AN IRISH FARMER

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

AN IRISH FARMER

“Green Fields," by Stephen Rynne (London : Macmillan).

This is an authentic account of life on a small mixed farm in the West of Ireland, compiled, so we are told, from actual journals kept by the author over a period of tgn years. Life seems too short for this enlightened man. to do all he plans to do; his days are full of labour and his heart is full of an intense love of nature and all her workings. Surely there never lived a man more wedded to his pursuit than he; the reader is almost infected with his impatient resentment of his urban visitors and their silly questions. The journal is written in an engagingly intimate style, humorous, and dashed with the romance not far below the surface in all true Irishmen. Some descriptions are beautiful as this one of frost in the beeches: “A mass of tree-heads, ivory as it never will be carved, lace as it never will be fabricated, a tangled head of whitest convolutions beautiful as a bubble, chaste as pear-blossom.” And this of furze: "Glory be to God, what furze! A cavalry charge of it down a whole range of hills.” There is an interesting description of President de Valera at a Bogtrotting Festival, and a vivid account of a pilgrimage to the Reek of Croagh Patrick.

Altogether, a charming and delightful story, one to be read and picked up again and again—a book for the bedside table.