In this portrait of Ireland, seen through the eyes of a novelist and a stranger, Heinrich Boell offers an evocation of the lilt of the voices, the laughter of the children, the smell of the wet earth, and the warm, heady friendliness of the pubs. Travelling with his wife and children, Boell struggles with the intricacies of foreign exchange, eavesdrops on conversations aboard a steamer, and tramps through rain-soaked peat. One of Germany most prolific post-war writers, Boell was a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1985.