Richard Edward Devlin

With the Irish Set: in Set Dance Land Richard Edward Devlin

Four years ago, the author started out on a journey to learn Irish set dancing, at an age, he says "When most men and women are pulling the stool closer to the turf fire and dreaming of life when life was young." The journey took him from Nova Scotia to Milwaukee, Killarney, Ballinasloe and many lesser-known places in between, including a "wacky little burg in the Catskills where Irish dreamers had painted green shamrocks on the pavement all up and down the principal street." Along the way, Devlin says, he met the wildest assortment of Irish and Irish-American characters imaginable and chapter by chapter, Devlin brings these fascinating people and their sometimes amusing, but always endearing, ways, close to your chair and into your heart. "Like all of us who cling to our sense of an Irish heritage," Devlin says, "Like a moth to a bright light, I am drawn to Irish ways." As a reader, if you share this life view, you will love this book. ________________________________________________________________ "A hilarious account from deep inside the mind of a new set dancer progressing from his wife's reluctant partner to a fully obsessed set dancer who meets a host of entertaining and endearing characters along the way." Bill Lynch; Publisher, Set Dancing News. "Swaggering, comical, and shrewd, Devlin's memoir is an insider's entertaining tale of the oddities and magical allure of the Irish set dancing world.." Cynthia Neale; Author of the Irish Dresser and Norah.