one another is laden with humour, erudition, honesty and generous allusions to the Irish literary tradition.”

Professor Ronan McDonald, Gerry Higgins Chair of Irish Studies, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts, The University of Melbourne

“In the real estate business, there is a well worn phrase they use when talking about deciding the value of a property and it is “location, location, location”. If you needed a similar phrase for family business and indeed all families, it would be “communication, communication, communication”. Well, Donal, your book contributes hugely to that mantra”.

Alan Crosbie, Author of “Don’t Leave it to the Children”

“We can learn from personal stories, and be inspired by them. This memoir is about Irish culture, but the themes are universal and the telling is both inspiring and riveting.”

Dennis Jaffe; Author of “Borrowed from Your Grandchildren: The Evolution of 100-Year Family Enterprises” among others

“Maybe writing about actual events, in the first person, if not from Ireland and before you turned seventy, was BAD?”

Dave Eggers, Author of “A Heartbreaking work of staggering genius”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Donal Griffin is a Sydney lawyer with an international outlook. Born and bred in Dublin, he ran away from home and now he’s a long way from where he started.

When he’s not ‘lawyering’, he’s working on his second book, Be a Better Ancestor. And when he’s not doing that, he’s trying to get his son to comply with a written agreement to walk his dog Ninja, looking for new music or using his golf game to keep his humility in check.

An Irish Book of Living and Dying is his first book.

Connect with Donal at dgriffin@legacylaw.com.au

DO YOU WANT MORE INFORMATION?

For information about the Be a Better Ancestor program please visit www.beabetterancestor.com or make contact by email dgriffin@legacylaw.com.au

For legal and succession matters in which we specialise, please make contact by email admin@legacylaw.com.au