Following its entry into the European Union, Ireland changed radically from an impoverished, provincial, former British colony to a country where a farmer takes his wife on skiing holidays in Switzerland. This work debunks a good many stereotypes that prevent our seeing Ireland for what it was, as well as what it has become.

Richard Tillinghast writes vividly and evocatively about the land and people of his adopted home, its culture, its literature, and its long, complex history.