Companion Guide to Ireland (Companion Guides) - Softcover

Lehane, Brendan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1900639343 ISBN 13: 9781900639347

Publisher: Companion Guides, 2001

Synopsis

Ireland confronts the seas about her with dramatic diversity; the spume-sprayed cliffs of Clare, the bony, probing fingers of Kerry, the seaward tumble of the Mourne and Wicklow mountains, scatters of islands, deep fjords, the smothering dunes of Wexford, and thousands of miles of white or golden sands. Inner Ireland's appeal is quite as real: the dark pastel colours of the bog, haughty houses in pampered demesnes, long thin villages with their spired churches, Georgian Dublin, solitary glories like the Rock of Cashel, or the ruins of the seven churches in the wild green mountain gash of Glendalough.

BRENDAN LEHANE vividly illuminates all these. He brings us to the thrones of ancient kings, to the high, lonely haunts of peregrine and buzzard, to tumbledown castles and abbeys mellow and mouldering in their ivy shrouds. He shows us the Irish people embattled, in love, story-telling, worshipping, joking, starving, abandoning their country in despair. We meet pillaging Vikings, conquering Anglo-Normans, land-grabbing Tudors. We follow in the tracks of Joyce, Wilde, Parnell, Swift, De Valera, Tone, Cromwell, O'Connell, Wellington, Yeats, St Patrick - a motley cast-list of heroes and villains, historic and legendary. With good reason Eric Newby wrote of the first edition All Ireland is in this book.

BRENDAN LEHANE is a writer and journalist whose family has roots in East Cork.

About this title

Review:

Like going on a tour with a friend who combines a historian's meticulous scholarship with an ability to tell a gossipy anecdote with wit and point CATHOLIC HERALD Manages to fit in just about everything... A formidable feat, and the more so for being consistently readable, and frequently entertaining... An admirably comprehensive piece of work, to be recommended to anyone contemplating a visit. THE TIMES As well as being a practical guide it's an exhilarating read... It is a delightful thing: anybody contemplating crossing to Ireland for pleasure shouldn't think of going without consulting it. OBSERVER He writes agreeably and well, he loves the past, and he sees the Anglo-Irish past as clearly as the Old Irish past which preceded it and he sees the buildings and scenery with the same imaginative eye. SUNDAY TIMES He brings vast knowledge, a rare feeling for history and a very genuine love of Ireland to this book... a must. CORK EXAMINER

About the Author:

BRENDAN LEHANE is a writer and journalist, whose family has roots in East Cork.

About this edition

• Publisher: Companion Guides
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1900639343
• ISBN 13: 9781900639347
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 552