Seek the Fair Land

Irish Trilogy #1

by Walter Macken

The first book in a trilogy examining the adventures of several generations of one Irish family.

Set amidst the Cromwellian Invasions, "Seek the Fair Wind" begins in 1641. Dominick McMahon, a merchant by trade, has little appetite for fighting, yet is forced to defend his town against Cromwell's army.

From dark city streets to wild mountains, from vicious slaughter to triumphant faith, from selfish obedience to heroic opposition - this novel paints a vivid portrait of the struggles of the Irish people against the English.

Along with "The Silent People" and "The Scorching Wind," " Seek the Fair Land" is a fascinating examination of the history and events that fueled the fight for freedom in Ireland.

Genres: Ireland, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Irish Literature, Historical, 17th Century, War

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Walter Macken was an Irish writer of short stories, novels and plays.

Originally an actor, principally with the Tadhbhearc in Galway, and The Abbey Theatre, he played lead roles on Broadway in MJ Molloy's The King of Friday’s Men and his own play Home is the Hero. He also acted in films, notably in Brendan Behan’s The Quare Fellow. With the success of his third book, Rain on the Wind, he devoted his time to writing. His plays include Mungo’s Mansion (1946) and Home is the Hero (1952).

His novels include I Am Alone (1949); Rain on the Wind (1950); The Bogman (1952); and the historical trilogy Seek the Fair Land (1959), The Silent People (1962) and The Scorching Wind (1964). His short stories were collected in The Green Hills (1956), God Made Sunday (1962) and The Coll Doll and other Stories (1962).

He also published a number of books for children, including Island of the Great Yellow Ox (1966); and Flight of the Doves (1968), which was adapted for the cinema.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about a time in the history of Ireland that I had very limited knowledge. Set in 1649, it tells the story when the English invaded Ireland under Cromwell's orders and tried to exterminate the Irish race. There is no other word for it than complete destruction. It didn't take much reading to learn than Cromwell was another Hitler. It was truly horrifying.

The English did not consider the Irish human. Does that sound similar to you? They even killed children so they wouldn't grow up to be adults. One line stuck out to me. "Had it always been like this, he wondered, that one race could so despise another race, that they regarded it as an actual virtue to kill them as if they were vermin?"

The story centers around Dominick MacMahon who does not come out well when Drogheda is invaded by Cromwell's soldiers. His wife is killed, his young son left with a head wound that causes him to become mute and his house is plundered. He sets off with his injured son, his young daughter and a wounded priest to find a place he can live in peace. He sets off across the beleaguered country to Connaught.

The book was published in 1959 and the writing is dated. There were some really clunky parts. Still the story was so moving that it overcame the obstacles. It made you wonder how we could still be doing the same old things? The violence is quite horrifying but the book carries a real sense of time and place.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

A reread of what has always been a book I enjoy. I first read this as a 13 year old in Galway and have read it every couole of years. A simple enough story but one about survival and different waya of fighting back in horrific times. Sebastian is a character I always enjoyed, probably not seen as strongly these days due to changes in attitude to priests but the calmness he brings to the madness and tempers in the story us an interesting contrast that gives an extra dimension to it all.
Overall its a well written history of some of the small people . Its great to see history from a diffrent angle and Mackin does that .

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was nervous. I fell in love with Flight of the Doves in grade school, and I was worried that this book would disappoint because of my memory of the book. Nope.

Good historical fiction should be required in any history class. The point of history is how people experience it, and so much of the way its taught misses that point. We covered Cromwell, but of course the focus was on the birth of the United States - we tend to be a little self-referential and miss SO much. I'd truly no idea how horrid the cromwellians were. Macken quickly connected me to Dominick and his family, introduced Murdoc, and then broke my heart. Its amazing to read - even knowing it is fiction - because in some spots I felt like I was reading about the Holocaust. And I suppose I was, just not the one we all know.

I loved Dominick because he is so imperfect, lost and angry, just trying to do what is necessary to keep his family alive and even that he isn't quite sure about. He raises two lovely children in spite, and perhaps because of his failures, his imperfections.

From page 70: "That was all he said. He died. And something happened to Dominick that he didn't believe possible. Tears came to his eyes. Not for himself. He was sick of himself. Not for Eibhlin - he had cried out his heart for her - but for this young, bewildered, foreign soldier dying in a foreign land. Who would know what became of him? What he had done was truly the work of the Lord. Who didn't will it, or ordain it but permitted it, for a reason, dear God, because there must be a reason else everything is chaos and there is no past, present or future"

Oh my yes...

