A Day in Our Life

Written by Seán O'Crohan, son of Tomás, the `Islandman', this book is by way of an epilogue to the story of the Gaelic-speaking Blasket, for it tells how, in its dying days, the islanders settled on the West Kerry mainland just after the Second World War. Writing with the typical humour and immediacy of the Blasket tradition, Seán recalls the harshness of island life, casts an ironical eye over the mainland scene, and recalls such colourful characters as Bod, Com, and the Captain, who after a long night at sea came alive again to drink, dance, and play the fiddle. The island of the Great Blasket lies three miles off the Kerry coast of Ireland, at the westernmost tip of Europe. Virtually unknown before this century, it was to produce a rich flowering of literature that has made it famous. One of those who wrote about life in that remote community was Tomas O'Crohan, the author of "The Islandman". This book is by his son, Sean, and is by way of an epilogue to the story of the Gaelic-speaking Blasket, for it tells how the last Blasket islanders settled on the nearby mainland in the 1940s and '50s. The book provides sketches of West Kerry after World War II. Accepting as inevitable the changes that have been brought to the old Gaelic world, Sean O'Crohan surveys the mainland scene with the ironical eye of the islander. He writes with the humour and immediacy that derives from the oral tradition out of which he came. His are flesh and blood characters, like Bod, Com and the Captain, who after a long night at sea come alive again to drink, dance and play the fiddle. To many brought up today in an acquisitive society the community values of the Great Blasket seem attractive. Sean O'Crohan was a realist and knew that life there could not continue. Nevertheless he was to conclude, in the very last words he wrote, "I saw with my own eyes on the Western Island the finest life I would ever see." He also wrote "Westerly Breeze".

160 Pages
Reissue (4 March, 1993)
ISBN:0192831194

Oxford Paperbacks