My Village My World

'This is a book that never palls or drags. It is boisterous and ribald and I am tempted to say that it is by far the funniest book I have ever read. It is also an accurate and revealing history of rural Ireland half a century ago and more. John M. Feehan writes beautifully throughout. I love this book.'From the Foreward by John B. KeaneMy Village - My World is a fascinating account of the lives of ordinary people in the countryside of half a century ago. It depicts a way of life that took thousands of years to evolve and mature and was destroyed in a single generation. Although the people of John M. Feehan's village were never famous and might now be described as 'unskilled', this would be a false description. They were all highly skilled, whether in making coffins, droving cattle or tending horses.The world described with such vivacity in this lively memoir was not idyllic. There were sinners as well as saints, all ordinary mortals.The village of John M. Feehan was unique and lives on in these pages.

John M. Feehan was born in County Tipperary. After a number of years in the regular army he resigned to devote his life to business and literature. He founded the successful Cork-based publishing house Mercier Press in 1944. He is the author of many other books including My Village - My World and The Secret Places of the Burren. He died in 1991. John B. Keane, one of Ireland's most prolific and respected literary figures, died on 30 May 2002 at the age of 73, after a long and difficult battle with cancer. John B. Keane was born in 1928 in Listowel, County Kerry and it was here that he spent his literary career, running a pub which provided him with inspiration for his characters and ideas.His first play, Sive, was presented by the Listowel Drama Group and won the All-Ireland Drama Festival in 1959. It was followed by another success, Sharon's Grave, in 1960. The Field (1965) and Big Maggie (1969), are widely regarded as classics of the modern Irish stage and jewels in a crown which includes such popular hits as Many Young Men of Twenty, The Man from Clare, Moll, The Chastitute and The Year of the Hiker. His large canon of plays have been seen abroad in cities as far afield as Moscow and Los Angeles. Big Maggie ran on Broadway for over two months in 1982 and The Field was adapted into an Oscar-winning Hollywood film, starring Brenda Fricker and Richard Harris, in 1991.But it was not just in his plays that John B. Keane managed to portray all aspects of humanity with both wit and truth. He also wrote many fine novels, including The Contractors, A High Meadow and Durango. Durango was adapted for the big screen, starring Brenda Fricker and Patrick Bergin. A writer of essays, short stories and letters, his humorous words live on in Celebrated Letters of John B. Keane, More Celebrated Letters, The Best of John B. Keane and The Short Stories of John B. Keane. In 1987 John B. Keane received a special award for his enduring place in Irish life and letters from the Sunday Independent/Irish Life. In that year he also won a Sunday Tribune Arts Award and in 1988 he was chosen as the recipient of the Irish-American Fund Award for Literature. In 1999 he was presented with a Gradam medal, the Abbey Theatre's highest award.He was a member of Aosdana and the recipient of honorary doctorates from Trinity College, Dublin, Limerick University and Marymount College, New York. John B. Keane remains one of Mercier's best-loved and best-selling authors.