The Way That I Went

Written by Ireland's greatest field botanist and first published in 1937, Robert Praeger's personal tour of Ireland's natural wonders has had a greater influence on Irish naturalists than any other book. It represents five years of weekends spent walking the countryside (some 5,000 miles), swimming through flooded caverns, staying out all night on islands, sifting fossil bones, and exploring cattle-tramped tombs. The book crackles with the excitement and perplexity aroused by Ireland's heritage of tombs and ring forts. The Introduction by Michael Viney (author of A Year's Turning; Dufour Editions) puts the book in context and relates it to today's concerns over conservation and ecology.