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Product Description
Like William Carleton, James Berry, a native of County Mayo, came from rural farmer stock. He spent his whole life in the West until his death at the age of seventy-two in 1914. The material of his tales comes from the people of Mayo and Galway, and introduces the smugglers, the packmen and the raparees of the West. Mainly handed down to him by word of mouth, they tell of poor communities living in a bleak and beautiful countryside against a background of secret societies, man-hunts, smuggling, murders, wakes, rebellion and starvation. Some go back hundreds of years, evoking the legendary past of Conamara, while others are Berry’s own tales of the Ireland of his youth when the shadow of the Famine hovered over the West. Berry was married to a woman from and subsequently lived in Carna, Conamara.
Dolmen Press reprint 1975, this edition first published in 1966. Small format hardcover. Cover art is a Jack B Yeats image.
