Our Like Will Not Be There Again

Notes from the West of Ireland

By (author) Lawrence Millman

Publication date:

10 July 2015

Length of book:

224 pages

Publisher

M. Evans & Company

ISBN-13: 9781590775103

Award-winning travel writer Lawrence Millman tromps through western Ireland's rugged countryside to record the oral history of its people before their hard-earned traditions are permanently stifled by industrialization and development. In doing so he produces a "lovely nugget of good writing" (New York Times) that relays the stories of traditional laborers—tinkers cartwrights, rat-charmers, coopers, thatchers, farriers, gleemen, pig-gelders—with candor and depth.

Preface
Introduction
Proem…And He Not Far From Quiet Hisself
I. The Shanachie
1. Mackerels Was All Me Life
2. I Only Want to Possess What I Have
3. You Can Tell My Stories Aren’t Book Stories
4. My Father Was a Great Man at the Harvesting
II. The Tinker
5. We Could Have All Been Bards
6. The Road is the Best College
7. Listenin’ Was a Great Thing Once
III. Body Parts
8. Who Will You Leave Your Hands to When You Die?
9. After me, It’ll Be Dead. Poetry, I Mean
10. We Are All Islands
Envoi: The Vanishing

Lawrence Millman is that rare traveler—a person with guts and a sense of humor. He is also a wonderful writer.