Wild Ireland: A Traveller's Guide (Wild Guides) - Softcover

Lehane, Brendan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1873329342 ISBN 13: 9781873329344

Publisher: Sheldrake Press, 2000

Synopsis

As befits any true scion of the Irish literary tradition, Brendan Lehane spins a good yarn. 'Places to stay are plentiful but distant,' he writes of the Sperrin Mountains - a distinct improvement on the 1930s when the naturalist Robert Praeger and a colleague 'had to share a five-foot bed, both of them over six foot, with their feet sticking out of the window, in the only cottage with rooms to hire. In the morning hens were roosting on their toes'. He has plenty of other tales, drawn from folklore and fact, and an abiding love of the unchanged Irish countryside which informs every paragraph of this witty and readable book. Wild places still exist in abundance in Ireland. As he nicely points out, you can climb a mountain, bathe in the sea, watch thousands of birds co-existing on off-shore stacks, fish for salmon with a good chance of catching one and hear the dusk calls of the corncrake at a river's mouth all in a day. Wild Ireland offers something different from the general run of guide-books. It takes you far beyond Dublin and the other popular tourist destinations such as Cork, Galway and County Kerry, spiriting you away to the remotest sea cliffs, secret valleys and mountain lakes, in Northern Ireland as well as the Republic. If you want to be an armchair traveller, Wild Ireland will entertain and entrance you for hours with word pictures and colour photographs. If you like the sound of a place, look in the accompanying fact-pack and you will find everything you need to plan a journey, arrange a fishing holiday, fix up accommodation or work out the stages for a long-distance walk. Specially drawn maps will enable you to find all the author's favourite spots. In this edition the fact-packs have been packed with more facts than ever: more telephone and fax numbers, more contact names and more outdoor activities together with e-mail and web-site addresses, in short everything necessary to bring this popular and successful guide-book fully up to date.

About this title

Review:

'A magical natural history tour, his lyrical style truly lights the way.' -- The Guardian

'Has history, birds, animals, flowers, mountains and where to stay... A holiday in itself.' -- Harpers & Queen

'Has history, birds, animals, flowers, mountains, and where to stay. A holiday in itself.' -- Harpers & Queen

About the Author:

Brendan Lehane was born in England of Irish parents. His interests are widely spread, but he has written more on Ireland and natural history than anything else. His books include The Companion Guide to Ireland, Dublin in the Time-Life Great Cities series, Early Celtic Christianity, The Power of Plants, The Compleat Flea and Natural History. In 1999 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sheldrake Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1873329342
• ISBN 13: 9781873329344
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 224
• Editor: Rigge Simon
• Illustrator: Schlossman Marc