Sightlines: Beyond the Beyond in Ireland

It is the 1960s, and Ireland is hoping to join what will later become the European Union. The government has devised a plan to stem emigration and save the Irish language by supporting small factories in the Gaeltacht, traditional Irish-speaking villages in remote western areas. But is the plan working?

With her signature humor and charm, Eileen Kane transports the reader to County Donegal with a detailed account of rural Irish life during this period of rapid change. This is a story about people living beyond the margins of maps, boundaries, language groups, and government departments people bound by borders that have little or no correspondence to their own cultural, economic, and historical margins. Ultimately, it is a story about life on the edges, and the places and people who fall outside them.