The Song at Your Backdoor

Taking his backdoor as a starting point, Joseph Horgan explores the natural world. The book spans one autumn and one winter, framed by the departure of the swallows from the author's backyard and concluding with their return. In between, Horgan travels on foot or by bicycle along some still-quiet country lanes of 21st-century rural Ireland. Mingling his observations and thoughts with references from seventh-century poetry to modern geological studies, he encourages us to look again at nature around us and to respect and protect it.

Auteur

JOSEPH HORGAN, born in England, came to live in Ireland in 1999. Shortlisted for the Hennessy Award for New Irish Writing in 2003, in 2004 he was awarded the Patrick Kavanagh award for poetry. His work has been broadcast on RTÉ radio and television and he writes a weekly column for the Irish Post. His poetry has been published in various journals and his first collection, Slipping Letters Beneath the Sea, was published in 2008. He lives in County Cork with his wife and their three children.