The first volume in Tim Robinson's phenomenal ''Connemara'' Trilogy. In its landscape, history and folklore, Connemara is a singular region: ill-defined geographically, and yet unmistakably a place apart from the rest of Ireland. Tim Robinson, who established himself as Ireland's most brilliant living non-fiction writer with the two-volume ''Stones of Aran'', moved from Aran to Connemara nearly twenty years ago. This book is the result of his extraordinary engagement with the mountains, bogs and shorelines of the region, and with its folklore and its often terrible history: a work as beautiful and surprising as the place it attempts to describe. Chosen as a book of the year by Iain Sinclair, Robert Macfarlane and Colm Toibin. A native of Yorkshire, Tim Robinson moved to the Aran Islands in 1972. His books include the celebrated two-volume ''Stones of Aran''. Since 1984 he has lived in Roundstone, Connemara. ''Dazzling...an indubitable classic''. (Giles Foden, ''Conde Nast Traveller''). ''One of contemporary Ireland's finest literary stylists''. (Joseph O'Connor, ''Guardian'').