An Irish Christmas Feast

Drawing on the rich folk culture of County Kerry, John B. Keane brings new life to old customs in his portrayals of the special holiday dreams and everyday shortcomings of country people during the Christmas season. With enough good cheer to warm the heart throughout the Christmas season and the long nights of winter, Keane's playful volume revisits the Christmases eccentrically celebrated by the likes of Dotie Tupper and Johnny Naile, the doughty Canon Doyle and deaf Canon Cornelius Coodle, the amiable spendthrift Aenias Mackson and Hiccups O'Reilly, who disappears one Christmas for seven years. Keane bears delightful witness to the strengths and failings, the trials and triumphs, of the simple but not so ordinary folk of rural Ireland.