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Green Rushes
In the rich vein of John Buchan and Rider Haggard . . .
The vigorous style of Maurice Walsh again captures the exhilaration of the great out-of-doors combining a warm heart and lively imagination with a true patriot's sympathy of outlook.
An ambush that went awry brought unlooked-for company to Hugh Forbes and his doughty fighters.
The lives of all present that June night above Lough Aonach became strangely intertwined, among them Paddy Bawn, 'The Quiet Man', who first battled Red Will O'Danaher to win proud Ellen Roe and then helped Major MacDonald bring peace to lovely Nuala Kierley - one-time participant in a grim game of life and death for the cause . . .
The vigorous style of Maurice Walsh again captures the exhilaration of the great out-of-doors combining a warm heart and lively imagination with a true patriot's sympathy of outlook.
An ambush that went awry brought unlooked-for company to Hugh Forbes and his doughty fighters.
The lives of all present that June night above Lough Aonach became strangely intertwined, among them Paddy Bawn, 'The Quiet Man', who first battled Red Will O'Danaher to win proud Ellen Roe and then helped Major MacDonald bring peace to lovely Nuala Kierley - one-time participant in a grim game of life and death for the cause . . .
- GenresFiction
253 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
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About the author
Maurice Walsh
69 books26 followersMaurice Walsh was an Irish novelist best known for the short story The Quiet Man which was later made into an Oscar-winning movie directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. Walsh was born in 1879 in Ballydonoghue near Listowel, Co. Kerry, Ireland. He was one of Ireland's best-selling authors in the 1930s.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 20, 2020
A recent chance reference to the double Oscar-winning movie, The Quiet Man, has led me to view the movie but first, read the short story from which it sprung.
It appears that the film's magnetic draw has always included the village of Cong, County Mayo, whose enchanting, deep rural southern Irish locale persuaded even director, John Ford's technical crew to return there on holiday after production, so their families could absorb the magic for themselves.
But I digress!
Here I am discussing the original story and its author, Maurice Walsh, who became such an important figure in mid-20th century Irish letters that Éamon de Valera-then President of Ireland - attended his funeral mass when he died in 1964.
The son of a farmer from whom he inherited a love of books, legends, folktales and the theory of 'place', Walsh began working life as a civil servant, turning to write full-time in the early 1930s as his fame and popularity grew.
Maurice Walsh was also a romantic nationalist and part of a group that included figures like Nobel laureate, W B Yeats, who followed the ideas of 18th century German Enlightenment philosopher, Gottfried von Herder.
The Quiet Man was first published in the US weekly, The Saturday Evening Post in February 1933, later becoming part of this collection, Green Rushes.
From the opening words onward, Walsh fairly sets in aspic an image of a southern Irish rural life that was fading even as he wrote.
The reader gains an instant image of a wide landscaped, slow-paced idyll measured by the rhythm of the seasons and the strictures of the Church calendar.
Superficially, Walsh's story is another 'David and Goliath' in which an average-sized but skilled boxer shows he is the physical and moral superior of the towering, menacing neighbourhood bully.
On another level, it reveals an entrenched patriarchal society in which women are still used and abused as men's property and where they wield any authority via canny, sly manipulation.
Third, we are shown with consummate grace how the early resentments of an arranged marriage - here, more one of convenience - may be turned first to appreciation and at last to genuine affection.
Walsh's story and Ford's movie are prime examples of the challenges faced by the creators of one piece of art from another.
Is it plagiarism by another name? But is it artistic theft - even betrayal when the original artist has sold the 'rights' to a new owner?
I do not care one jot for the movie. I suggest that it has indeed traduced the original story and is saved only by its cinematography and a couple of individual scenes. As Walsh avoided Hollywood after a second of his works failed as a movie, I wonder if he felt he had sold his writerly soul to the devil of clapperboard tinsel town. A sin he would never commit again.
It appears that the film's magnetic draw has always included the village of Cong, County Mayo, whose enchanting, deep rural southern Irish locale persuaded even director, John Ford's technical crew to return there on holiday after production, so their families could absorb the magic for themselves.
But I digress!
Here I am discussing the original story and its author, Maurice Walsh, who became such an important figure in mid-20th century Irish letters that Éamon de Valera-then President of Ireland - attended his funeral mass when he died in 1964.
