Woodbrook

by David Thomson

Woodbrook is a rare house that gives its name to a small, rural area in Ireland, not far from the old port of Sligo. It has been owned since the seventeenth century by the Anglo-Irish Kirkwoods. In 1932, David Thomson, aged eighteen, went there as a tutor. He stayed for ten years.

This memoir, acknowledged as a masterpiece, grew out of two great loves — for Woodbrook and for Phoebe, his pupil. In it he builds up a delicate, lyrical picture of a gentle pre-war society, of Irish history and troubled Anglo-Irish relations, and of a delightful family. Above all, his story reverberates with the enchantment of falling in love and with the desolation of bereavement.

Genres: Ireland, Biography, History, Nonfiction, Memoir, Book Club, Biography Memoir

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads data base.

For the film critic, see https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a non-fiction account of David Thomson’s time in Ireland. In 1932 at the age of eighteen he went to County Roscommon to Woodbrook, a somewhat run down big house owned by the Kirkwood family. He was to be tutor to their eleven year old daughter Phoebe. He effectively stayed for over ten years as tutor and later farm hand. This was written in 1974 and seems to be much loved.
Thomson writes beautifully and the descriptions of the landscape are poetic. He also goes off on lots of tangents, mainly historical, and I learnt a good deal of detail about Irish history. One positive about the book is that Thomson does outline the full infamy of English oppression over the centuries: famines, evictions, clearances and general cruelty. The accounts of rural life are fascinating, especially the accounts of wakes which were clearly semi-pagan in origin.
The Woodbrook estate is in decline and this is very much an account of the disappearance of a way of life. The Kirkwood family had arrived in Ireland in the late seventeenth century and so were still newcomers and part of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy.
It’s all very interesting, however there are a couple of things that made me take a step back. The primary one is Thomson’s relationship with his pupil Phoebe. She was eleven at the start of the book. Thomson describes how he fell in love with Phoebe and seems to have been effectively grooming her (he was eighteen when he first arrived there). At one point he talks about her “budding breasts”. She obviously also responds to his attentions and it’s all rather exploitative. It’s not Lolita, and it seems like her parents gently cooled it off at one point (when she was about fourteen). It was clearly a totally inappropriate relationship. There’s also a bit of adolescent angst which didn’t go down well either.
So, despite the poetic writing, the interesting historical information and the description of a disappearing way of life, I didn’t enjoy the whole for the reason described. I have read many reviews which don’t mention this at all, which I find incomprehensible.

[Claire O'Brien · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's difficult to know what to say about this one. Mr. Thomson writes a very detailed portrait of life in a big house in 1930s & 40s Ireland, and it I found that aspect of it fascinating. So too were most of his historical lessons, especially the section on the workhouse and relationship with the landowners during the famine of the 1840s. Those interested in history would definitely enjoy this book.
However, Mr. Thomson does not paint a very sympathetic portrait of himself and he's hard to like. I could have gotten over this, if there had not been many disturbing scenes about his love of his pupil Phoebe, the elder daughter of his employees and hosts. When the book begins, David Thomson was 18 and Phoebe 11, and yet he writes about her "budding breasts" and her changing body in a way that I found very disturbing. In my bookclub of 12, only 2 other members felt the same way, and the rest claimed that these were innocent times and that a boy of 18 would be very immature, but I did not find his writings about Phoebe immature or innocent. Although these sections were only short in the context of the overall memoir, they were scattered throughout and they left a nasty aftertaste for me, and prevented this book from getting 4 stars.

