St Patrick is one of the most famous saints of all time. Thousands of people with no direct Irish connection celebrate St Patrick’s Day, parading along the streets of New York, Boston, Chicago, San Antonio, Texas and Sydney, where St Patrick’s Day is a national holiday. These celebrations are the latest version of the cult of St Patrick, which has persisted in different forms since his death on 17 March, 462AD.  But who was St Patrick, and how much of what we know about him is fact, how much legend? This book looks at the historical man and the evidence of his writings, the myths and the apocryphal stories, and describes the social changes that led in the 18th century to his emergence as a symbol of Irish nationalism. Patrick: From Patron Saint to Modern Influencer is a fascinating and lively portrait of the man who converted pagan Ireland to Christianity – a fresh, sometimes startling examination of the folklore and traditons that have developed around the saint through the ages. First published in 1989 in the UK and USA, this fully updated edition features new photographs and illustrations and will be an indispensable companion for anyone seeking to understand the role of St Patrick in forging modern Irish identity.

The Dogs of Inishere collects stories from across Alannah Hop- kin's thirty-year career as a fiction and travel writer. The stories presented here move from adolescence to middle age, sensitive always to the particular social, emotional, and intellectual challenges of the different phases of a life. An adolescent girl bristles against the gendered assumptions and expectations o mid-sixties London. A young writer struggles to commit fully to the artist's life. A group of pub regulars in a sleepy seaside town observe the quiet disappointments of love and marriage. Along the way, Hopkin's protagonists, often writers themselves, wrestle with the influence of literary figures from the past, including Austen, Byron, Poe, Wilde, Lowry, and B.S. Johnson.

West Cork, from Kinsale to the Beara Peninsula and from the Atlantic to the Lee Valley, is no longer an impoverished, rural backwater; it is a popular holiday destination where second homes become main residences. It is remarkable for the many ways people make West Cork work for them: traditional farmers negotiating EU quotas; newcomers setting up restaurants; artists, writers and dot.com millionaires starting ventures to allow them to live where they want. Others work to enhance this unique landscape: from environmental activists on Cool Mountain to the hard-working Shelswell-Whites of Bantry House, wealthy castle restorers like Jeremy Irons and innovative farmers on Beara. 'You can't eat scenery' is an old saying about the difficulty of making a living in beautiful but remote places. But Alannah Hopkin discovers a vibrant community of diverse people with compelling stories to tell.