The Luck of the Irish: Our Life in County Clare - Hardcover

Niall Williams; Christine Breen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569470227 ISBN 13: 9781569470220

Publisher: Soho Press, 2003

Synopsis

The story of a family's decision to return to their homeland describes how two artists left their New York City careers for a life in Kilmihil, adopted two children, and witnessed the elements of change in western Ireland.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Ten years ago, the authors, who are husband and wife, moved to Ireland-Williams's homeland-from suburban New York City to live in a cottage in County Clare. Here they continue their adventures related in O Come Ye Back to Ireland and other books, with survival a central theme, as the couple and their two adopted children struggle to make a living in Kilmihil, with Williams working as a part-time English and French teacher and writing, while Breen takes care of the home, paints and writes. There is the eternal lament on the bad weather and the vanishing hope that it "might clear yet." There is the locals' suspicion of the flesh, with the scandal of topless dancing in Ballyferriter and the production of John B. Keane's "dirty play," The Chastitute. There is also the adventure of discovering western Ireland with a trip to Dingle, where the people of the Gaeltacht, the Irish-speaking region, talk "in foreign-sounding English." Ireland is also a fertile place: Williams's play, The Murphy Initiative, is staged at the Abbey Theater in Dublin and the family's horse foals. Readers will toast this book with a well-deserved slainte. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In several books (O Come Ye Back to Ireland and similarly clich{‚}e-entitled sequels), Williams and Breen recorded, in romantic detail, their escape from New York's rat race to a life in the west of Ireland that seemed every stressed-out American's dream--living in harmony with nature, surrounded by eloquent country folk, at peace with the world and themselves. Muttering cynics will love their new book, for, yup, Paddy, that life ain't what it seemed. A decade into it, Williams and Breen have given up the cows and taken part-time jobs. They struggle with the political and social tensions of their changing homeland. They watch as the countryside they love becomes depopulated and Irish farming economically devastated. The new book affords a fierce, realistic picture of Ireland today, one many Irish-Americans, who devoured the couple's last few books like soda bread on March 17, may not wish to hear. But perhaps the pair's popularity--and charm and vibrancy--will serve through this book to draw attention to the real difficulties the rural Irish face. Patricia Monaghan

About this edition

• Publisher: Soho Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1569470227
• ISBN 13: 9781569470220
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256