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book brings together many strands of writing: memoir, history, folklore, social and political analysis. Above all, it is a love story; love for a place and for a family. David Thomson went to rural Roscommon in the West of Ireland to act as a tutor to a family of Anglo-Irish aristocrats. The Kirkwood family had been in Ireland for centuries but a combination of frivolity, irresponsibility and bad luck had caused their fortune to dwindle and for them to fall on hard times. Thomson tells the historical story of the Kirkwood family and how they fit into the larger movements of Anglo-Irish history. He also tells, in affectionate detail, the story of the Kirkwoods that he knew personally; especially moving is his depiction of Phoebe Kirkwood. His love for Phoebe forms the emotional core of the book and in many ways Woodbrook was written as homage to her.
The book is a beautiful rendering of a fading civilization, a documentation of the last vestiges of late medieval Irish society that had managed to hang on in the isolated and impoverished West of Ireland. As the book progresses the reader becomes more and more attached to the Kirkwoods and the inevitably tragic ending of the story is no less bitter because the reader can see it coming.
Woodbrook is a graceful elegy for a family and the way of life they represented and I heartily recommend it.

[Osprey Hosting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because my father was alive and living in the area that the book is based on I was fascinated by the stories told, the people mentioned, the history which was shared as living stories.

I first read this book many years ago while my father was still alive however I was too young at the time to ask him the questions I would like to ask now. I wish that I could remember our discussions about the book however I only remember basics such as his view that the book was fairly true to life at the time. He knew a number of the characters mentioned and knew many of the stories first hand.

I do remember that he enjoyed the fact that I read the book and he loved being able to discuss it with me.

I found the historical sections of the book to be quite shocking - the sections where Thomson discussed his thesis on Ireland during the Cromwellian times and earlier. Although school history lessons would have covered this period in some detail we would have learnt a somewhat cleansed version of history compared to the bare facts as relayed by Thomson. My understanding of how the life of my ancestors would have been affected by the cruelty and attitude of the ruling classes is different now than when I was a school child and I found that I felt much outrage reading these passages.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Near the old port of Sligo in Ireland is a large house called Woodbrook; it is so well known that the area around it also takes its name from the house. A family called the Kirkwood have owned the house since the seventeenth century. At the age of eighteen David Thomson was appointed as a tutor to Phoebe Kirkwood in 1932. He ended up staying 10 years. In this memoir, he describes how he came to love the house and the region, and how he slowly fell for his pupil. As well as the story of the family and house, it is about Ireland in between the wars when there was a much slower pace of life.

There were sections of this book that I really liked, in particular his travel around on a bike and personal interaction with the locals and other characters. Whilst I realise that it is important to set the context, I felt that there was too much history in the book for a memoir and it just felt that I was wading through it. Even though the time he was there this was after the civil war and into the Second World War, it was a tough life there and his recollection is lyrical but quite melancholy. Overall was ok to read, just didn’t live up to the promise of ‘masterpiece’ for me.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it was fiction! Some of it must be. A romance with Ireland. Given me by my son who was in love with an Irish woman (now his wife). I just re-read it six years later and decided on a fifth star, as much for the Irish history (so sorrowful) as for the memoir itself, which is poignant and elegaic.

[Kevin Tole · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is truly difficult to rate and write a review of ‘Woodbrook’. Rarely do you came across a book where the author in writing his text lays all his flaws out on the page in such good writing to the extent that, despite the quality of the writing, the author looks seriously psychologically flawed. This was published in 1974 but relates to a 10-year period in Ireland from 1932 onwards and charts the decline of a rural estate in Roscommon. Thomson was there to be a tutor to the Anglo-Irish Kirkwoods’ daughters. There is a pretty weird relationship between Thomson and the eldest daughter, Phoebe. You might almost say this was grooming before grooming was grooming. It is not quite Lolita / Humbert Humbert of Nabokov's Lolita and somewhat more than the distant yearning of Aschenbach for Tadzio in Death in Venice . This proceeds with the seven-year gap between the elder Thomson at 18 right through till he finally ceases contact with the family. So that’s one aspect of the book. The other is the Akenfield -like documentary recording of the estate and rural Ireland with numerous asides looking into the culture and history of rural Ireland. And I also admit that I have my own class prejudice to get over when reading and discussing this work.