I loved Sebastian, my image of a priest and one I hope again becomes the image because so many people I love have been damaged by priests who are not anything like Sebastian. I loved that he taught Mary Ann to read.

The book even ends well - a balance of tragedy and joy, nothing particularly resolved because life doesn't end on the last page. A wonderful story.

[Barra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a magnificent book! I really enjoyed the narrative and the powerful characters as the westward quest is pursued. Walter Macken has always been one of those authors who I felt I ought to have read. I’m so glad that I finally have. Having visited Galway city and Connemara very recently, I felt that the cityscape and landscapes were richly and evocatively described. A book which touched me, as hardship is encountered, sometimes overcome, sometimes endured but always described with great skill.

[Kelly Egan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Macken is an incredible writer. This story is heartbreakingly beautiful and written in such a matter of fact way that it makes it even more poignant and horrible. I loved this book so much. His detail to the Connemara countryside, the brutality of the time period and the beauty of his characters made this an impossible novel to put down. I love his simple writing style, and the way he brought this period to life. This is the first book that has ever reduced me to physically crying. Not just weeping or a few tears. I cried my heart out and had to walk away before coming back to finish it.

Heartbreaking, beautiful, unforgettable. Can't wait to read the rest. <3

[Mhd]

[led here by mention of this author in Small Things Like These]

[Jan Baxter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Irish Trilogy of Seek the Fair Land, The Scorching Wind, and The Silent People may be my favorite books. Not just of Walter Macken's, but my all time favorites. I've lost track of the number of times I have read them. These books inspired my first trip to Ireland and my subsequent return trips. If you are of Irish descent, you really must find these (maybe on Amazon.com because hard if not impossible to find in bookstores) and read them! :)

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives a really personal look at an important and devastating time in Irish history. Macken is an excellent storyteller--I never wanted to put this book down. I appreciated that he gave enough detail of the horrors that occurred for the reader to be able to understand the situation but was never gratuitous. A really powerful and emotional story yet still easy to read. Good for someone looking to learn about Irish history or who just wants to read a well-told, interesting story.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

First book of his trilogy this one about Cromwell's occupation of Ireland. Great characters, great writing and sad story that is sometimes hard to read if you let sink in what is happening. There is a scene in which he describes the smell of starvation coming from priests holed up in a small hovel. I had always heard the phrase "To hell or Connaught" but now if know more fully what it means.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is set in a time period in history I didn’t know much about: when Cromwell took over Ireland in the 1640-50s. Having more knowledge of this period and the history of Ireland would have been helpful for understanding the background of all that was going on.

This is a story about the terrible things humans do to one another because someone has a different birthplace or heritage or beliefs than you. In a very striking moment, just after the main character Dominick has discovered his wife brutally killed in the massacre at Drogheda, the English soldier who killed her questions whether it was right or not. She looked just like the women back home, yet he was told by his superiors that she was less than human because of her birthplace and religion. The book is full of big questions about right and wrong and how humans keep doing this to each other.

The novel is very well written, being both beautifully descriptive of the land and hard to put down in exciting scenes. But that descriptiveness also extended to the violence of this era. While I think this is a great novel with a lot of thought-provoking scenes and themes, it was heavy. And I just wasn’t in the right mood to read about the depravity of humanity when I picked it up.

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always had a hard time engaging with Ireland as a subject for fiction. It's like a teenager being embarrassed by their Dad, even though they love their Dad they can't stand to see him up in front of everyone carrying on and expecting people to take him seriously. So maybe I'm finally out of that difficult teenage phase once and for all.

This is pure brilliant.

Dominick MacMahon and his two children and a priest flee the Cromwellian massacre of Drogheda. There is as much horror and brutality ahead of them as their is behind - can they find a place to live without fear? The soldier Murdoc who Dominick saves twice might be able to provide it for them, but he may have to sell his very soul to the devil to do it - the repulsive Coote, ruler of Connaught.

