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O Come Ye Back to Ireland: Our First Year in County Clare
Niall and Christine left their careers in New York City for a simpler, more authentic life in a cottage outside the tiny village of Kilmihil in County Clare.
"Their tale is a delightful romance."— The New York Times Book Review
"Their tale is a delightful romance."— The New York Times Book Review
233 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1987
223 people are currently reading
1738 people want to read
About the author
Niall Williams
33 books1,716 followersNiall Williams studied English and French Literature at University College Dublin and graduated with a MA in Modern American Literature. He moved to New York in 1980 where he married Christine Breen. His first job in New York was opening boxes of books in Fox and Sutherland's Bookshop in Mount Kisco. He later worked as a copywriter for Avon Books in New York City before leaving America with Chris in 1985 to attempt to make a life as a writer in Ireland. They moved on April 1st to the cottage in west Clare that Chris's grandfather had left eighty years before to find his life in America.
His first four books were co-written with Chris and tell of their life together in Co Clare.
In 1991 Niall's first play THE MURPHY INITIATIVE was staged at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin. His second play, A LITTLE LIKE PARADISE was produced on the Peacock stage of The Abbey Theatre in 1995. His third play, THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT, was produced by Galway's Druid Theatre Company in 1999.
Niall's first novel was FOUR LETTERS OF LOVE. Published in 1997, it went on to become an international bestseller and has been published in over twenty countries. His second novel, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN was published in 1999 and short-listed for the Irish Times Literature Prize. Further novels include THE FALL OF LIGHT, ONLY SAY THE WORD, BOY IN THE WORLD and its sequel, BOY AND MAN.
In 2008 Bloomsbury published Niall's fictional account of the last year in the life of the apostle, JOHN.
His new novel, HISTORY OF THE RAIN, will be published by Bloomsbury in the UK/Ireland and in the USA Spring 2014. (Spanish and Turkish rights have also been sold.)
Niall has recently written several screenplays. Two have been optioned by film companies.
His first four books were co-written with Chris and tell of their life together in Co Clare.
In 1991 Niall's first play THE MURPHY INITIATIVE was staged at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin. His second play, A LITTLE LIKE PARADISE was produced on the Peacock stage of The Abbey Theatre in 1995. His third play, THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT, was produced by Galway's Druid Theatre Company in 1999.
Niall's first novel was FOUR LETTERS OF LOVE. Published in 1997, it went on to become an international bestseller and has been published in over twenty countries. His second novel, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN was published in 1999 and short-listed for the Irish Times Literature Prize. Further novels include THE FALL OF LIGHT, ONLY SAY THE WORD, BOY IN THE WORLD and its sequel, BOY AND MAN.
In 2008 Bloomsbury published Niall's fictional account of the last year in the life of the apostle, JOHN.
His new novel, HISTORY OF THE RAIN, will be published by Bloomsbury in the UK/Ireland and in the USA Spring 2014. (Spanish and Turkish rights have also been sold.)
Niall has recently written several screenplays. Two have been optioned by film companies.
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March 16, 2018
”Gusts of wind rustled in the bedroom’s old chimney, and with our heads beside it, we vaguely thought of birds or bats descending in the night. The ceiling above us, Chris said, seemed to breathe and sigh and she heard soft shuffling sounds somewhere in the rafters. The sense of disturbing ancestral ghosts snuggled us closer together. Don’t go to sleep until I’m asleep, she said to me. And so, alert and listening to every sound, from the thrashing branches of the sycamore trees to the distant bellowing roar of some bull, we lay in the dark, waiting, waiting, waiting for the silent visitor of sleep on our first night in Kiltumper Cottage.”
After the death of an Irish uncle, the germ of an idea began to form. Chris Breen and Niall Williams were working well paying, but stressful, jobs in Manhattan. The Breen ancestral home in West Ireland was available if they were willing to make the leap. This was the 1980s, and there was a flood of Irish trying to immigrate to the United States. They were swimming against the tide. The plan was that they could finally have the time to devote to writing and painting, and hopefully in the process, figure out how to make a living from those endeavors.
The vision they had of this life didn’t prove to be the reality.
”Dreaming in New York, however, having never spent an entire day just turning earth, I confess to imagining that words and images would fill my head while I was out digging the spuds or turning the turf, that the work itself would be so poetic that the writing would flow from it, naturally, as it were. In our experience, this is a fallacy. I know no one who is handy enough with a shovel that it doesn’t take most of their concentration to dig straight ridges or even a proper planting-hole.”
Where others will see this as a romantic notion, uprooting your life and returning to the country, my perspective is different. I grew up on a farm. I know how difficult it is. On a farm you are always battling the weather, whether it be too much rain, too little rain, hail, or high winds. As the Manhattanites try to raise a garden or even cut bog bricks for the fireplace, they encounter just how fickle nature can be. Many things go wrong and not because they don’t know what they are doing, though that contributes, but because even experience can’t always win against the weather. Some days it was so cold that they couldn’t even hold a book.
The community did help them when they could, but all those people were busy, too.
So the book created some annoyances for me. I found myself squirming at times and rolling my eyes. It is a bit of a cozy, written for people who like to dream of escape to a foreign place and live happily ever after. As I advanced through the pages, I started to be caught up in the charm of these two people really trying to make this work. They didn’t fold up their tent and go home after a month or three but stayed on and did their level best to learn as much as they could about living in the County Clare.
”The overwhelming gloom of sheer aloneness that hangs in the air in rural Ireland is a potent force. It is at once the greatest positive and negative thing about the countryside. For with it comes not only the tremendous peacefulness of life here, the undeniable sense of the spiritual, but also the consequent darker aspects of hopelessness and madness.”
It is best to be busy when you live in the country, for the sheer quiet gives your brain free rein to roam over unaccustomed ground and paranoia, like pneumonia, sweeps in when we are at our lowest point. Being cut off from all that you have known can be a relief, but it can also eventually become detrimental as a mind scrambles for the comfort of the past. When Chris goes back to Manhattan for a visit, Niall experiences real fear that...she...will...never...come...back.