Guests said that in spite of the sentimental movement towards Home Rule, the murmurs of armed rebellion, the occasional arson and murder, the Irish people were fundamentally loyal – look how they flocked to join the British army. They were a friendly people and knew which side their bread was buttered on – the English side. There were troublemakers amongst them, a few extremists, said the guests, but these would be powerless against the sense of humour, and the laziness of the majority.

This occurs near the beginning of the book and although it is given as an example of the attitude amongst the guests that visit the Kirkwoods it is demonstrative of the extreme paternalism and neo-colonialism exhibited by the Anglo-Irish and Thomson despite his love of the country and the people.

The landed gentry continue with their ownership of land maintaining an almost feudal subservience with the people that work on the estate to the extent that the servants rarely get to be wage earners but are ‘employed’ almost as a favour to keep them in survival. This is the same argument used by all colonialists everywhere to keep a native population in check – South Africa, India – every colony the ruling colonists subserviate the indigenous population whilst believing that they do it in the natives best interest! Thomson writes well if somewhat romantically. However he never seems to analyse his own position in this exposé of neo-colonialism almost by default throughout the book – a seeming litany of almost tyrannical paternalism with the Anglo-Irish landowners always down on their uppers and doing their best to maintain face whilst the world moves on. It is a fairy tale romance of refusing to see the march of history.

Thomson gives his skating take on Irish history from Elizabethan times though to the 2WW but it comes across less as history and more as apologia. It is almost as if he is passing through the landscape in alienation. Despite his great love for the land and the people, he can never be Irish. He knows that he is not part of it and if anything is part of the problem not part of the solution. His recanting as such is rather sad. In fact that sadness pervades the book both in its cultural and historic context and in his flawed, almost paedophilic yearning for Phoebe. He seems like the maukit gombeen man sitting in the back snug nursing his half and half trying to keep his greetin’ tears from watering down his ball of malt. And there is throughout this, nestling under the surface a level of existential anger which never is allowed to surface but resides there tearing up and disfiguring.

”I was known as ‘the Englishman’. Even in England strangers think I look odd, and it was clearly impossible for me to become one of the community.”

His ‘outsider-ness' is made visible time and time again, with the Irish workers on the estate, with the neighbours and with his Anglo-Irish employers, ostensibly his immediate class and kin. It is almost as if he is trying to make amends for the history of brutality by the English against the Irish by recounting a history that can never be undone. It is almost like a death wish on his part.

It is brutally honest as seen from Thomson’s perspective, deeply romantic, very well written – a real page-turner, quite elegiac for a past that would soon die and rightly so. In it's honesty it is really a 5-star work and the writing is enjoyable, but in it's subject matter - all of it - I despised it.

[Carl Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful memoir, this, of a man reflecting back on his youth—of his wanting to belong, of his finding and embracing a home place. David Thomson first came to Woodbrook, a small estate belonging to an Anglo-Irish landed family on an inevitable downward economic spiral, as an 18 year old student to tutor the family’s daughters and stayed through World War II as a farm hand.

According to his telling, Thomson falls deeply in love with his student, Phoebe, who is seven years his junior—enough so that her mother speaks to him on the subject. I found this part of the narrative disturbing (Though certainly if Phoebe had been 25 and Thompson 32 it would have been less so. ) enough to give me pause. Ultimately, though, his affection becomes more devotion and the kind of affection a teacher might feel for a special student rather than something inappropriate.

David Thomson’s memory stands outside linear time—part social history, part folk lore, part nature history weaving with his own story. He looks with a friendly eye at the culture, the history, the geography of the northern parts of Ireland, while avoiding the kind of sugary sweet nostalgia that looking back can sometimes bring. Well worth the read for anyone interested in the storyof an adopted home place, or of Ireland, or of time long past should read this volume.

