Book Review: a study of the sea in Irish literature

"Allen’s hypothesis is proven here beyond question: that the sea is as important to Irish literature as air is to the characters in its pages."

Nicholas Allen brings his evaluation up to high tide with the contemporary Kevin Barry (above). He finds the Limerickman drawn to the coastal margins where his characters discover that “the boundaries between innocence and experience fragment and shift”. This is especially true of Barry’s short story collection ‘Dark Lies the Island’. Picture: Darragh Kane

• Irish Literature and the Coast: Seatangled
• Nicholas Allen
• Oxford University Press, €70