As Reader in Psychiatry based at the Royal Free Hospital, London and later as Professor of Epidemiological Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, Anthony Mann had a huge influence upon a large number of trainee psychiatrists, many of whom have had distinguished subsequent careers across the spectrum from Child and Adolescent to Old Age Psychiatry. Among those who have contributed to the development of the specialty of old age psychiatry he was a mentor to Gill Livingston, Martin Prince, myself and several others. Although he would not describe himself as an old age psychiatrist, he has done very important epidemiological research on the psychiatric disorders of late life and many members of the International Psychogeriatric Association (IPA) will have heard him speak at IPA and other international meetings.

Several years ago a chance revelation by an elderly cousin alerted the author to the fact that his late mother had had a sister whose existence had been kept secret from him all his life. It turned out that she had been affected by a serious psychiatric illness (probably a bipolar disorder) and had died in a Camberwell nursing home shortly after his father's return from World War II, and that her death appeared to have initiated a serious depressive illness in his mother and his own consequent departure to boarding school at just five years of age. Further enquiries pursued on three continents over nearly a decade uncovered a complex and fascinating family saga, in which Mann's maternal great grandfather Frederick Weatherly, distinguished West Country lawyer and author of the words of a large number of popular songs, including Danny Boy and Roses of Picardy, whose royalties had paid for Mann's education, had played the central role. Weatherly's numerous siblings had scattered across the globe, including one whose descendants included an influential Tasmanian psychiatrist whom Mann almost certainly had met on a professional visit to Hobart, but had not recognised as a close relative. Some of the siblings were enthusiastic but inept businessmen, not least one who ran an unproductive silver mine in the mountains of Colorado and another who tried to farm silver foxes for their fur in upstate New York. Mental illness forms a recurrent theme of the narrative. Weatherly's father was a general practitioner who provided a room in his house for many decades to a man who had attempted suicide and who inspired a love for the classics in Frederick and several of his siblings. Apparently the placement of people with mental illness with families who would provide them with a home and a semblance of normal family life was common practice in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Lionel Weatherly, another sibling, was a distinguished London Psychiatrist whose 1940 obituary commented on his advocacy of early diagnosis and the benefits of keeping the mentally ill in the community. The silver mining brother's Irish wife experienced a severe late onset paranoid illness towards the end of her life in Colorado and one of Lionel Weatherly's daughters had drowned herself in 1935. Another descendent became a psychotherapist in Auckland and of course both Mann's mother and aunt had been affected by what sound to have been distinct but serious affective illnesses.

At the heart of this narrative is a slowly unravelling mystery. How did an Englishman come to pen the words, which, set to the tune of the Londonderry Air, became just about the most recognisable Irish song in existence, one which has been sung at thousands of wakes and funerals of people of Irish heritage in both Ireland and among the huge expatriate Irish diaspora, including those of many of the fireman killed in the collapse of the World Trade Centre? The answer reveals Frederick Weatherly as a complex man with both attractive and unpleasant aspects to his character and as the mystery clarifies one learns much about the social expectations of 19^th and 20^th century Britain, the struggle for existence in depression-era America and a fair bit about the history of psychiatry.

All those who know the author well or slightly will want to read this book, but it would also be of great interest to anyone with Irish heritage or (like me) married to someone who has it, those who care about the history of psychiatry, all lovers of detective stories and people with any curiosity about the lives of our not so distant ancestors.