Ireland Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

Print PDF

For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, and our BookBrowse Review of Ireland.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

Introduction

One evening in 1951, an itinerant storyteller -- a Seanchai, the very last practitioner of a tradition extending back hundreds and hundreds of years -- arrives unannounced at a house in the Irish countryside for an evening of storytelling. One of his listeners, a nine-year-old boy, grows so entranced by the storytelling that, when the old man leaves abruptly under mysterious circumstances, the boy devotes himself to finding him again.

Storyteller extraordinaire Frank Delaney takes his readers on an epic journey through the history of Ireland, stopping along the way to evoke the dramatic events and personalities so critical to shaping the Irish experience. This is the true story of Ireland and the Irish -- of how the character of the land and its people were shaped by history, by neighboring England and by the Irish themselves-written by a native son possessed of his own prodigious storytelling gifts.



Questions for Discussion

1. Is the storyteller a phenomenon unique to Ireland?
    
2. Why is Ronan enthralled before the storyteller even begins to speak? Can you imagine why Alison is so repelled?
    
3. There's nothing quite like Newgrange in the US -- or is there? What do public monuments represent in the United States? Were they built in anything like the same way?
    

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.