Waysiders, Stories of Connacht

Along the roads and hills of Connacht, everyday encounters reveal who holds power in a small community. Seumas O'Kelly's collection opens with Festus Clasby, a shopkeeper and landowner whose customers treat his counter almost as a shrine. Behind his reassuring manner lies a system of credit that can turn indebted farmers into workers on his land. A meeting with Mac-an-Ward, a travelling tinsmith offering a carefully made can, brings Clasby's commercial instincts up against an exuberant gift for speech.

Another scene follows a rector worrying about church repairs and meeting people returning from market. A young woman's hesitant smile and his reserved response expose the distance between them, while his thoughts turn to religious grievances and politics. The stories combine close observation of gestures, clothes and landscape with an interest in money, status and belonging. Readers interested in Irish rural fiction will find social tensions expressed through conversation and small moments of discomfort.