[Seath Tankard crook · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a game of two halves; on the one hand, a lyrical account of rural Ireland before and during World War 2, on the other a disturbing account of a young man's obsession with a prepubescent girl.

The memoir explores Thomson's relationship with the Kirkwoods, an Anglo Irish family, and their beautiful, decaying estate near Sligo. His descriptions of rural life, the family and their dependents and, particularly, his depiction of the agricultural seasons are accomplished and vivid. I would say it is worth reading for this alone. His relationship with Phoebe Kirkwood, however, left me feeling quite disturbed. At the start of his reminiscences, she is 11 and he is 18, yet he makes it clear that he has a sexual interest in her.

More disturbing, however, is the complete lack of any attempt to address this through the many reviews I looked up, all of which are glowing. One reviewer obliquely references the paedophile aspect by stating that those were 'more innocent times'. Seriously? Even in the 1940s it was NOT OK to fancy an 11 year old.

So, in summary, as a socio historical account of the fading of the British Empire in rural Ireland, it is highly successful. But expect to feel quite squeamish at the blatant grooming of Phoebe Kirkwood.

[Fosco2004 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A heavy going read on essentially the history of the West of Ireland from famine time to post WWII. A very interesting read but from my perspective an historical account far more than the love story it promises. Also, I found the love story side of things a bit disturbing as Phoebe was only a very young girl and he an 18 year old scholar from London. It just felt a bit "wrong".

[Lady Drinkwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautifully told story of life in Ireland by a young tutor at a "big house". What I loved about it was that there was no rush, it really took its time and I felt as if I was with the author, boating down the river, pottering in the garden, eating my breakfast whilst looking out at the views. It was very soft and lyrical. I also really enjoyed the Irish history and folkore which the author brought in. Much of the time he recounted stories which he had actually been told by the locals. This English boy came to have a great sympathy for the Irish people and an unusual understanding of their history and point of view. I would have given the book 5 stars if it wasn't for his relationship with the very young pupil Phoebe. When I saw that he had fallen in love with his pupil in the description of the book I imagined that she would be about 16, in fact she is 11 or 12 when he first starts to teach her so its hard not to be disturbed by his longing for a child. These were different times and he describes it with great naivety and openness, absolutely no shame, the main negative emotion being jealousy. They kiss when she is still very young, 14 by which time he is in his twenties and it is implied that something more than that happens. Even at the very end, when he meets her as an adult, he sees her running and it reminds him of her childhood, so it really is the child in her that he loves. He really did love Phoebe, and they were different times, but I still found this rather shocking.

[James Askari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomson, a Scot with an Army background and rural upbringing, went to Woodbrook, an Anglo-Irish estate that gives its name to the surrounding Co. Sligo area, at eighteen, to be private tutor to an eleven year-old girl. The book explains, with remarkable self-effacement and an impressive measure of dispassion and authority, how he comes to understand Irish history, the dispossession, since Cromwell, of the old Catholic lords of their lands and religion, more thoroughly from relationships than he could from books. Day-to-day relations between the Protestant Kirkwoods, descendants of placemen from the 1670s, and now successful or streaky breeders and trainers of racehorses, rather than farmers, and their neighbours, tenants and retainers are warm; but the Catholics, never having left their birthplace in a process of industrialisation, nurture a historic enmity: when the house is up for sale, someone chalks up on a rock 'Boycott Woodbrook', i.e. embargo its sale to any non-local non-Catholic. 'The Major' treats everyone alike, with pleasant frankness; and both sides, in fact, are more direct than they would be in England. Thomson's book recalls the vanished world of folkstories of people led astray, of fairies ('gentry') so thick on the grass cattle have to nose them aside to graze, sugar sprinkled on the green sticks of a fire to make it burn.

