The Irish Way: A Walk Through Ireland's Past and Present

Since well before Marco Polo's fabled journey, the literature of travel has always made for grand reading. In "The Irish Way: A Walk Through Ireland's Past and Present," Robert Emmett Ginna has written a memorable contribution to the genre, for here is Ireland, viewed by a veteran traveler intent on depicting the country as it truly is and describing what has made Ireland and the Irish what they are today. In his eighth decade, Ginna set out to walk the length of Ireland, some 350 miles from its most northerly point, Malin Head, in Donegal, to Kinsale, on the Atlantic coast of Cork. Familiar with the country for many years, Ginna had seen the influx of high-tech industries and membership in the European Union transform Ireland from a poor, largely agricultural country into the prosperous "Celtic tiger." He wanted to judge for himself what the Irish had gained--and perhaps lost--and what they have preserved from a rich yet tumultuous heritage. Ginna encountered a host of interesting Iri