Fr Browne's photographs of children are among the most delightful and atmospheric of his whole oeuvre.

The cover photo of this book showing Mr Kitt blowing bubbles for an excited group of young children on a street in an Irish town expresses the spirit of this delightful collection of photos by the celebrated Fr Browne and poems selected by E. E. O'Donnell. They include such favourites as 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles', 'Báidín Fheilimí', 'A Boy's Song' and 'Pippa Passes'.

FRANK BROWNE was born in Sunday's Well, Cork City, in 1880. He was a fellow-student of James Joyce at Belvedere College and at University College Dublin. In 1897 he entered the Jesuit order and was ordained a priest in 1915. He became a chaplain in the Irish Guards during World War I, going on to be the most decorated Roman Catholic 'padre' in the British army. He spent three years in Australia recovering from mustard gas and on his return to Dublin became superior of Gardiner Street Church. In 1929 he was appointed to the Jesuit Retreats and Missions staff, a post in which he served until his death in 1960. His legacy was a collection of over 42,000 photographs - including the ones he took aboard the Titanic in 1912. Fortunately he disembarked at Queenstown, now Cobh, County Cork, and went on to become (as The Irish Times put it) 'Ireland's leading documentary photographer'.