Seven Year Island by Jerome Kiely. Hardback. First Edition. Geoffrey Chapman. London,1969.

Description: Jerome Kiely's account of his time on Inish Capaill and Inish Whale a few miles off the Irish mainland have..." the charm and vividness that only an Irish poet can express. The author relates his experiences during the seven year when he did all kinds of things as ''Rev. Fr. Factotum'' -anything from teaching the thirty local children to producing plays or writing letters for people, digging turf, or just watching the sea that moulded everyone's life on the islands.

How colourful the local characters are - there's Paddy the Rum salvaging a lifeboat, Mrs Coyle sitting on a mine, Annie Horan with strange habits of feeding rats and pitching statues of saints over the cliff. 

There was tragedy too: men lost at sea; the people of Inish Whale forced to leave their island to and live on the mainland; and Johnson the Englishman searching for quietness and only finding it when his little boat dashed against the rocks.

This is a witty, entertaining, and moving story that all readers will enjoy.      

Condition: First Edition. Hardback. Buff-coloured boards with black writing. Boards in very good condition. Dustjacket in good order with some slight wear around edges. Some foxing to outer edges of pages Inside pages very clean.