Niall’s starts to sell poetry. Chris sells some paintings. The chickens don’t die. They harvest a few things from the garden, and the sun pokes out for a glorious day that allows them to fetch their turf bog bricks to the shed. Everyone needs a little hope once in awhile. If you love Ireland or just dream of living in the country, you will find this book not only illuminating but oddly inspiring as it replaces your romantic ideals with a more real vision of what you will be up against if you too wish to abandon a soulless existence and search for something with more meaning.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
After the death of an Irish uncle, the germ of an idea began to form. Chris Breen and Niall Williams were working well paying, but stressful, jobs in Manhattan. The Breen ancestral home in West Ireland was available if they were willing to make the leap. This was the 1980s, and there was a flood of Irish trying to immigrate to the United States. They were swimming against the tide. The plan was that they could finally have the time to devote to writing and painting, and hopefully in the process, figure out how to make a living from those endeavors.
The vision they had of this life didn’t prove to be the reality.
”Dreaming in New York, however, having never spent an entire day just turning earth, I confess to imagining that words and images would fill my head while I was out digging the spuds or turning the turf, that the work itself would be so poetic that the writing would flow from it, naturally, as it were. In our experience, this is a fallacy. I know no one who is handy enough with a shovel that it doesn’t take most of their concentration to dig straight ridges or even a proper planting-hole.”
Where others will see this as a romantic notion, uprooting your life and returning to the country, my perspective is different. I grew up on a farm. I know how difficult it is. On a farm you are always battling the weather, whether it be too much rain, too little rain, hail, or high winds. As the Manhattanites try to raise a garden or even cut bog bricks for the fireplace, they encounter just how fickle nature can be. Many things go wrong and not because they don’t know what they are doing, though that contributes, but because even experience can’t always win against the weather. Some days it was so cold that they couldn’t even hold a book.
The community did help them when they could, but all those people were busy, too.
So the book created some annoyances for me. I found myself squirming at times and rolling my eyes. It is a bit of a cozy, written for people who like to dream of escape to a foreign place and live happily ever after. As I advanced through the pages, I started to be caught up in the charm of these two people really trying to make this work. They didn’t fold up their tent and go home after a month or three but stayed on and did their level best to learn as much as they could about living in the County Clare.
”The overwhelming gloom of sheer aloneness that hangs in the air in rural Ireland is a potent force. It is at once the greatest positive and negative thing about the countryside. For with it comes not only the tremendous peacefulness of life here, the undeniable sense of the spiritual, but also the consequent darker aspects of hopelessness and madness.”
It is best to be busy when you live in the country, for the sheer quiet gives your brain free rein to roam over unaccustomed ground and paranoia, like pneumonia, sweeps in when we are at our lowest point. Being cut off from all that you have known can be a relief, but it can also eventually become detrimental as a mind scrambles for the comfort of the past. When Chris goes back to Manhattan for a visit, Niall experiences real fear that...she...will...never...come...back.
Niall’s starts to sell poetry. Chris sells some paintings. The chickens don’t die. They harvest a few things from the garden, and the sun pokes out for a glorious day that allows them to fetch their turf bog bricks to the shed. Everyone needs a little hope once in awhile. If you love Ireland or just dream of living in the country, you will find this book not only illuminating but oddly inspiring as it replaces your romantic ideals with a more real vision of what you will be up against if you too wish to abandon a soulless existence and search for something with more meaning.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
March 16, 2018
4.5 Stars
”In the town of Scariff the sun was shining in the sky
When Willie Clancy played his pipes and the tears welled in my eyes
Many years have passed and gone since the times we had there
But my heart's tonight in Ireland in the sweet County Clare”
-- My Heart’s Tonight in Ireland (In the Sweet County Clare) – Andy Irvine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdVZ0...
”It is now nearly thirty years since Chris and I arrived in Kiltumper, nearly thirty years since her father allowed us to move into his father’s house in Clare and staked us our first four cows, thirty years since we came in the old Peugeot down past O’Shea’s and began the adventures recounted in these pages. And reading the book again now two things at once come to mind. The first is the natural response of anyone reading something they wrote so long ago: 'Were we ever that young?'The second, in light of the very many and remarkable changes that Ireland has undergone since we first arrived, is: 'Was it really like that?'
“The answer to both is yes.”
This is, in Niall Williams words ”as true and accurate a snapshot of our life as I can imagine.”
Written by both himself and his wife, Chris Breen, in alternating segments, this paints a picture of a life so very different from the one they lived in New York City, a life of not only knowing your neighbors, but depending on them. A life of hard work, more rain than they could imagine, hardships, but also of rewards not so easily summed up in a word. They envisioned an idyllic future, surrounded by nature that rewarded them with plenty, and if it wasn’t quite that, I doubt they would have changed a moment looking back.
”It was written by both of us when the events recounted were not even fully past, written at a time in our lives when we were most vulnerable, most filled with dream and hope, and uncertainty as to how our life in Kiltumper would go. In a way, we were writing it in order to convince ourselves that we could make this life work. We were writing a life into happening.”
They could never have imagined what life there would be like, how difficult it could be to get what was so easily obtained in New York, a phone line hooked up and working, how difficult that first year would be. And while the next year that followed brought them more friends, connections, and expectations weren’t quite as high, they couldn’t imagine everything they still had yet to learn, the joys they had yet to experience, the books they had yet to be published, or the love for this place that would grow like her gardens, enriching their lives, filling their heart and souls.
Almost a year ago, I read Niall Williams’ ’History of the Rain’ which I loved. I wanted to read something else by him by him, with my focus (mostly) on everything Irish this month, and had semi-planned on his novel ’As It Is in Heaven’, or possibly his ’Four Letters of Love’ and then came across this memoir-journal / story of their life in this land and I’d say that this won me over.