The son of a farmer from whom he inherited a love of books, legends, folktales and the theory of 'place', Walsh began working life as a civil servant, turning to write full-time in the early 1930s as his fame and popularity grew.
Maurice Walsh was also a romantic nationalist and part of a group that included figures like Nobel laureate, W B Yeats, who followed the ideas of 18th century German Enlightenment philosopher, Gottfried von Herder.
The Quiet Man was first published in the US weekly, The Saturday Evening Post in February 1933, later becoming part of this collection, Green Rushes.
From the opening words onward, Walsh fairly sets in aspic an image of a southern Irish rural life that was fading even as he wrote.
The reader gains an instant image of a wide landscaped, slow-paced idyll measured by the rhythm of the seasons and the strictures of the Church calendar.
Superficially, Walsh's story is another 'David and Goliath' in which an average-sized but skilled boxer shows he is the physical and moral superior of the towering, menacing neighbourhood bully.
On another level, it reveals an entrenched patriarchal society in which women are still used and abused as men's property and where they wield any authority via canny, sly manipulation.
Third, we are shown with consummate grace how the early resentments of an arranged marriage - here, more one of convenience - may be turned first to appreciation and at last to genuine affection.
Walsh's story and Ford's movie are prime examples of the challenges faced by the creators of one piece of art from another.
Is it plagiarism by another name? But is it artistic theft - even betrayal when the original artist has sold the 'rights' to a new owner?
I do not care one jot for the movie. I suggest that it has indeed traduced the original story and is saved only by its cinematography and a couple of individual scenes. As Walsh avoided Hollywood after a second of his works failed as a movie, I wonder if he felt he had sold his writerly soul to the devil of clapperboard tinsel town. A sin he would never commit again.
October 9, 2013
A really engaging set of overlapping stories following the lives of a group of (mostly) men who fight in the Black and Tan War in Ireland in the early part of the twentieth century. It captures brilliantly the mood and culture of the time, and the ambiguity of the moral choices that people had to face. There is a slight romantic tendency within the writing which, thankfully, doesn't get too out of hand. I would also class it as an insight into maleness, how we (men) need a cause and how lost and self-destructive we become without one.
March 30, 2025
It saddens me to see so few reviews of this book, and how few outside Ireland have even heard of it, let alone read it. I am not ashamed to say I have a soft spot for the film The Quiet Man, but the five linked short stories here (including the one which led to the film) are far deeper, darker, more linked to warfare of c.1920, and yet contain the same humour and beauty as the film, even if romantic relationships lie at their core. I adored each of them, and their characters.
I truly wish a publisher like Slightly Foxed (editors: Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood) would open an Irish branch to re-issue some of these long-overlooked treasures, in the beautiful cloth bindings and creamy paper, and they deserve (not to mention the sewn-in ribbon bookmarker!).
Full disclosure: I might be slightly biased towards Walsh and his writings, as he was born only 21 miles or so from my where my own great-grandmother was born, just 5 years before Walsh.
I truly wish a publisher like Slightly Foxed (editors: Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood) would open an Irish branch to re-issue some of these long-overlooked treasures, in the beautiful cloth bindings and creamy paper, and they deserve (not to mention the sewn-in ribbon bookmarker!).
Full disclosure: I might be slightly biased towards Walsh and his writings, as he was born only 21 miles or so from my where my own great-grandmother was born, just 5 years before Walsh.
August 22, 2018
Out of print and tough to find, but well worth reading. I came to the book originally due to my love of the John Ford film THE QUIET MAN, and enjoyed Walsh's short story on which the film is based quite a lot. But the interweaving of characters among all the stories in this volume is quite clever and engaging. Paddy Bawn Enright (main character of "The Quiet Man" tale, called Sean Thornton in the film) appears in many of the other stories in the book, and supporting characters from "The Quiet Man" such as Mikleen Oge Flynn are the leads in others. Together in makes a nice tapestry of a handful of Irish characters during and just after "The Troubles."
September 10, 2023
My rating is a sentimental one, as I was reading Maurice Walsh more than fifty years ago. I picked this up yesterday and am enjoying it again. So slow, so peaceful, with a fist fight or two in it somewhere.
May 30, 2017
Excellent read. Five short stories with The Quiet Man (one of my favorite movies) being one of them.
April 26, 2022
Excellent novel from the 1920s during and following the Black & Tan wars.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews