Ireland Unhinged

When David Monagan upped sticks and moved his family from rural Connecticut to Cork City in 2000, he landed in the middle of a boom, a bubble of success that was to infect them all. The reality of a prosperous Ireland, with all its excesses and its absurdities, put paid to the comfortable myths he had built up. But David felt he was lacking something, and so went in search of the lost soul of modern Ireland. Of course, he little expected the Celtic Tiger to go and die on him in the middle of his search Undaunted, David travelled the length and breadth of the country, and Ireland Unhinged recounts his remarkable encounters with Irish literary legends such as JP Donleavy, Pat McCabe and Seamus Heaney, as well as a Donegal witch, a peace-mongering Belfast monk and numerous other colourful characters. Running through the narrative is a yearning for attachment, something that David finally finds in an isolated cottage in a rural idyll, the Blackwater Valley in County Waterford. Finally, he has come home. Ireland Unhinged is both a humorous and evocative memoir of a family abroad, and an unflinching portrayal of Ireland today. Praise for David Monagan s Jaywalking with the Irish-

About the Author :
A native of Connecticut and veteran journalist, David Monagan moved to Ireland with his wife and three children in 2000, settling in Cork City. He has written widely about his adopted country in various publications, including The Irish Times, the Sunday Independent, The Examiner, The Dubliner magazine, the Sunday Times and Forbes. His previous work of travel literature, Jaywalking with the Irish, was published in 2004 to great acclaim; Frank McCourt called it 'a hard, beautiful book . . . written with love . . . wit, charm and compassion. You won't find a better or truer depiction of Ireland.' He is also the author of Journey into the Heart (2007), a tour-de-force about charismatic medical pioneers.

Review :
"Ireland Unhinged is incisive, wry, and witty, but also coldly surgical and it repeatedly and perfectly catches the zeitgeist of an Ireland hell-bent on self-destruction. Monagan sees it all: the bouncy castles inflated on every delirious lawn; the madness of a Euro-funded motorway slicing through the ancient Hill of Tara; witches, priests, and ghost estates - characters beyond counting, not all good ones. There is Mad Max stuff in here, 'Aisy Rider in the Land of the Bouncy Castle', but this American-in-Ireland's analysis is also both highly reasoned and grinning - read it" -- Patrick McCabe, author of THE BUTCHER BOY and THE STRAY SOD COUNTRY "I altogether loved Ireland Unhinged. In its pages a transplanted Connecticut family moves to Ireland; then encounters begin with J.P. Donleavy, Seamus Heaney, witches, fairies, eccentrics, lunatics, plus a reunion of the famous band The Dubliners, which proves in Ireland that death is not always fatal. Ireland Unhinged is hilarious, it's sad, it's loving. David Monagan also writes about how crooked bankers and corrupt politicians reduced the Celtic Tiger to a throw rug and how spirituality fled in the face of rampant materialism. You don't have to be Irish to dive into this grand book - one of the best books about Ireland in these last few years" -- Malachy McCourt, actor and author of A MONK SWIMMING and SINGING MY SONG