Kiltumper, named after a chieftain who is buried on the hilltop there, is in County Clare. County Clare, which is often called the home of Irish traditional music, is close to the Atlantic ocean, a beautiful part of this world, at once both wild and lovely. I spent some nights there, in Doolin, most known for the music, a small town that has a bit of everything in small doses – except music, food, and refreshments.
”Kilfenora and Corofin, Lisdoonvarna and Miltown Malbay. Music sounds in those names. It jigs and reels all across the county from Kallaloe to Kilee, from Carrigaholt to Ballyvaughan. It’s the music of pipes and flutes and fiddles playing in even the smallest pubs all along the Atlantic coastline of Clare. Say Doolin, and everyone knows that you are talking about music.”
Finding the thatched roof cottage was not an easy task, but Doolin was a lovely place to spend a few days, and the drive through the Burren where wildflowers abound weaving their way through the craggy limestone rock walls, which walls weave their own way throughout this countryside. It’s unlike anyplace else I’ve ever been. Fierce in its nature, it is lovely if not welcoming in its appearance.
In one of her journal entries included, Chris is pondering what their family and friends think of them, their new life, questioning what they could possibly be doing all day there. She writes: ”We ask ourselves, and answer in the words of Thomas Merton, ‘our business is life itself.”
And that more or less sums up this part of their story, this is the story of, more or less, their first year, years, of living in a land so very different from where they’d lived in New York City, different from where she’d grown up in Westchester County, NY, and different even from where he’d grown up in Dublin.
”Walking with quiet loneliness back along the western road in the still of early evening, together we are Inspectors of Wildflowers, Secretaries of Sunshine, Surveyors of Meadows, Auditors of Birdsong, Clerks of Clouds, Vice-Presidents of Hilltops and Valleys, Bogs, Trees and Everything.
“…We go back to work tomorrow. To writing. To gardening. To living this life we have chosen.”
”In the town of Scariff the sun was shining in the sky
When Willie Clancy played his pipes and the tears welled in my eyes
Many years have passed and gone since the times we had there
But my heart's tonight in Ireland in the sweet County Clare”
-- My Heart’s Tonight in Ireland (In the Sweet County Clare) – Andy Irvine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdVZ0...
”It is now nearly thirty years since Chris and I arrived in Kiltumper, nearly thirty years since her father allowed us to move into his father’s house in Clare and staked us our first four cows, thirty years since we came in the old Peugeot down past O’Shea’s and began the adventures recounted in these pages. And reading the book again now two things at once come to mind. The first is the natural response of anyone reading something they wrote so long ago: 'Were we ever that young?'The second, in light of the very many and remarkable changes that Ireland has undergone since we first arrived, is: 'Was it really like that?'
“The answer to both is yes.”
This is, in Niall Williams words ”as true and accurate a snapshot of our life as I can imagine.”
Written by both himself and his wife, Chris Breen, in alternating segments, this paints a picture of a life so very different from the one they lived in New York City, a life of not only knowing your neighbors, but depending on them. A life of hard work, more rain than they could imagine, hardships, but also of rewards not so easily summed up in a word. They envisioned an idyllic future, surrounded by nature that rewarded them with plenty, and if it wasn’t quite that, I doubt they would have changed a moment looking back.
”It was written by both of us when the events recounted were not even fully past, written at a time in our lives when we were most vulnerable, most filled with dream and hope, and uncertainty as to how our life in Kiltumper would go. In a way, we were writing it in order to convince ourselves that we could make this life work. We were writing a life into happening.”
They could never have imagined what life there would be like, how difficult it could be to get what was so easily obtained in New York, a phone line hooked up and working, how difficult that first year would be. And while the next year that followed brought them more friends, connections, and expectations weren’t quite as high, they couldn’t imagine everything they still had yet to learn, the joys they had yet to experience, the books they had yet to be published, or the love for this place that would grow like her gardens, enriching their lives, filling their heart and souls.
Almost a year ago, I read Niall Williams’ ’History of the Rain’ which I loved. I wanted to read something else by him by him, with my focus (mostly) on everything Irish this month, and had semi-planned on his novel ’As It Is in Heaven’, or possibly his ’Four Letters of Love’ and then came across this memoir-journal / story of their life in this land and I’d say that this won me over.
Kiltumper, named after a chieftain who is buried on the hilltop there, is in County Clare. County Clare, which is often called the home of Irish traditional music, is close to the Atlantic ocean, a beautiful part of this world, at once both wild and lovely. I spent some nights there, in Doolin, most known for the music, a small town that has a bit of everything in small doses – except music, food, and refreshments.
”Kilfenora and Corofin, Lisdoonvarna and Miltown Malbay. Music sounds in those names. It jigs and reels all across the county from Kallaloe to Kilee, from Carrigaholt to Ballyvaughan. It’s the music of pipes and flutes and fiddles playing in even the smallest pubs all along the Atlantic coastline of Clare. Say Doolin, and everyone knows that you are talking about music.”
Finding the thatched roof cottage was not an easy task, but Doolin was a lovely place to spend a few days, and the drive through the Burren where wildflowers abound weaving their way through the craggy limestone rock walls, which walls weave their own way throughout this countryside. It’s unlike anyplace else I’ve ever been. Fierce in its nature, it is lovely if not welcoming in its appearance.
In one of her journal entries included, Chris is pondering what their family and friends think of them, their new life, questioning what they could possibly be doing all day there. She writes: ”We ask ourselves, and answer in the words of Thomas Merton, ‘our business is life itself.”
And that more or less sums up this part of their story, this is the story of, more or less, their first year, years, of living in a land so very different from where they’d lived in New York City, different from where she’d grown up in Westchester County, NY, and different even from where he’d grown up in Dublin.
