Conamara Chronicles

The greatest triumph of this book's many triumphs is its warm appreciation for family and community that emerge in the lovingly translated texts. These stories foreground the history of Ireland as experienced, remembered, and relived by oral intellectual leaders of a marginalized, and often forgotten, maritime community. . . . Indeed, if silence is the angel with which literature wrestles, these translations give voice to the memory, stories, and legacy of oral intellectuals who feature here and tell the story of history from below. Essential reading for any traveler to Connemara and the West of Ireland.

-- Brian O Conchubhair, University of Notre Dame

Sean Mac Giollarnath's landmark publication of 1941 demonstrates his work in collecting traditional material and transcribing vernacular culture. It is fitting to see the work in translation, and readers seeking to step into the wondrous world of Conamara tradition would do well to begin here."

-- Rionach ui Ogain, University College Dublin

With the same profound and intimate sense of place and absolute command of their source's rich Conamara Irish they brought to their translation of Mairtin O Cadhain's Cre na Cille as Graveyard Clay, in Conamara Chronicles: Tales from Iorras Aithneach-their superb translation of traditional lore originally collected and published by Sean Mac Giollarnath in 1941-Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson bring alive again the people, tales, and culture of another of Ireland's petites patries whose like is unlikely to ever be seen again.

-- Philip O'Leary, Boston College

A vivid and absorbing collection of tales that bring to life whole worlds of imagination and experience. Tim Robinson and Liam Mac Con Iomaire in their remarkable translation capture the poetic vibrancy and profound sensitivity to nature and place of a community of Conamara storytellers who see the local as the portal to the universal.

-- Michael Cronin, Trinity College Dublin