Niall and Chris, a young married couple, dreamed of Ireland; they would leave cramped, dirty Manhattan and the pressures of corporate life to make a new start in a small cottage in County Clare on the west coast of Ireland.  Here in this beautifully situated stone cottage Chris would garden and paint, Niall would farm and write, and they would make a grand home among the rugged hills and green fields.

That was the dream, anyway.

Kiltumper cottage was damp, drafty, and smoky.  Weary from the hard labor of turf cutting, digging, and other farm tasks, Niall and Chris didn’t spend as much time writing and painting as they had planned.  But above all, rain, fog, mist, drizzle, and gales seemed their constant companions throughout their first months in Ireland.  “Why are we here?” Chris wonders, stuck as they are in their remote primitive cottage watching the endless, dreary rain wash away the garden – would it wash away their dream?

O Come Ye Back to Ireland, Niall and Chris’s journal of their first year in County Clare, is a charming, frank account of a lovely dream encountering tough reality.