”Walking with quiet loneliness back along the western road in the still of early evening, together we are Inspectors of Wildflowers, Secretaries of Sunshine, Surveyors of Meadows, Auditors of Birdsong, Clerks of Clouds, Vice-Presidents of Hilltops and Valleys, Bogs, Trees and Everything.
“…We go back to work tomorrow. To writing. To gardening. To living this life we have chosen.”
March 17, 2022
What a joy it was to read this again!
Last year I was privileged to devour an advance review copy of "In Kiltumper; A Year in an Irish Garden" by Niall Williams and Christine Breen. I remembered reading their original account of their move to Ireland way back in 1987. I quickly reordered my lost copy of "O Come Ye Back to Ireland: Our First Year in County Clare" and reclaimed lost friends and memories.
A young couple gives up the rat race in New York and fall in love with the romantic notion of moving to the remote town of Kiltumper in western Ireland, in a farming cottage Christine's family once lived in. Niall will concentrate on writing, Christine will sell paintings, and they will both work on gardening and farming. The couple find that beautiful Ireland is a harsh place to live in, however. The whole culture shock is made vividly clear in this touching and endearing book. The land so slow to change provides a reflection of what life was like for our ancestors.
This book is returning to the bookshelf with the promise that it will not be another 35 years before I return. Sláinte.
Last year I was privileged to devour an advance review copy of "In Kiltumper; A Year in an Irish Garden" by Niall Williams and Christine Breen. I remembered reading their original account of their move to Ireland way back in 1987. I quickly reordered my lost copy of "O Come Ye Back to Ireland: Our First Year in County Clare" and reclaimed lost friends and memories.
A young couple gives up the rat race in New York and fall in love with the romantic notion of moving to the remote town of Kiltumper in western Ireland, in a farming cottage Christine's family once lived in. Niall will concentrate on writing, Christine will sell paintings, and they will both work on gardening and farming. The couple find that beautiful Ireland is a harsh place to live in, however. The whole culture shock is made vividly clear in this touching and endearing book. The land so slow to change provides a reflection of what life was like for our ancestors.
This book is returning to the bookshelf with the promise that it will not be another 35 years before I return. Sláinte.
March 29, 2022
This is a characterized as a journal and a joint effort between Niall Williams and his wife, Christine Breen. I was reading along, and it was a pleasant read, and I was going to give it 3 stars but then a little more than half-way through, I had become more invested in them and their neighbors of his...anyway something changed and I think it’s a 4-star book. I know what changed actually...they found out they couldn’t have children and they really wanted children. That was sad...anyhoo that’s when I started feeling for them.
I couldn’t believe how much it rained the first year they were in their little house in West Ireland. I guess it came close to breaking a record in terms of rainfall and days that it rained. They had trouble getting enough peat over the summer months to store in their shed which was to be primary fuel/heating source over the winter months. They did not have a furnace....they didn’t have many creature comforts actually. They had a telephone installed in which you had to call an operator in order to make a call to another county in Ireland (it wasn’t even a pushbutton phone)...a black-and-white TV...and this was 1985! (Seemed more like 1955.....)
Some of their descriptions of life in the rural setting in which they lived sounded enticing but it was really tempered with the constant rain, dampness, difficulty in getting some supplies, working out in the bog field cutting turf...no thank ye! 🤨 🙃
Review:
• http://jeffreykeeten.com/blog/o-come-...
I couldn’t believe how much it rained the first year they were in their little house in West Ireland. I guess it came close to breaking a record in terms of rainfall and days that it rained. They had trouble getting enough peat over the summer months to store in their shed which was to be primary fuel/heating source over the winter months. They did not have a furnace....they didn’t have many creature comforts actually. They had a telephone installed in which you had to call an operator in order to make a call to another county in Ireland (it wasn’t even a pushbutton phone)...a black-and-white TV...and this was 1985! (Seemed more like 1955.....)
Some of their descriptions of life in the rural setting in which they lived sounded enticing but it was really tempered with the constant rain, dampness, difficulty in getting some supplies, working out in the bog field cutting turf...no thank ye! 🤨 🙃
Review:
• http://jeffreykeeten.com/blog/o-come-...
February 5, 2023
O Come Ye Back to Ireland was first published in 1987 by Niall Williams and Christine Breen whose beautiful pen and ink drawings are throughout the book. In my electronic copy, the Preface by Niall Williams ponders that it has been nearly thirty years since he and Chris arrived in Kiltumper and her father had allowed them to move into his father's house in Clare.
After much agonizing about their decision, Niall and Christine resigned from their jobs in Manhattan to come and live in the west of Ireland. And as their departure became imminent, Christine's favorite question would be for Niall to tell her what it will be like to live there, and his response:
This beautiful memoir is the first of four books as Niall Williams and Christine Breen begin their new lives in County Clare. As it turned out, they were startled to learn that it was the fifth anniversary of Johnny Breen's death. But just so are things in Ireland. Coincidences, patterns, and omens all blown together in the wind and the rain." This was an amazing story as told by Niall and Christine, all with lovely traditions and beautiful prose as they live out their dream. I am looking forward to reading the next book, When Summer's in the Meadow.
"And reading this book again now two things at once come to mind. The first is a natural response to something they wrote that long ago: 'Were we ever that young?' The second, in light of the very many and remarkable changes that Ireland has undergone since they first arrived, is: 'Was it really like that?' The answer to both is yes."
After much agonizing about their decision, Niall and Christine resigned from their jobs in Manhattan to come and live in the west of Ireland. And as their departure became imminent, Christine's favorite question would be for Niall to tell her what it will be like to live there, and his response:
"We will have time and beauty. We will make the house a home of books and music, of painting and flowers, of homemade bread and hot scones, of pullets and piglets, carrots and turnips, and the thick sweet scent of turf fires. We will get up early in the morning with strong brewed cups of tea, and go to work in the garden, feed the animals and tend to the house. We will use the fine changing light of afternoon for more tea and work, writing and painting until later at nightfall, we will drive circular, coastal roads to the sea. To Doolin to hear music and see the majestic, mood-heavy tumble of the world's greatest ocean."
