IN: Cronin was born in Cardross, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, the only child of a Protestant mother, Jessie Cronin (nee Montgomerie), and a Catholic father, Patrick Cronin. Cronin often wrote of young men from similarly mixed backgrounds. His paternal grandparents had emigrated from County Armagh, Ireland, and become glass and china merchants in Alexandria. Owen Cronin, his grandfather, had had his surname changed from Cronague in 1870.

The Citadel (1937), a tale of a mining company doctor's struggle to balance scientific integrity with social obligations, helped to incite the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom by exposing the inequity and incompetence of medical practice at the time. In the novel Cronin advocated a free public health service in order to defeat the wiles of those doctors who "raised guinea-snatching and the bamboozling of patients to an art form." Dr Cronin and Aneurin Bevan had both worked at the Tredegar Cottage Hospital in Wales, which served as one of the bases for the NHS. The author quickly made enemies in the medical profession, and there was a concerted effort by one group of specialists to get The Citadel banned. Cronin's novel, which was the highest-selling book ever published by Victor Gollancz, informed the public about corruption within the medical system, planting a seed that eventually led to reform. Not only were the author's pioneering ideas instrumental in the creation of the NHS, but the historian Raphael Samuel asserted in 1995 that the popularity of Cronin's novels played a substantial role in the Labour Party's landslide victory in 1945. By contrast, according to one of Cronin's biographers, Alan Davies, the book's reception was mixed. A few of the more vociferous medical practitioners of the day took exception to one of its many messages: that a few well-heeled doctors in fashionable practices were ripping off their equally well-off patients. Some pointed to the lack of balance between criticism and praise for hard-working doctors. The majority accepted it for what it was, a topical novel. The press attempted to incite passions within the profession in an attempt to sell copy, while Victor Gollancz followed suit in an attempt to promote the book, all overlooking the fact that it was a work of fiction, not a scientific piece of research, and not autobiographical. In the United States The Citadel won the National Book Award, Favorite Fiction of 1937, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association. According to a Gallup poll conducted in 1939, The Citadel was voted the most interesting book readers had ever read.
QUESTION: Is there anything else interesting about the citadel?
IN: Albrecht Durer (; German: ['albRect 'dy:Ra]; 21 May 1471 - 6 April 1528) was a painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Durer established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was still in his twenties due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in communication with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 he was patronized by emperor Maximilian I. Durer is commemorated by both the Lutheran and Episcopal Churches.

Durer was born on 21 May 1471, third child and second son of his parents, who had at least fourteen and possibly as many as eighteen children. His father, Albrecht Durer the Elder (originally Albrecht Ajtosi), was a successful goldsmith who in 1455 had moved to Nuremberg from Ajtos, near Gyula in Hungary. One of Albrecht's brothers, Hans Durer, was also a painter and trained under him. Another of Albrecht's brothers, Endres Durer, took over their father's business and was a master goldsmith. The German name "Durer" is a translation from the Hungarian, "Ajtosi". Initially, it was "Turer", meaning doormaker, which is "ajtos" in Hungarian (from "ajto", meaning door). A door is featured in the coat-of-arms the family acquired. Albrecht Durer the Younger later changed "Turer", his father's diction of the family's surname, to "Durer", to adapt to the local Nuremberg dialect. Albrecht Durer the Elder married Barbara Holper, the daughter of his master when he himself became a master in 1467. Durer's godfather was Anton Koberger, who left goldsmithing to become a printer and publisher in the year of Durer's birth and quickly became the most successful publisher in Germany, eventually owning twenty-four printing-presses and having many offices in Germany and abroad. Koberger's most famous publication was the Nuremberg Chronicle, published in 1493 in German and Latin editions. It contained an unprecedented 1,809 woodcut illustrations (albeit with many repeated uses of the same block) by the Wolgemut workshop. Durer may have worked on some of these, as the work on the project began while he was with Wolgemut. Because Durer left autobiographical writings and became very famous by his mid-twenties, his life is well documented by several sources. After a few years of school, Durer started to learn the basics of goldsmithing and drawing from his father. Though his father wanted him to continue his training as a goldsmith, he showed such a precocious talent in drawing that he started as an apprentice to Michael Wolgemut at the age of fifteen in 1486. A self-portrait, a drawing in silverpoint, is dated 1484 (Albertina, Vienna) "when I was a child", as his later inscription says. Wolgemut was the leading artist in Nuremberg at the time, with a large workshop producing a variety of works of art, in particular woodcuts for books. Nuremberg was then an important and prosperous city, a centre for publishing and many luxury trades. It had strong links with Italy, especially Venice, a relatively short distance across the Alps.
QUESTION:
Is anything known of his mother?