The Last Pool of Darkness
The Connemara Trilogy
Combining detailed descriptions of Connemara’s history, folklore, artistry, geology, and nature, Tim Robinson’s The Last Pool of Darkness is a sprawling, joyful romp along Ireland’s western coastline.
The second volume in a trilogy, the book includes careful descriptions of the Connemara region’s natural features, such as the exposed quartzite along a Cleggan Head promontory; predatory ground beetles on boggy grazing land; deposits of zeolites and coralline algae on rugged beaches; and Omey Island’s choughs (small, red-beaked crows unique to Ireland’s western dunes). An evocative description of the region’s geology addresses the emergence of this wave-washed coast during the Silurian and Ordovician periods, as well as glacial impacts from the latest Ice Age during Pleistocene.
Accessible to locals and enthusiastic travelers, the prose is upbeat, clear, and engaging, if Robinson’s “grain-by-grain hoarding of detail” and prancing shifts between stories require keen attention. Indeed, natural history is only one of his several themes; the book also covers several hundred years of human history and legends. There are accounts of visits to the region by famous writers—including W. B. Yeats and Ludwig Wittgenstein—and rollicking stories about local legends like Festy Mortimer, a fisherman and boat builder who reared a family of ten; the “ample and earth-rooted” Bina McLoughlin, known as the Queen of the Connemara; and Dorothy Cross, the mermaid (and artist) of Mullaghglass. Told in the gossipy tone of a confidante, there are adventure stories about sea captains, balladeers, priests, farmers, and artists, as well as seances, drownings, unsolved murders, the potato blight, and islands that disappear in the mist.
Sweeping and authoritative, The Last Pool of Darkness is an astonishing, immersive view of the people and places of Ireland’s Connemara region.
Reviewed by
Kristen Rabe
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