The oddest thing about this wonderful book is the presence of Sebastian, the priest. Such a saintly figure should rankle a bit, yet it's possible to detect ambiguity under the surface of his depiction. It's hard for many modern Irish readers not to view Catholicism as a malignant force in Irish history, yet so welded to the Irish identity and clung to so strongly by the oppressed masses (while all the time the Spanish Inquisition is merrily doing its thing.) So when Sebastian starts to preach - particularly his denouncing Murdoc and Columba - it's natural to despise him from our point of view. And yet Sebastian is a saintly man, full of love and kindness, and he himself is not giving the people anything they do not desperately crave. He embodies the courage of the type as well as the subtle, corrupting, oppressive misogyny and conservatism. Isn't that just like us, as more than one character notes of the Irish temperament through the book.

Anyway, this is written at a level close to perfection, whether it is describing people or places or psychological states or brutal horrors. it is a big tale of small people surviving wretched misery and nightmare, but its achievement as a novel and its humanity transcends the degradations of its subject. A classic for a reason.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The history was accurate and interesting. Some of the history that is often suppressed by modern society. A heartfelt story about a man and his children trying to survive.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Occasionally, I pick up books in odd places.

It's not necessarily odd that I got a book from my Dad--he's not a huge reader (we think he's dyslexic) but he does read--but it's a bit odd that I got this book from my dad, since he rarely reads fiction. In fact, the last time my Dad really bothered to read fiction, he tells me, is when he was working in London shortly before I was born, and for a while had to work the graveyard shift so he could be on the same time frame as his colleagues on the U.S. eastern seaboard. This is how, when Dad was cleaning his house out last year, I ended up with his rather yellowed mass market paperbacks of Walter Macken's historical fiction trilogy about "the dark periods in Irish history," which isn't very specific if you know much about Irish history. The three dark periods covered in the trilogy are the Cromwellian conquest, the Famine, and the War of Independence/Civil War (in Irish history, those two wars happened right on top of each other). One famous dark period not represented in this trilogy is the Troubles, because these books are older than I am, and the Troubles were still going on around the time my Dad was working in the U.K., at least according to the stories he tells of being Randomly Selected for extra scrutiny every time he got on a plane out of there, being a young 6'4'' ginger man with a name like "Fitzgerald." (I think being Randomly Selected back then was not as invasive as getting Randomly Selected is now though.)

Anyway, I digress. So far I've only read the first book in the trilogy, the Cromwellian one, titled Seek the Fair Land, a reference to the main characters' quest to flee the ever-encroaching Puritan English and eke out a more-or-less independent existence in the mountains of Connacht.

Our protagonist is Dominick McMahon, a merchant in the city of Drogheda, a bit north of Dublin. (If I recall correctly, he was originally from Ulster and displaced sometime during the Plantation or the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Dominick really can't catch a break.) When Drogheda is razed and his wife dies in the attack, Dominick takes his daughter Mary Anne, his son Peter--now mute as the result of a head injury sustained in the invasion--and the kindly priest Sebastian and flees west, on the advice of a big Gaelic warrior named Murdoc who he'd saved and befriended in another invasion of Drogheda a few years earlier, when the Gaelic Irish took the city from an earlier wave of English.

The book takes place over several years, during which a specific antagonist appears: Coote, who is made Governor of Galway City. Coote is fanatically supportive of Cromwell's goals of either converting or exterminating the Irish, using a combination of political promises, economic pressure, and sheer brutality to subdue all resistance from a people he sees as being heathens and therefore basically not human. His job is to be Cromwell's arm in Galway, and his characterization is basically that he is, indeed, Cromwell's arm in Connacht, which is more characterization than you'd expect. The Cromwellian invasion was pretty fucked up. Coote was a real person who eventually died of smallpox in Dublin, but this version of him is better because Murdoc stabs him in Galway City, which is quite satisfying for the reader, after spending 200 pages reading about people being starved and tortured and hanged and imprisoned and sold to the sugar plantations in Barbados (something like 40% of the Irish population was killed or displaced during the Eleven Years' War, so there was quite an ugly variety of things that could happen to them).

Murdoc and Sebastian essentially represent two different and often conflicting ideals of native Irish manhood, with Murdoc being the paganistic, man-of-the-land brehon warrior sort and Sebastian embodying the importance of Catholic identity as a basis for Irish identity. Dominick spends much of his emotional and mental energy navigating between the two and their equally strong, if often opposing, convictions, wrestling with despair, self-doubt, self-interest, compassion, hatred, and all the other emotions that those of us whose sense of self is somehow damaged or underdeveloped have to deal with. (Most of his physical energy, obviously, goes into fighting, hiding, tracking, hunting, digging graves, and rescuing people).

