In Search of Modern Ireland: An American Traveler's Odyssey

Webster begins her tour of the back roads and little-traveled sections of Ireland with a stay in Glasnevin, a working-class section of Dublin, at a small, family-run hotel. In Donegal, she searches for traces of her ancestors while chatting with the locals. She visits the Guinness brewery and offers readers the Guinness Cake recipe and the Guinness Diet. She maintains that the Irish were not totally sympathetic to Bobby Sands and his hunger strike because they considered him a thug. In the prologue, Webster credits travel writer H. V. Morton with the definitive guide to Ireland (In Search of Ireland, written in 1930), but this personal travel diary is a unusual, insightful contribution to the genre. Photos not seen by PW. (October)