The Crying of the Wind

Into the world of 1950s Ireland - a lushly green, windswept landscape studded with holy wells and the decaying country houses of a vanished ruling class - arrives Ithell Colquhoun. An occultist and a surrealist painter, Colquhoun's travels around the island are guided by her artist's eye and her feeling for the world beyond our own, as well as her spikily humorous view of the people she meets. We encounter faeries and pagan rituals, ruined churches and Celtic splendour, rowdy bohemians and Anglo-Irish landowners fallen on hard times, as the author carouses through Dublin and tramps the hills of Connemara in this classic travelogue. Through her unique perceptions we discover a land that is fiercely alive and compelling. It is a place where the wind cries, the stones tell old tales and the mountains watch over the roads and those who travel on them.