Jumping the Border  &  
De Léim thar Teorainn
by Séamas Ó Catháin  [• click here to see the author's webpage>]

An Autobiography of the early life and travels of Séamas Ó Catháin, Professor Emeritus at University College Dublin and former Director of the National Folklore Collection.

An engaging account of his experience – as a child and as a young man – in three distinctive cultures, now radically changed. He describes the Tyrone of the 1940s and 1950s where Protestant and Catholic neighbours shared their lives at a personal level, but where institutions were divisive. His father's prosperous business was ruined because of a political event he supported. The schools and the curriculum were dividers of the two communities. The border was a nuisance to everyone. As a post-graduate student in the 1960s, he took up residence in the Donegal Gaeltacht of "Na Cruacha", where "real old Irish" was still spoken. He did a study of the area's place names, and recorded the distinctive music and speech of "Na Cruacha". Shortly afterwards his research took him to the far north of Europe, to Sapmi (known as Lapland), a cultural rather than a political territory which spreads over four countries, and where he immersed himself in the culture and language of the Sami people at a time when their native language and customs were under threat and belittled.
This book brings alive the huge power of language, culture, and tradition, and the artificiality of borders.

Jumping the Border — in Paperback and in Hardback,
on 210 demy-octavo-size pages, with 80 illustrations,
ISBN (pbk): 978-1-908420-268, r.r.p.: £19.99 /€22.50 /$26
ISBN (hbk): 978-1-908420-275, r.r.p.: £30 /€34 /$38.50

Ar fáil as Gaeilge comh maith —

De Léim thar Teorainn

by Séamas Ó Catháin  [• click here to see the author's webpage>]

Léirmheasanna:

'Leabhar an-bhreá Jumping the Border & De Léim thar Teorainn – bhaineas an-taitneamh as, agus táim cinnte go mbainfidh na léitheoirí sult as.'
—RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta

'Is beag duine nach mbainfeadh taitneamh as an gcuntas beathaisnéise seo …is blaiseadh iontach é an leabhar seo de shaol eachtrúil.' —Iris Comhar

De Léim thar Teorainn—le Séamas Ó Catháin,
Dírbheathaisnéis, le 210 leathanaigh agus 80 léaráidí,
ISBN (clúdach bog): 978-1-908420-282, r.r.p.: £20 /€22.50 /$26

Reviews:

Featured on RTÉ Radio
– in An Cúinne Dána Arts Programme on Raidió na Gaetachta
"A Gem" —Tristan Rosenstock, RTÉ Radio.

"A Timely Look at Borders Here and Elsewhere"       [—reviewed in Books Ireland magazine]:

 

Exceptional Books and Exceptional Authors !