Description

Published 1958: First Edition / Hardcover / Very Good Condition

Original red cloth with gilt titles on the spine and original pictorial dust jacket. 218 very clean and bright pages. Boards slightly rubbed with time. The dust jacket is slightly rubbed with time and chipped and ripped along the edges consistent with age but remains intact. (RB566)

Postage €6.95 including any additional books ordered.
An Post prepaid postage envelopes within the Republic of Ireland, with no weight restrictions from €6.95.

John O’Donoghue was born in 1900 in Co. Kerry. He was a monk for a short time, then joined the gardai briefly, before moving to England to find work. O’Donoghue was a songwriter, a musician and a folktale collector. He also wrote several autobiographical books about his life in Ireland and England. In a Strange Land chronicles his experiences as an Irish labourer living ‘in exile’ in England.
He describes the way in which he lived, including the first bleak months shovelling sand into a concrete mixer in an airfield in Cambridgeshire; re-laying track on the railways; odd jobs in the building trade and in a military barracks; and, his avocation, work as a house painter.
He writes of these activities, not in the abstract, but in terms of the men he met, and very occasionally hated.

John O’Donoghue is a skilful and gifted writer. His work prompts comparison to W.H. Davies of the Super Tramp.

But if John O’Donoghues eye is innocent, his pen is cunning, humorous and poetic.

Published by B. T. Batsford in 1958. [Google Books]