By Rory O'Connor PRINTISBN: 9781901866537 E-TEXT ISBN: 9781843512226 Edition: 0
Yeats desired to produce written work that, while it had been arduously crafted, would appear as immediate and spontaneous as the ordinary spoken words of people. It is a testament to the achievement of Rory O'Connor that he has accomplished just that by writing a memoir that connects closely to the oral tradition. ... It could be hoped, perhaps, that every community - urban and rural - would have a Rory O'Connor among them who would possess the ability of capturing that society in all its vitality, colour and mystery. If that were possible they would - like this present book - make for fascinating reading." -Derek Hand, Sunday Business Post. "I loved the book ... I carried Rory O'Connor's vivid images and phrases around with me in my imagination long after I had finished reading. He seems to have had the type of magical, untrammelled childhood, populated with extraordinary characters, to which we have all aspired." - Deirdre Purcell. "Gander at the Gate is the best book of its kind since Twenty Years A-Growing. It is vibrant, humorous, delightful, nostalgic and deeply moving to the point of tears ... The characters are wonderful, especially Uncle Jack, who deserves a book to himself sometime. This is a book full of the magical lunacies of a family and it is also a history of a troubled time in which the author's father was a major figure ... I shall read it again and again." - John B. Keane. "Rory O'Connor is a gifted writer, so gifted, in fact, that he can turn the reader into a listener. O'Connor's style of writing is also a style of oral telling. And he is a master storyteller, evoking what he calls "the wonders of life" with consummate skill. He deals with a past that ranges from the gentle to the murderous, the violent and grim to the humorous and fantastical. Gander at the Gate is completely authentic, a gripping feat of memory, a candid, detailed evocation of a lost world." -Brendan Kennelly. Knocknagoshel, north Kerry, in the 1930s. Autumn mornings with mist rolling over a 'kindly and fertile land'
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