This beautiful memoir is the first of four books as Niall Williams and Christine Breen begin their new lives in County Clare. As it turned out, they were startled to learn that it was the fifth anniversary of Johnny Breen's death. But just so are things in Ireland. Coincidences, patterns, and omens all blown together in the wind and the rain." This was an amazing story as told by Niall and Christine, all with lovely traditions and beautiful prose as they live out their dream. I am looking forward to reading the next book, When Summer's in the Meadow.
July 10, 2016
I really liked the book. It made me want to go there myself and absorb the culture. Good stuff.
March 29, 2022
A beautiful exposé on Irish culture through the lens of New York city people. It made me want to visit the country, but I'm still too mentally stuck in suburbia to commit to a rural lifestyle. Beautifully written.
July 18, 2022
A slow gentle first installment of Niall and Chrissie's move to a very small village in Ireland. So much adversity, but the welcoming by the village and the beautiful setting brings joy! Looking forward to the second installment.
February 11, 2012
O Come Ye Back to Ireland by Niall Williams and Christine Breen is an engaging memoir about the couple's first year in County Clare, Ireland. They moved to the quiet, rural setting from their busy, urban lives in New York City. The book recounts their losses and their revelations during the year and everything the learned along the way. It almost made me pick up and move to my own little oasis in Ireland . . . almost.
Christine Breen is the American born daughter of Irish parents attending University College Dublin when she meets Niall Williams who was born in Ireland's capital city. Ultimately, they marry and set up life in NY with jobs in Manhattan and a home just outside the city. Christine's family home in Kiltumper, West Clare becomes available after the death of her uncle and a seed is planted as she finds herself inexplicably drawn back there. At the same time, the couple has begun to grown weary of their lives in the city. Niall writes:
It [Kiltumper] struck us as so utterly different from anywhere we had ever been, so remote, so very rural. Each time we shook our heads, and returned to New York. Why then did we change our minds and commit ourselves to the West of Ireland? Because when we walked up the streets of Manhattan too many people pushed too hard to cross the street or squeezed too hard to get into too few subways ...And there would suddenly be the sense of a place far from the rushing streets, a place remote from the extravagant, urgent business of today, an old place growing older in the rain.
Clare Coastline - credit
After wrestling with the pros and cons of such a big move - afterall, the couple were moving to Ireland in the 80's at the height of great emigration from Ireland - they decide to take the leap and head for the West of Ireland. The book recounts their initial shocks and struggles as they try to adjust to life in a very rural, albeit picturesque, rugged West Clare. They arrive to their cottage which is in need of a lot of work and has little furniture and try to make it a home. Something as seemingly simple as purchasing a car becomes an ordeal as they try to navigate the rules of road taxes and licenses; this is made all the more difficult by the lack of direct dial telephone service in their small village. The convenience of picking up the phone and trying to get something "sorted" was not to be had. So the couple waited in relative isolation as they tried to get the many pieces of their life in Ireland in order - home, car, furniture. Niall speaks here to that isolation:
We saw a clearing in the south; the more land we saw from the window, the less isolated we felt. .... to Chris and me the overwhelming gloom of sheer aloneness that hangs in the air in rural Ireland is a potent force. It is at once the greatest positive and negative thing about the countryside
Village, Clare - credit
The people of their village, however, are their salvation. The steady couple next door visits with freshly made food and brings welcome company on cold, otherwise lonely evenings. Michael and Pauline head to the bog to help Niall and Christine with the back breaking work of cutting the turf - turf which is necessary to heat their home and cook their food but requires a grueling series of steps over many weeks and months to get it ready to burn. The story of their first Christmas and the story of the death of a much loved woman in the village perfectly highlights the tight knit farming community they had become part. In both instances, all the families in the village pull together to cook and bake readying themselves for visitors and they go to each others homes to share a bit of food and some stories. It is the neighbors that ultimately sustain Christine and Niall in that first year of adjustment.
I was captivated by this book on many levels. First and foremost, it is very well written - there is almost a lyrical tone to many of the passages. There is a touch of humor as the couple muse at the new world in which they find themselves. Perhaps most of all, however, is the setting. The West of Ireland, although rugged and spare, has a certain draw. As I have mentioned before on the blog, my Mom is from the West and we went "home" to Ireland most summers to visit my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in a small farming village not unlike Kiltumper. Much of what amazed and frustrated them about the area were things I could relate to and reminded me of the happy times we spent in Ireland. Every time I visit I consider whether or not I could live there and feel pulled to the country; each time, however, I decide it is too big of change. Perhaps that is why the story of this couple seems especially compelling.
Emigration is the theme on which this book is built and that seems appropriate in a country which has in many ways been defined by waves of emigration. This scene described by Niall so perfectly captures the reality of emigration:
To know the real story of the West of Ireland, spend a day in Shannon Airport at the foot of the stairs to the departure lounge. They come in little clusters, farming families dressed in their best clothes, with a son or daughter moving slightly ahead in anticipation of the dreaded moment of goodbye. Mothers' faces are damp with tears, fathers are stiff with emotion, and they all grasp the rails of the moving stairs. It is joyous and sad at once. An old Irish image, the farewell has lived on through centuries of immigration and is as real today as it ever was . . . . Shannon airport is a an emotional place for people in the West. More than an airport, it is an escape hatch to America for the young and the symbol of Ireland's massive unemployment problem.
The image of traveling to Shannon in our best is very vivid for me as I remember seeing my grandfather in his suit when we came through arrivals in Shannon at the beginning of our trip and in that same suit with tears in his eyes as we went back up to Shannon six weeks later to return to NY. I never realized it then but my grandparents had to relive the farewells and departures every year without knowing if we would make it back - or they would be there- the next year. Obviously I felt a personal connection to this book but even without that this is a charming memoir about the bravery to start all over and what you learn along the way. It gives a peek into real Irish country life and all that comes along with it. If you like Ireland or memoirs or stories about starting over, you will find something to love in this book.
