These poems written in the beautiful, rich and descriptive Scots language are a real 'Clootie Dumplin' mixture of ingredients all held together with the 'cloot' of John Waddell's ability to paint the most wonderful word pictures, such as the wee robin eating his porridge, or the wee laddie picking up his football and going home when he wasn't winning, or the wonderful display of the "Giacobinias, October, 1933," witnessed by the poet on his way home from his fiddle lesson. This is a book to share with friends for anniversaries, birthdays, or Christmas. Above all, it is a book to treasure.

In 1909-11 Robert Lloyd Praeger brought a team of 100 scientific specialists from all over Europe to map the flora, fauna, geology and archaeology of Clare Island, a small, exposed Atlantic island off the west coast. The gathering led to the publication of the path-breaking 'Clare Island Survey'. A century later the survey was repeated as the 'New Survey of Clare Island' (1992-2009) and both works were published extensively by the Royal Irish Academy. This fourth volume in the series is devoted to the Abbey on Clare Island - a national monument in State care - which has retained much of its...