What The Curlew Said

This autobiography, a sequel to Nostos, concludes the story of John Moriarty's life in Connemara during the 1980s and subsequent return to his native Kerry. He writes with compelling detail about his time at Roundstone and environs, restoring gardens at Leitirdyfe House and Lisnabrucka, and building his own house at Toombeola. He reflects on his Kerry childhood and the death of his father; he describes his adopted family, a sortie to Dublin for Christmas, the writer Tim Robinson, and his neighbourhood and community; he celebrates the returned pine martens and the fauna and flora of a historic landscape; he undertakes a lecture tour in Canada organized by his former students; and throughout he engages with the immensities of the natural and spiritual worlds that form his habitat. In this posthumously published work, completed just weeks before his death, John Moriarty calls to account the literatures and legacies of European thought made manifest in the western extremities of Ireland. They bore witness to his own inner and outer journey, now documented in this compelling, writerly masterwork.



JOHN MORIARTY was born in Kerry on 2 February 1938 and died there on 1 June 2007. He was educated at St Michael's College, Listowel, and University College Dublin. He taught English literature at the University of Manitoba in Canada for six years, before returning to Ireland in 1971. His books include Dreamtime (1994); the trilogy Turtle Was Gone a Long Time: Crossing the Kedron (1996), Horsehead Nebula Neighing (1997) and Anaconda Canoe (1998); Nostos, An Autobiography (2001); Invoking Ireland (2005); Night Journey to Buddh Gaia (2006); Serious Sounds (2007); and One Evening in Eden (2007), a boxed CD collection of his talks, stories and poetry.