Christine Breen is the American born daughter of Irish parents attending University College Dublin when she meets Niall Williams who was born in Ireland's capital city. Ultimately, they marry and set up life in NY with jobs in Manhattan and a home just outside the city. Christine's family home in Kiltumper, West Clare becomes available after the death of her uncle and a seed is planted as she finds herself inexplicably drawn back there. At the same time, the couple has begun to grown weary of their lives in the city. Niall writes:
It [Kiltumper] struck us as so utterly different from anywhere we had ever been, so remote, so very rural. Each time we shook our heads, and returned to New York. Why then did we change our minds and commit ourselves to the West of Ireland? Because when we walked up the streets of Manhattan too many people pushed too hard to cross the street or squeezed too hard to get into too few subways ...And there would suddenly be the sense of a place far from the rushing streets, a place remote from the extravagant, urgent business of today, an old place growing older in the rain.
Clare Coastline - credit
After wrestling with the pros and cons of such a big move - afterall, the couple were moving to Ireland in the 80's at the height of great emigration from Ireland - they decide to take the leap and head for the West of Ireland. The book recounts their initial shocks and struggles as they try to adjust to life in a very rural, albeit picturesque, rugged West Clare. They arrive to their cottage which is in need of a lot of work and has little furniture and try to make it a home. Something as seemingly simple as purchasing a car becomes an ordeal as they try to navigate the rules of road taxes and licenses; this is made all the more difficult by the lack of direct dial telephone service in their small village. The convenience of picking up the phone and trying to get something "sorted" was not to be had. So the couple waited in relative isolation as they tried to get the many pieces of their life in Ireland in order - home, car, furniture. Niall speaks here to that isolation:
We saw a clearing in the south; the more land we saw from the window, the less isolated we felt. .... to Chris and me the overwhelming gloom of sheer aloneness that hangs in the air in rural Ireland is a potent force. It is at once the greatest positive and negative thing about the countryside
Village, Clare - credit
The people of their village, however, are their salvation. The steady couple next door visits with freshly made food and brings welcome company on cold, otherwise lonely evenings. Michael and Pauline head to the bog to help Niall and Christine with the back breaking work of cutting the turf - turf which is necessary to heat their home and cook their food but requires a grueling series of steps over many weeks and months to get it ready to burn. The story of their first Christmas and the story of the death of a much loved woman in the village perfectly highlights the tight knit farming community they had become part. In both instances, all the families in the village pull together to cook and bake readying themselves for visitors and they go to each others homes to share a bit of food and some stories. It is the neighbors that ultimately sustain Christine and Niall in that first year of adjustment.
I was captivated by this book on many levels. First and foremost, it is very well written - there is almost a lyrical tone to many of the passages. There is a touch of humor as the couple muse at the new world in which they find themselves. Perhaps most of all, however, is the setting. The West of Ireland, although rugged and spare, has a certain draw. As I have mentioned before on the blog, my Mom is from the West and we went "home" to Ireland most summers to visit my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in a small farming village not unlike Kiltumper. Much of what amazed and frustrated them about the area were things I could relate to and reminded me of the happy times we spent in Ireland. Every time I visit I consider whether or not I could live there and feel pulled to the country; each time, however, I decide it is too big of change. Perhaps that is why the story of this couple seems especially compelling.
Emigration is the theme on which this book is built and that seems appropriate in a country which has in many ways been defined by waves of emigration. This scene described by Niall so perfectly captures the reality of emigration:
To know the real story of the West of Ireland, spend a day in Shannon Airport at the foot of the stairs to the departure lounge. They come in little clusters, farming families dressed in their best clothes, with a son or daughter moving slightly ahead in anticipation of the dreaded moment of goodbye. Mothers' faces are damp with tears, fathers are stiff with emotion, and they all grasp the rails of the moving stairs. It is joyous and sad at once. An old Irish image, the farewell has lived on through centuries of immigration and is as real today as it ever was . . . . Shannon airport is a an emotional place for people in the West. More than an airport, it is an escape hatch to America for the young and the symbol of Ireland's massive unemployment problem.
The image of traveling to Shannon in our best is very vivid for me as I remember seeing my grandfather in his suit when we came through arrivals in Shannon at the beginning of our trip and in that same suit with tears in his eyes as we went back up to Shannon six weeks later to return to NY. I never realized it then but my grandparents had to relive the farewells and departures every year without knowing if we would make it back - or they would be there- the next year. Obviously I felt a personal connection to this book but even without that this is a charming memoir about the bravery to start all over and what you learn along the way. It gives a peek into real Irish country life and all that comes along with it. If you like Ireland or memoirs or stories about starting over, you will find something to love in this book.
September 29, 2008
This is an amazing book. A couple leaves their jobs in NYC and moves to Ireland in the 80's. We're talking rural Ireland. Farms, burning peat to heat the house, some people with no electricity or phones... It's a memoir, not a novel. I love books about Ireland. I love that people there tell stories as a national pastime. There's a lyricism and beauty and can you tell I want to move there? Anyway, it's great to read a first hand account of outsiders who find a place where things move more slowly, where people seem to care more, and where it's always misty out. The rest of the series is also worth reading.
September 25, 2025
This book brought to page (and to life) my experiences in Ireland. The simple piety (and superstitions) of the people, the jokes, the shyness, the mannerisms, in all—the way of being. The romanticism of a land wrapped in rain, crowned in green, ablaze with sunshine, is often muddled by sorrow, bitterness, and agony. Ireland is a raw land: old and civilized, but raw. Raw in beauty, raw in emotion. Turbulent as the Atlantic that roils at its western coast, peaceful as a gentle breeze on the few summer days.
