This autobiography, a sequel to Nostos, concludes the story of John
Moriarty's life in Connemara during the 1980s and subsequent return to
his native Kerry. He writes with compelling detail about his time at
Roundstone and environs, restoring gardens at Leitirdyfe House and
Lisnabrucka, and building his own house at Toombeola. He reflects on his
Kerry childhood and the death of his father; he describes his adopted
family, a sortie to Dublin for Christmas, the writer Tim Robinson, and
his neighbourhood and community; he celebrates the returned pine martens
and the fauna and flora of a historic landscape; he undertakes a lecture
tour in Canada organized by his former students; and throughout he
engages with the immensities of the natural and spiritual worlds that
form his habitat. In this posthumously published work, completed just
weeks before his death, John Moriarty calls to account the literatures
and legacies of European thought made manifest in the western
extremities of Ireland. They bore witness to his own inner and outer
journey, now documented in this compelling, writerly masterwork.
