Anthony and Rosemary are two introverted misfits straddling 40. Anthony has spent his entire life on a cattle farm in rural Ireland, a state of affairs that—due to his painful shyness—suits him well. Rosemary lives right next door, determined to have him, watching the years slip away. With Anthony’s father threatening to disinherit him and a land feud simmering between their families, Rosemary has every reason to fear romantic catastrophe. But then, in this very Irish story with a surprising depth of poetic passion, these yearning, eccentric souls fight their way towards solid ground and some kind of happiness. Their journey is heartbreaking, funny as hell, and ultimately deeply moving. OUTSIDE MULLINGAR is a compassionate, delightful work about how it’s never too late to take a chance on love.

This book is a micro-regional analysis of the social and spatial effects of four consecutive harvest failures of varying intensity, of the staple food of almost forty per cent of this midland unionís population. It challenges the traditional portrayal of the peasantry as merely helpless victims of both laissez-faire economics and evicting landlords.