It is a funny thing, to love a land you have spent so few days in. To feel a patriotism for a country of which you are not a citizen. To weep for a nation that has lost its faith and lost its way. The bones of Ireland remain, but will sinew again cover the dry bones?
The people abandon their faith, the culture is tossed aside for modern frivolities.
But the cold rains end, and the cold winds grow warmer. And spring comes. Pray that the spring may be a good one. That flowers may again litter the land of Patrick’s people. The road will rise to meet you yet again, the rains will fall again gently on your fields. Irish men both stout and tall shall rally unto the call. To walk humbly with God once again.
It is a funny thing, to love a land you have spent so few days in. To feel a patriotism for a country of which you are not a citizen. To weep for a nation that has lost its faith and lost its way. The bones of Ireland remain, but will sinew again cover the dry bones?
The people abandon their faith, the culture is tossed aside for modern frivolities.
But the cold rains end, and the cold winds grow warmer. And spring comes. Pray that the spring may be a good one. That flowers may again litter the land of Patrick’s people. The road will rise to meet you yet again, the rains will fall again gently on your fields. Irish men both stout and tall shall rally unto the call. To walk humbly with God once again.
February 13, 2025
This is a fascinating glimpse at what it looks like to leave behind all the comforts of a big American city and move to the “middle of nowhere” to a tiny town in Ireland. Both Niall and his wife Christine, knew there would be challenges, but they could never have predicted all the heartbreaks of their first year in Clare County. Neither could they have known how the harsh beauty would settle into their hearts and make them fiercely devoted to their new home. They also discovered rich relationships and life-giving traditions. And talents they never knew they had.
Niall’s writing is stark and beautiful, much like his surrounding landscape. I appreciated that though this book was written 30 years after their 1985 move, they did not try to whitewash the past. Combining their reflections and diary entries, they avoided every semblance of trying to sound heroic. Still, I found their grace and courage in the face of many setbacks to be inspiring.
Niall’s writing is stark and beautiful, much like his surrounding landscape. I appreciated that though this book was written 30 years after their 1985 move, they did not try to whitewash the past. Combining their reflections and diary entries, they avoided every semblance of trying to sound heroic. Still, I found their grace and courage in the face of many setbacks to be inspiring.
September 12, 2021
Having read and enjoyed several of Niall Williams’ novels set in Ireland it was interesting to discover that he and his wife, Christine Breen have co-authored a series of books based on their experiences moving to County Clare where they’ve lived since 1985. This one is the first and it definitely left me planning to read the others.
Like many people who’ve been to Ireland, I’ve sometimes wondered what it would be like to find a little cottage hidden away in some remote area of Western Ireland and just live there. That’s exactly what Niall and Christine decided to do, leaving behind lucrative careers in New York with nothing to replace them but dreams of being a writer and an artist once they got settled.
Not everyone can just pick up and move to Ireland with nothing but vague plans for what to do when they got there but in this case it helped a lot that Niall’s parents lived in Dublin and could be relied on in a pinch. Most of all it helped that they had a place to live – an old cottage that had belonged to Chris’ grandfather along with 50 acres of grassland. Best of all there were plenty of people nearby who remembered her family and were happy to welcome her and Niall to the small, closely knit community of Kiltumper and help them learn to adjust to their new way of life.
To say the book is a charming look at what that entailed doesn’t really do it justice because it wasn’t always easy for Chris and Niall and there were plenty of disappointments and failures along the way. Nevertheless, this is a lovely evocation of a way of life that by now is largely lost (how many families still depend on turf fires for heating and cooking? Do neighbors still gather together in each other’s homes on long winter nights with fiddles and bodhrans for music and dancing?)
But hopefully the thing that hasn’t changed all that much is the rugged beauty of Western Ireland which those who are lucky enough to have seen for themselves know all about. The fact that Niall Williams and Christine Breen have been able to make their dream of living there a reality is something the rest of us can’t help but envy.
Like many people who’ve been to Ireland, I’ve sometimes wondered what it would be like to find a little cottage hidden away in some remote area of Western Ireland and just live there. That’s exactly what Niall and Christine decided to do, leaving behind lucrative careers in New York with nothing to replace them but dreams of being a writer and an artist once they got settled.
Not everyone can just pick up and move to Ireland with nothing but vague plans for what to do when they got there but in this case it helped a lot that Niall’s parents lived in Dublin and could be relied on in a pinch. Most of all it helped that they had a place to live – an old cottage that had belonged to Chris’ grandfather along with 50 acres of grassland. Best of all there were plenty of people nearby who remembered her family and were happy to welcome her and Niall to the small, closely knit community of Kiltumper and help them learn to adjust to their new way of life.
To say the book is a charming look at what that entailed doesn’t really do it justice because it wasn’t always easy for Chris and Niall and there were plenty of disappointments and failures along the way. Nevertheless, this is a lovely evocation of a way of life that by now is largely lost (how many families still depend on turf fires for heating and cooking? Do neighbors still gather together in each other’s homes on long winter nights with fiddles and bodhrans for music and dancing?)
But hopefully the thing that hasn’t changed all that much is the rugged beauty of Western Ireland which those who are lucky enough to have seen for themselves know all about. The fact that Niall Williams and Christine Breen have been able to make their dream of living there a reality is something the rest of us can’t help but envy.
July 4, 2008
This book was almost escapist for me. =) Though it sounds very cliche to say that this is a book about a couple from Manhattan who return to their families' native rural region in Ireland, it's so much quieter and nicer than that. The picture the authors paint is certainly not all rosy--trying to cut the sod, keep the farm going, raise animals, and in general keep life going turns out to be much more in depth than the couple ever thought. It was interesting to see how the authors' viewpoint had shifted by the end of the book. They mention how they went on vacation for a few days and found they worried about their crops and their animals the whole time. Having put so much time and investment into them and having tended to it all themselves, they wanted to be there to protect it. Overall, it's just a relaxing read when you--and your mind--want to be somewhere else.
