O Come Ye Back to Ireland: Our First Year in County Clare

Niall Williams, born in Dublin and Christine Breen, from New York, have left their Manhattan home to move to County Clare and into the cottage where Chris's grandfather was born. The struggles and triumphs of their first year are engagingly told in this wonderful little book. I was able to be transported back to the rural west of Ireland I learned to love in just a few short days.

In leaving their jobs and friends in Manhattan, Niall and Chris took a very big risk. To go to a place with no central heating, a telephone out of the early 20th C., and to one of the wettest summers on record took real courage. They quickly fit right in with their neighbors and by the time they host a New Years Eve party they are definitely one of "them."

If you're an armchair traveler, someone who's visited the Emerald Isle, or just hope to someday, this is a story to cherish. I have also now read their book of travel essays and am awaiting arrival of their other two books which I have recently ordered.

Although I am too old to do what Niall and Chris have done, it's great to live vicariously through them! Well done!


for those thinking of immigrating to Ireland   September 25, 2001
Peter Green (Herndon, VA United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

This is a great and heartfelt book, and one that should be read by anyone who is considering a move back to simpler times, slower pace of life and the riches they can bring - or not. I will return to Ireland one day for good, I've been there many times in the last few years and now own a small farm in Leitrim to which I will go for the quiet roar of silence.


I had to buy all four!   September 23, 2004
G. Finn (Sacramento, CA USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

Before I knew it, I was done with this book and on-line ordering all three of Niall Williams' next books. Rather than just another quaint book about "the Irish", this book weaves a funny and entertaining story of two Americans trying to fit-in in rural west Ireland. From learning the customs to waiting to get a party-line phone, there was a smile on every page.


Charming and well written, but ...   October 22, 2001
P. Lozar (Santa Fe, NM USA)
12 out of 15 found this review helpful

This is a beautifully written book, full of charming stories and vivid descriptions (as one might expect from a writer/artist team), and the story of their bumpy and circuitous settling-in process on a farm in rural Co. Clare is well told. However, I found the book irritating and didn't even finish it. I had expected to like it, as I've traveled in that part of Ireland (I have roots in Co. Mayo) and enjoyed it immensely, so I was surprised by my negative reaction. After some thought, I realized why I felt that way: the authors came to Co. Clare with clearly defined expectations about why they were going there and what their life there would be like. So, from Day One, they were continually measuring the reality against those (understandably optimistic) expectations and finding it wanting. As a veteran of many moves, including a trans-Atlantic one, I feel that this is the completely wrong approach to starting life in a new place. If you come with an open mind, take the place and the people on their own terms, and learn how to find what you want within those parameters, you'll enjoy your new life much more. (And, often, you'll find that the place has pleasant surprises you didn't even know to look for until you'd been there a while.) The book is still worth reading for the descriptions, but an expatriates' guide it's definitely not.