Endurance

Kidnap, jailbreak, power, faith, murder, betrayal, scholarship, survival and above all, sheer endurance -- all are themes in Dermot Somers' stories of heroic and historic travels from the mythic legends of prehistory to the dawn of modern Ireland.

With the aid of maps and photographs, Dermot Somers -- mountaineer, Gaelic scholar, TV presenter, and writer -- follows in the footsteps of these epic journeys, revealing the people, the cultures, the times, the places and the echoes surviving in our landscape -- from Art O'Neill's icy grave in the Wicklow mountains to the ringfort-hiding place of the brown bull in the secret valley of the Cooley Mountains.



'Reveals the extraordinary stories, and the adventure, hidden in the landscape.'



'The television travel series on TG4 provides an image of Dermot Somers scaling mountains and smartly trekking across the glove at an unlaboured, easy pace. He is even more at ease with the lansdcape of Ireland and here in this book of famous journeys across the country, the narrative is equally as assures and never laboured. .. [the writing is] as rhythmic as the beat of Somers's footsteps.'



'Passion, sharp detail, interesting asides and intelligent conjecture make the book an enjoyable read and Somers is adept at bringing the reader closer to the territory he is describing



'Somers has produced a work based on that which is modern, historical, cultural and respectful. What's more, he's done it with just the right level of humour.'



'Somer's text is poetic, humorous and well-laced.'



'Easy to read book, with maps and photographs bringing each journey to light.'