In 2001, Homan Potterton enjoyed unexpected literary success with a childhood memoir,
Rathcormick – unexpected because hitherto he had been known as an art historian and former director of the National Gallery of Ireland. But for those aware of him only in these guises, the book provided an insight into the author’s origins as the youngest child of prosperous Irish farming stock. Potterton might have followed the example of his forebears and stayed in rural Ireland, but at the age of 16 he visited France, was taken to a series of chateaux and then guided by a distant cousin around the Louvre. Returning home, he realised that he was not, as had previously appeared to be the case, a fish out of water, but ‘had merely been swimming in the wrong pond’.