JOURNAL OP' THE COUNTY DONEGAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY to that of ·quota1tion. Yet one should not conclude thia.t t!his is a lboo'k for the tourist only, to be th:umb-ed throu1g:h for a ·few dayrs, and tih:en leH behind Ln a ria.tLway carriage. DeS1P1ite it:Js formaJ. dedication to the visitor, it .i;s rather meant for the resLdent, a book to 'be treasured and kept a.it call, one indeed which no home in Ini.Showen s'.hou:ld be 1with1Qiut. More than tJwenty 1wr1te.rs have c.onrtrill>uted to i.ts mallting, ialld eaJcfil of thiem goes to the box as an expert witness. WHih Mr. Siwan as the s.k:Ufrul counsel for the defence, we soon find ourselves in pos1se3sion of the· whole trutih rubout Inishowen. However the mul<tiPlic'Lty of authorship bas its dr.awrbacks, too. The division of material among the exp.er;ts i's nece·3sarily arlbitrary. and there is, .a,s. a result, a detfin1.te 1ack of coherence and balance, witih a. c-ertain ramount of unnecesisary repetJ.;tion, ·pat'ticularly i1n the mol"e techni·cal cihaptel'!S. Tilrerie is, 1besddes, a di·vers1 ty of style whi:ch 13 rather d1s~aic:ting; after sail!i.ng across calm watiers-lilk.e the maJesti1c: rolling prose of the la:te Captain Drought, say_,we suddenly find ourselves strrunded o.n the jaigiged .and rocky fwct,s and tllgures of oome erudirte wrtters who 1could S'urely have been more lL'beral in their use olf "toiPdressdnlg,. '' The r,ai1way-timetJa!ble type of aiJ>IP['loacn does not commend irt.seff'f to the aveiraige reaider, aind while it is ineivi taible in the preseil!tation O·f staitistics, for example, .it ,~hould ibe avolid'ed as :far as Posstble in :a general work of this kind. However. we should not be over-crittcal, for tOfl>iC'S ram.ging from geoloigy to· c·eilidih,theis do not ea.sd1'y lend themselves to a untform tr-eafunent. And then this aipp:roa~ch h,Jas its moments too, as W1hen, for instanice, rwe are solemnly a,ssured tthat tides. are caused b!Y the attTaetion o:f the sun and moon (begurra, who woiuld ha:ve thought; it!), or 1that "a stout cra:ft and stoma:cih ar·e both necesIll sary to round Malin Head" ! The chapter on the castles 01f InLshowen i1s by far tne inosit valUfa.ble con:tr~butAon in the book. With its careful diaigirams and painstalking histori·cal reconstruictions, it reipresen ts quite a cons!Lderalt>le amounit of original research. and makes one more 1than ever r1eigre1t the loss suff:ered by u1,ste1r archaeology in the departure to J ohannes:biurg !University of its joint-author, Oliver Davies. In another intere.s1ting arti'Cle J. J. Brady gdve,s. us tihe Mttleiknown hlstory of iLougih SlwillY's desc.riptive~y-named ''Slolb1'andS." It is a pity that space dtd n~ permit a fuller tre1atment in some of ,tJhe scientllifiic .artirc·les---we could ih.ave done with a much !l~:ngeir note on Ini:showen's 1geol0igy, for insta:nce, with perhaps a few ma«>s thrown in for good mea.sure. The ~glossary of colloquial terms rather intri1gued me, ·especially when I realis·ed ihow many of tJhem I Illligh't be lta:ble 1P use myself. Chronologies ar·e usually dull aff'airs, but my faniciy was taiken by one which begins with the b!Uild'ing Of Aileach 1000 B.0., and ·ends with the :ftmt diauJblle-deciker bu1ses on •the DerryBuncrana road 1948 A.D., talkli.ng in on the way events Hk·e the iNigh:t of ·t'he B~g Wind, or the arrival (1and sad 'fate) of the first sewinigmac.hine in Buncrana. Rilc:'ha;rd Hayrward 1giv:es us a deighitful llittl·e sk!etch of a hila!'liou:s 'Visit ipaid to a ceilidhe "somewhere in Inishowen." · P:erhaips th,.e forma·t o!f the !book is its most outstandinig feature. Printing a ·whole book on art !P·a!J)er is not usually to be commended but tihe wealth . of !p!hotogl"aip!hs it mialkes poo:silble, here more than compensates UIS. Inishowen•s two hundred SQ.1uare miles come to lif.e befo~re our eyres as we read this grand book: and we make a mental reisalve tO get out th' ould car this summer, and see it ·for ourselves. GRMNCASTU!l llNM:SHOWEN. pip. 22. Eileen M. Bennett. {Ill1US1hrated lby G~ Ridsdill Smith), at the Fort Hotel, Greenca.stle. (2/-). This little book ba'S been written to give visitors to Greencastle an a1e1count O!f the histoey of the vil- ]aigie, fort and castle. In doing so Mis1s Bennett h1as produced one of t1w fe1w satisfying .g:uide-ibooks e'Ver 214 puiblished in Ireland. The UlustratioillS and format r·eflect ·the a,rtiSJtry whtch we have come to asiso.ciate w.ifu evea-ytitj.ng bearlnrg The Sign of the Three Candles. J.M. t>.
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