An Island Community: The Ebb and Flow of the Great Blasket Island de Gabriel Fitzmaurice - 2015

An Island Community: The Ebb and Flow of the Great Blasket Island is a voluminous social history of the abandoned Great Blasket Island, off the wild south west coast of Ireland, which touches on its history, culture and folklore. Written in Irish by Mícheál de Mórdha and published by Coiscéim as Scéal agus Dán Oileáin, it has now been translated into English for the first time by Gabriel Fitzmaurice. This is an enthralling story of a remote insular community's fight against the authorities, the elements and meagre survival on land and sea. It's the story of the struggle for existence and independence, of privations, poverty and persecution. On 17 November 1953, the remaining twenty two souls on Great Blasket were migrated to the mainland, at Dunquin and elsewhere, by the de Valera government of that time, thus ending a continuous pattern of habitation from ancient times.
Gabriel Fitzmaurice is from the village of Moyvane in County Kerry. He taught in the local primary school for more than thirty years, before retiring in 2007. He is the author of more than fifty books, including collections of poetry in English and Irish, as well as several collections of verse for children. He has translated extensively from Irish and has edited a number of anthologies of poetry.