David Monagan

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

Where is Ireland's soul? This is the question that surface time and again in Ireland Unhinged, a searching, sometimes scathing, often hilarious journey through a country that in the space of a few years has fallen from the dizzy heights of the 'bouncy-castle' boom to the bewildering depths of the crash. 
Ireland Unhinged is a story of reverse emigration to Cork City and then rural Waterford, from cosy US confines to the true Wild West of these last years. David Monagan's sharp eye pinpoints the excesses and absurdities of modern Ireland. But his real search is for the enduring essence of his adopted country, as revealed in his meetings with literary legends, with witches and monks, with property developers and gnomic farmers. 
Itis a riveting memoir of a family adapting to a strange land, and an unflinching portrait of Ireland today.

David Monagan

Praise for Ireland Unhinged

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 castle ...

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 re ...

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