Much of Thomson's narrative describes the Kirkwoods of the previous generation and before his time in the house: Charlie's wins with his stayer The Green Knight, who wins both the Coronation Cup and Ascot Gold Cup in successive years, and which pays for the house's renovation, and buys the 'herds' (employed herdsmen) houses; and Aunt Nina, who has a disability of the spine and takes the same four steps every day, the last onto a stoup from which she mounts before spending the day in the saddle. Thomson, nicknamed 'The Englishman', goes with his friends the herds to country horse fairs; he has his hair cut by the usually taciturn steward; he is received everywhere with fairness, hospitality, even love, but would never (partly on account of religion, but partly because he is an outsider) be accepted as an equal. A job and friendly but casual engagement with Woodbrook turn over the course of ten years to something deeper, as he falls in love with his charge, the tomboyish Phoebe. He bitterly remembers his missteps--putting a stook of harvest corn into the cart badly, attracting laughter meant to be kind but privately jeering. The young man of forty years before, slow, passionate, given to hallucinations like seeing burning hedges, is very unlike the voice of the narrator, surpassingly calm and competent.

Phoebe's mother worries that she is 'too taken up' with him, and innocently (which Thomson describes as a mixture of ignorance and guilelessness) he replies that there is nothing to worry about, since he feels the same way, only more so. They are separated for the winters she spends in Dublin and he at Oxford and London, and she is destined for a society match with a man her age and class. Thomson is consumed with jealousy for Trevor-Roper, an Oxford lodger he likes, who becomes her more suitable playmate; this man is consumed in fear of a ghost who lays across his chest, suffocating and strangling him. The men swap bedrooms. It seems that Thomson's mad and exceptional love for Phoebe, with whom he shares so much, is written in the key of impossibility, though as an adult she appears to offer him a pledge in Dublin at the end.

[Lawrence Patterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An account of life in rural Ireland in the1930's and 1940's mixed with romantic longing and the history of Anglo- Irish involvement over the last 350 years. This is probably a better way of understanding the Irish, their suffering under British rule and how society functioned 80 odd years ago.than any history book could relate.
The charm of this book is how the writer explains the way the Irish live. How their customs both differ and yet copy others. How they resent the things done to them by the English but are so accepting of someone from across the water living among them and mucking in to the tasks needing done.
The education attached to this book is how they suffered and put up with a semi- feudal lifestyle for so many years.
The human story is of a young tutor of Scottish decent has a romantic longing for his pupil
The tragedy that enfolds is off debt, delusion and death. Don't expect a happy ending - it's real life and told with a good deal of realism.
The only reason I awarded only 4 stars and not 5 was the way the real life suddenly runs into the history and vice-a-versa. I appreciate what the writer is trying to do but it can be a bit confusing or disconcerting. Notwithstanding that you learn more Ireland and the Irish than any documentary will ever provide.

[Clive Grewcock · Rating 1 out of 5]

This could have been a very good read but unfortunately it ultimately a very uncomfortable read. To start with the better aspects, when Thomson is using Woodbrook, a house in Ireland's Midlands, as a vehicle to tell the family history of the Kirkwood family and Irish history in general his writing is informative and charming. He is particularly insightful about the Famine, Anglo Irish Landlords and the transition in Irish society in the 1930s. However, we first meet Thomson as an 18 year old who is engaged at Woodbrook to tutor the Kirkwood's daughters and unfortunately he has no qualms about recounting his love for the 12 year old Phoebe. Even more unfortunately he uses phrases that means it is impossible to dismiss this as a glimpse of a more innocent age. I resorted to skipping these sections and only reading the more general sections.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable book, but hard to read. The descriptions of the Irish countryside made me want to drop everything and immediately get on a plane to visit the places spoken of. This book also opened my eyes to how the Irish people were treated SO poorly by the English. I knew it was bad, just not THAT bad. It was hard to read because the story jumped between David Thomson's personal story and the history lessons and I really just wanted to follow the personal story, with a little more relevance with the history at the moment it was brought up in the book. I also did not like the abrupt ending.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not an easy book to read but it was a good history of the Irish and all the political and religious turmoil they went through. It is also a love story. My ancestors did not have an easy time of it and the book explains a great deal about why they came to America and just who they were.

