Ireland: A Novel [Paperback]

Frank Delaney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2008

In the winter of 1951, a storyteller, the last practitioner of an honored, centuries-old tradition, arrives at the home of nine-year-old Ronan O'Mara in the Irish countryside. For three wonderful evenings, the old gentleman enthralls his assembled local audience with narratives of foolish kings, fabled saints, and Ireland's enduring accomplishments before moving on. But these nights change young Ronan forever, setting him on a years-long pursuit of the elusive, itinerant storyteller and the glorious tales that are no less than the saga of his tenacious and extraordinary isle.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

BBC reporter Delaney's fictionalized history of his native country, an Irish bestseller, is a sprawling, riveting read, a book of stories melding into a novel wrapped up in an Irish history text. In 1951, when Ronan O'Mara is nine, he meets the aging itinerant Storyteller, who emerges out a "silver veil" of Irish mist, hoping to trade a yarn for a hot meal. Welcomed inside, the Storyteller lights his pipe and begins, telling of the architect of Newgrange, who built "a marvelous, immortal structure... before Stonehenge in England, before the pyramids of Egypt," and the dentally challenged King Conor of Ulster, who tried, and failed, to outsmart his wife. The stories utterly captivate the young Ronan ("This is the best thing that ever, ever happened"), and they'll draw readers in, too, with their warriors and kings, drinkers and devils, all rendered cleanly and without undue sentimentality. When Ronan's mother banishes the Storyteller for telling a blasphemous tale, Ronan vows to find him. He also becomes fascinated by Irish myth and legend, and, as the years pass, he discovers his own gift for storytelling. Eventually, he sets off, traversing Ireland on foot to find his mentor. Past and present weave together as Delaney entwines the lives of the Storyteller and Ronan in this rich and satisfying book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

To paraphrase a World War I song, it's a long, long way to the end of Delaney's reland--in more ways than one. In 1951, Alison O'Mara cast out the "last" seanachi, a wandering storyteller who told stories from Irish history and myth to the household and neighbors in exchange for housing and food. The old man left, taking with him the family's peace, stirring up family tensions and secrets. By alternating folklore and historical stories with the story of the O'Mara family, Delaney paints a vivid portrait of the country and fits both storyteller and family into it. There's something for everyone in this book: newcomers to Irish history will relish the rich stories based on real and imagined characters, while readers familiar with tales of the old sod will plow through the stories to find out what happens with the O'Maras. Heavy publicity will ensure demand for this novel, which recalls the work of James Michener and will appeal to readers of family sagas and popular historical fiction. Ellen Loughran
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (February 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061244430
• ISBN-13: 978-0061244438
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (140 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

'The Most Eloquent Man in the World', says NPR, about the writer, broadcaster, BBC host and Booker Prize Judge, Frank Delaney. Over a career of interviews that has lasted more than three decades, Delaney, an international-best-selling author himself, has interviewed more than 3,500 of the world's most important writers.

Frank Delaney has earned top prizes and best-seller status in a wide variety of formats, from prolific author, a polished broadcaster on both television and radio, to journalist, correspondent, screenwriter, lecturer, playwright and scholar. He has been the president of the Samuel Johnson Society, president of the UK Book Trust, and the Literary Director of the famed Edinburgh Festival.

A judge of many literary prizes (including the famous Booker), Delaney also created landmark programs and passionate documentaries on many subjects including Joyce, Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Hemingway, Mailer, Matisse, Van Gogh and the vitality and organic growth of the English language - his famed BBC show on the way we speak, Word of Mouth, is still heard all over the English-speaking world. And his six-part series, The Celts, originally broadcast in forty countries, is still in active DVD distribution, some twenty years after its launch.

Mr. Delaney lectures all over the world, writes every day, and has created a significant podcast series: Re:Joyce, deconstructing, examining and illuminating James Joyce's Ulysses line-by-line, in accessible and entertaining five-minute broadcasts, posted each week on this website. The project is estimated to run a quarter of a century.

Born and raised in County Tipperary, Ireland, Delaney spent more than twenty-five years in England before moving to the United States in 2002. His first 'American' book was the New York Times Bestseller, Ireland. His second, the non-fiction Simple Courage, was chosen as one of the top five books of the year by the American Library Association. Since 2006, he has published five Novels of Ireland, all addressing, decade by decade, the twentieth century history of his homeland. His latest novel, "The Last Storyteller" (Random House, February 7th 2012) celebrates the mysteries of the ancient oral tradition as the last itinerant storytellers work their magic in 1950's Ireland.

Mr. Delaney lives in Litchfield County, Connecticut, with his wife, writer and marketer, Diane Meier.

Delaney broadcasts "Re:Joyce," a weekly podcast on James Joyce's "Ulysses" on his website www.frankdelaney.com. You can find his daily writing tips on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FDbytheword

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

126 of 130 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Voluminous and Impressive Novel, March 5, 2005

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ireland: A Novel (Hardcover)

Some call it the gift of gab. Some call it blarney. Others, the art of storytelling. However you label it, the Irish have a way with words, and spinning --- and living --- an epic tale always has been at the heart of their culture and history.

Frank Delaney's IRELAND is true to this tradition: in both form and content, IRELAND is a tale spun robust and ranging. History and fable merge in this grand story narrated in part by a Seanchai, a traveling storyteller who finds a willing ear in Ronan O'Mara, a nine-year-old boy living in the Irish countryside. Ronan has heard from his father of such people, who entrance folk with larger-than-life yarns in exchange for a seat by a fire and a home-cooked meal. And entrance Ronan he does. The storyteller so influences and inspires young Ronan that he devotes his life to finding him and to seeking out the truths behind the stories.

Sainted characters, rogues on thrones, and lyric poets populate the teller's romances; the pages are full of political and religious unrest and upheaval. Irish history takes on a life all its own, a life rife with fiction and fact, interchangeable and often indiscernible as one from the other.

In the great tradition of Michener and Rutherford, Delaney writes a voluminous and impressive novel, one that captures the magic of Ireland and captivates the reader with its nod at history and wink at myth. Or is it the other way around? Maybe in the end, IRELAND is the epitome of storytelling, with the obligatory generous dash of blarney.

--- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara

68 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful On Many Levels, March 3, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ireland: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is an interesting form of novel. The main character, nine years old in 1951, hears the tales of an itinerant storyteller and in later years wanders across Ireland learning and telling stories that add up to the history and mythology of Ireland. Some of the stories are Irish folklore, some are created for this book, some are actual Irish history.

As I read the above description, it makes the book sound rather dull. It's not. These are delightful stories intermixed the take of a young man growing up as he seeks the story teller who visited his community many years before.

Already a best seller in Ireland (surprise, surprise) this book is likely to go down as one of the best novels of the year. I wouldn't be surprised to see it receive several of the bigger prizes.

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, life-enhancing., February 21, 2005

By 

Eric the Reader "EricK" (New York city) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ireland: A Novel (Hardcover)

My mother was given this book by a friend who bought it in Ireland and who is now giving copies to everyone. I didn't want to read a book about 'Ireland' but this is about so much more than that, this is a book about wonder and delight and enchantment and love and marvelous humanity and now I am going to tell everyone about it. I read all the time but I had given up reading novels because many of them were so badly written. Then I read this book and was captivated from start to finish and I even read it walking along the street because I didn't know that people were writing books like this again. I think this may be the best book I ever read, with the most wonderful, positive, life-enhancing ending.