Some Reviews, for Your Information -- 1. "Echoes Of A Savage Land," Joe McGowan, Mercier Press - This native of Mullaghmore, a beautiful and mainly rural county of Sligo, shares observances, customs, stories, folklore of Cos. Sligo, Donegal, Fermanagh and Leitrim in particular - from witch hares and harvest knots, mummers and wrenboys, corncakes and haunted houses, poitin stills and satanic card games, icy rooms and blackbird pie, burnt offerings and stirabout! 2. "Three Plays," by John B. Keane, Mercier Press. Poet and author, Keane is the country's favourite Kerryman. His Year of the Hiker deals with the sudden return of a long absent husband & father; The Change in Mamie Fadden, a story of an undervalued wife and mother thinking of "going the roads," and The Highest House on the Mountain, bitter harvest of sibling envy. 2. "Brothers And Sisters - Glimpses of Cloistered Life," Frank Monaco, The Collins Press. Beautiful photographic record of Carthusian, Benedictine, Cistercian monks and Carmelite, Benedictine and Poor Clare Nuns collected over many years of work in monasteries and convents by a famous photographer - Serene, lovely, provoking. 3. "Reflections of Contemporary Irish Men," Valerie O'Sullivan, Veritas, Dublin. Fine portraits, biographies, personal thoughts of 100+ contemporary Irish men as they compose music, mind railway crossings or canal locks, sell horese, farm, present TV programs, change laws, make accordians, do eye surgery, building houses, run newspapers, etc. Not surprising, some quote lines such as: "My father played the melodeon Outside at our gate; There were stars in the morning east And they danced to his music." -- Patrick Kavanagh "Is not religion all deeds and all reflection, And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, Even while the hands hew stone or tend the loom? Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?" -- Kahili Gilbran 4. "Where The Grass is Greener, Voices of Immigrant Women in Ireland," ed. Susan Knight, Oak Tree Press, Dublin. Impressions of 61 foreign-born women living in Ireland. Few want to go back where they came from. "Beautiful, exasperating Ireland," remarks Dr. Knight, "It gets under your skin." 5. "The Gap of the North: The Archaeology & Folklore of Armagh, Down, Louth & Monaghan," by Noreen Cunningham and Pat McGinn, O'Brien Press. 48 sites are examined in detail. Includes Social fabric, history and myth of the area. 6. "Croagh Patrick, Co. Mayo: Archaeology, Landscape and People," by Leo Morahan, pub.Croagh Patrick Archaeological Committee ISBN 0953608 3 8. Ireland's oldest pilgimage site going back some 1,500 years. A local committee was founded to examine any remaining archaeological evidence. In 1994, ruins of an Early Christian oratory were uncovered at the summit, the next year a hilltop rampart encompassing the top of the mountain was investigated and some small antique coloured glass beads were discovered. Many drawings and photographs. It is reasonable to consider that human occupation goes back to the Bronze Age. 7. "Singing Stone, Whispering Wind: Voices of Connemara" (Galway) " Photos by Ms. Raymonde Standun, Ed. Bill Long - Photos and voices of more than 50 ordinary people of Connemara. First pub; in 1967, revised to give balanced view of Ireland. 8. "Short Fellow" - A biography of Charles Haughey, by T. Ryle Dwyer, Marino Books/Mercier Press. Charles J. Haughey, flat-burning student, member of Dail Eireann, Minister for Justice, Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Minister for Finance, Minister for Health & Social Welfare, several times Leader of the Opposition, several times Taioseach - has intrigued, bewildered, infuriated, frightened, insulted, embarrassed, uplifted, entertained, mystified, educated and thoroughly distracted most the the nation. 9. "Irish Fairs and Markets - Studies in Local History," by Cronin, Gilligan & Holton. Study from medieval times to the present. 10. "An Irish Literary Dictionary and Glossary," Richard Wall, pub. by Colin Smythe. The meaning of those "odd" words you have come across, wondered about.