April 2, 2011
A gentle, tender kind of narrative. Memoir of the authors (husband and wife each write parts) who left NYC in 1985ish to take up the rural life of County Clare, Ireland. Painters/writers, novice farmers, they chronicle their struggles and adjustments honestly and sweetly. Oh the endless rain, the ruined garden, the amusing tale of Niall (husband) attending "farmer school." I really liked it.
October 24, 2015
It was interesting to read about the differences between a hectic life in 1980s New York and the rustic ways of coastal County Clare. The life of the two authors is what I imagined my life would be like when I graduated high school -I'll meet some artistic Irishman who takes me back to his home country and I spend the rest of my life raising sheep and growing flowers.
October 12, 2019
In this charming true story, a young couple moves from New York City to a small country town in Ireland to make their living through farming and creative pursuits. Each partner has a voice in the tale, and in addition to showing their struggles and triumphs, they paint a realistic picture of the way of life in a small, farming community in Western Ireland in the eighties. Reread.
May 20, 2012
A must read for those interested in Ireland. A very personal, well written part one of a trilogy of Niall and Christine's return to her family's home and landscape. Having travelled to Ireland many times over the past 30 years, I am still learning from this book.
March 16, 2010
Phenomenal writing. As someone who yearns to live in Ireland, this story of an American/Irish couple moving to County Clare and learning to farm was moving.
April 27, 2012
I loved every book they wrote in this charming series of a couple that moved from New York to Ireland and the accompanying social/culture shocks. Funny and very entertaining.
May 7, 2025
Delightful and evocative memoir of two creative young people, one Irish, one of Irish descent, returning to a rural life where they can farm and follow their artistic pursuits.
October 15, 2013
Read this in a couple of days. Loved the first-person narrative chapters by Niall, inter-laced with journal entries written by Christine.
I cared about them and the neighbors, family members and village folk depicted in the first year of their dream of quitting the New York
rat-race and settling into the Breen cottage in Co. Clare, West Ireland, Christine's ancestral home. I'm delighted to see that subsequent
books follow the story forward through adoption of two children and travel around the country. I look forward to reading more of these
non-fiction works. On their website, I recognized the photo and information about Christine, and realized I had been to the website before.
I then realized I had read "The Fall of Light" a novel by Niall and kept it on my shelf, as I only do with books I especially like.
I cared about them and the neighbors, family members and village folk depicted in the first year of their dream of quitting the New York
rat-race and settling into the Breen cottage in Co. Clare, West Ireland, Christine's ancestral home. I'm delighted to see that subsequent
books follow the story forward through adoption of two children and travel around the country. I look forward to reading more of these
non-fiction works. On their website, I recognized the photo and information about Christine, and realized I had been to the website before.
I then realized I had read "The Fall of Light" a novel by Niall and kept it on my shelf, as I only do with books I especially like.
July 2, 2018
A charming and simple read about an Irish-American (or is it American-Irish?) couple who decide to drop out of the New York rat race in favor of the green acres of County Clare. The details about the hardships, idiosyncrasies, and blessings of life in the west of Ireland are lovingly detailed and candidly related. The high point for me was reading of their participation in a local drama competition in which they and their neighbors successfully staged one of Synge's more difficult plays. That an area as rustic and rural as the one described in this book (yes, I have been there myself) rallies around the cause of drama and literature says about as much in the way of tribute to the indefatigable humanity of these inhabitants of the boglands and wind-swept farms of Clare as anything I could think to say.
July 26, 2017
A memoir of life in rural western Ireland in the mid 1980s, this book is a snapshot of a country on the brink of emerging into modern society. The authors were particularly suited to capturing the lore, as well as the lovely people and the difficulty of a small farmer's struggle to wrest a living from the land. Their Irish heritage gave them a love and dedication to a fast-disappearing way of life, while their former lives in NYC gave them a perspective in high contrast to their new adventure, and their background working in the arts made for a pleasurable reading experience. Nicely written, humorous and heartbreaking, and a lovely trip back in time, so to speak.
April 26, 2015
I loved reading the story of Niall Williams and Christine Breen, who left their jobs and home in NYC to live in rural Ireland. Though they both had relatives in the country and had visited there several times, it was extremely difficult getting used to the old house into which they moved, the way things ran, growing crops, cutting turf and farming, among other tasks. I got a real sense of the region's people and history, and knowing what true Irish hospitality meant in tough times. The book was well written and inspiring. I look forward to reading more about the couple.
April 2, 2014
This recollection of a young Irish American moving to rural western Ireland in the mid 1980's (pre-internet days :-)) & try to build a new self sustainable life while becoming fully immersed in their traditional western Irish community was written with humor & a bit of self-deprecating wit. This was a real quick heartwarming read -very identifiable to me as an American living in a foreign country!
July 21, 2020
I sometimes wonder what were the motivations that brought my Irish great-grandfather to the farming country of Michigan. Reading the chronicals of a city couple with Irish roots to County Clare begins to tell the story of the the contradicting forces. The land gives and takes with beauty, joy and drenching rain. The people are stalwart and generous. Values revolve around the basics of survival. I think I might have left for the "promised land" and a new life in Michigan, too.
January 20, 2021
Nostalgic, sometimes elegiac, memoir of the first year living in an old cottage in the wild and ‘basic’ west of Ireland. Crazy couple left lives in NYC for the dream of living a rural life...where it rained every day.
A quiet book, warm w love and compassion and tradition.
Brew yourself a cuppa and settle in for a good read.
A quiet book, warm w love and compassion and tradition.
Brew yourself a cuppa and settle in for a good read.
March 6, 2017
A really charming book, an insight into the struggle of living off the land in County Clare. Having recently read (and hugely enjoyed) Niall's book "History of the Rain", I could now see from where this was drawn. Would highly recommend.
August 18, 2008
Quick read that left me wanting to move to Ireland. Their descriptions of the people and countryside were so vivid, that I was actually smelling peat burning!
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