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is interesting if you want to get a sense of Irish history and culture, that's what kept me reading. There are better books in fiction and non-fiction that do that. Because of its format, this one is perhaps easier to read than some of those. As a novel, the story line was thin.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant evocation of an Ireland that has passed. His insights as an English man into ordinary West of Ireland life are very well observed, especially for one so "innocent" in the colloquial sense!

[Maria Savic · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled to get through this one...too dreary and mundane for me

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

As this was a book club read for me, I wasn't too sure what it would be like but assumed it would be fiction, maybe based on some real-life events. Now I have read it I realise it is actually a true story of the life of the author when he was engaged as a tutor to an Anglo-Irish family living in a decaying house in an out-the-back-of-beyond part of western Ireland in the years up to and including the Second World War. I think! Well, it certainly rings true to life, mostly. There is a ton of description of the places he gets to know and the working customs and habits of those amongst whom he lives, which is why I, although the characters, their quirks, their way of life and their customs have probably gone forever (which may be why he felt compelled to write this all down), I decided it was real life and not fiction. The main characters are rounded to a degree but if this was fiction then I am sure more would be made of them, even though as described by Thompson they do come across as often larger than life, or at least not the sort of people most of us meet these days. If you are not one for history then you may well get dissatisfied with this book as whole chapters suddenly lurch off into a pure historical narrative of events in Irish history, often from eras preceding the one when the author was alive and experiencing the events he describes. This is why the book rather confused me. Fiction? Real life? History? Maybe all three! But an interesting and at times moving read. Just challenging for those of us who need to pigeon-hole!

[Nicola Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of the book or writer and have no idea why it recently caught my attention in Hodges Figgis in Dublin - although, maybe it was the informative Brian Moore quote on its otherwise dull cover: 'A brilliantly original mix of love-story, memoir and history.' I love history and I love memoirs so that is probably what sold it for me. It's gorgeously written and steeped in history thanks to Thomson's passion for the subject and Ireland too. He arrived here in 1932 to tutor the two daughters of Ivy and Charlie Kirkwood and becomes an integral part of the estate and family for the next ten years. I fell in love with the Kirkwood parents, especially Charlie who is doing his best to hold onto everything he holds dear, his big house, farm and his thoroughbred racehorses but the clock is ticking as the money begins to run out, forcing inevitable change that is ultimately welcomed by his family. Thomson also falls in love with everything, from his young pupil, Phoebe, and her parents, to their staff and the pattern of everyday life in Woodbrook, along with the history of its outer regions. He is wonderful on topics like the Famine and is scathing about England's lacklustre response to starving Irish poor, describing woefully bad English landlords who callously evicted tenants who had nowhere to go nor anything to eat. The ending is rather unexpected as he does not aim for sentimentality but he did leave me with lots of questions about what happened to the Kirkwoods in later years. In any case, I really enjoyed this book and I know I will miss it for a while yet.

[Catherine Stover · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 100-word reviews can also be found on https://www.catherinestover.com/

A review of “Woodbrook” in 100 words by Catherine Stover

When asked to recommend a classic Irish memoir, a bookseller in Dublin went straight to this book. As it turns out, she wasn’t alone in saying that reading this book is one of “life’s greatest pleasures.” This idiosyncratic blend of a love story, folk lore, nature writing, and social history is dense. If you are curious about how a long shadow of gruesome politics have influenced Irish perspectives and art, this book is for you. Great memoirs can make readers feel as if they’ve been drawn into a circle of intimate friends. This book reached that high bar for me.

[Emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

unfortunately, not only this read as pleasurably as a wikipedia page, but this was also the narration coming from a grown ass man telling us about at eighteen (a full legal adult) he was enamoured by a literal child of eleven???

[Julian Vignoles · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s my all time favourite book!