This book was written in the mid-twentieth century and bears some of the stylistic flaws of genre fiction in the time before word processors, namely, clunky sentences that really could have used a few more rounds of line editing; relatively flat female characters with limited roles who could have used a few more rounds of beta-reading by a female beta reader; and an annoying affinity for using the word "rape" when discussing ravages of towns, cities, the land, and other things that are places rather than people.

As far as my limited research will allow, the historical aspects of this book seem pretty accurate, at least in terms of places and dates and people and things that happened in the war. Culturally, I dunno! One thing that I noticed that I am now really intrigued about is that this book still portrays a fairly sharp distinction between Gaelic Irish (Os and Macs) and the Anglo-Normal families as late as 1650, whereas I had thought they had pretty well assimilated by then ("more Irish than the Irish themselves and all that.) But it turns out that may have been exaggerated later for nationalism reasons (although as a Fitz I want to be like NO DEFINITELY THEY'RE IRISH!) (Note: Wikipedia calls the FitzGeralds a "notable Hiberno-Norman family" and lists Hiberno-Normans as distinct from both Normans and Gaelic Irish) and it was really the Protestant suppression the beginning of which this book chronicles that led to the "Old English" becoming considered actually regular Irish people.

Um, anyway. If you like lots of history nerdery and you want some Game of Thrones-level violent fuckery but only 200 pages of it instead of 2 million, you could do worse than following Dominick on his starving-in-the-mountains adventures.

Originally posted at In the hills of Connemara.

[Barbara Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book in my teens. 50 plus years later, bought new addition as original falling appart. Half a dozen print spelling errors noted, annoying!!A good way to refresh/ discover disgraceful history in Ireland .

[Mark Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding read. Set in 1649 as English soldiers invade Drogheda, causing widespread violence, rape, murder, and destruction.

It follows a small ordinary man named Dominic as he sets out to find peace alongside his two young children after his wife is brutally murdered by English soldiers.

The first of Macken’s ‘Irish Trilogy’, published in the late 1950’s. 100% recommend.

[Becca Hadley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and I found in it one of the holiest depictions of the priesthood in literature. Also paints the picture as to why the Cromwellian horrors still are spoken with vitriol among the Irish today

[Madeline Schmitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Macken’s best. Top five all-time favorites.

[Jack Mckeever · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Dominic McMahon's hometown of Drogheda becomes the target in Oliver Cromwell's historically brutal Irish Occupation in the 1640's, his life becomes a whirlwind of despair, anger and the constant hope for a brighter future. The first instalment of Walter Macken's acclaimed 'Irish Trilogy' moves at a constantly thrilling pace and is soaked in visceral action sequences, but at it's core it's a poetic, often philosophical examination of loss, redemption and how the human condition changes in times of crisis.

Seek The Fair Land is steeped in history, but it also provides us with somewhat of a guide to continuously hoping for better times; a notion that is just as poignant in 2017 as it was in 1649.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Irish Trilogy
#1 Seek the Fair Land (MacMillan,1959)
#2 The Silent People (MacMillan, 1962)
#3 The Scorching Wind (MacMillan, 1964)

One can almost smell the peat-smoke fires.

A well written, easy to read view of life and death mid-1600 Ireland when Cromwell swept through Ireland. The combination of warfare, famine and plague caused a huge mortality among the Irish population. The death toll of the wars in Ireland since 1641 was over 618,000 people, or about 40% of the country’s pre-war population. Of these, he estimated that over 400,000 were Catholics, 167,000 killed directly by war or famine and the remainder by war-related disease.

[Andy Hart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read this savage and beautiful book over 20 years ago. As with the rest of Macken's superb Irish Trilogy, it is a simple though often brutal tale of good against evil.

It would not be an easy book for someone to read who has been raised with that other history - one where Cromwell is held as the Lord Protector and the father of parliament. It is set in an Ireland upon which is played a genocide that to us is no less a traumatic episode than that visited upon Europe by Hitler's Germany.

[Isabella · Rating 5 out of 5]

This trilogy is amazing and conveys so much of the history of Ireland, making sense of a lot of the recent past. Each story is set some years apart - a hundred or more - but they are linked by the bloodline of the characters. A fantastic read, both educational and entertaining. Can I give it six stars?

[Gary Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book. More should be known about it. A real page turner. If uou like The Road by Cormac you will love this and learn something about a chapter in irish history in the process.
It's a book you don't forget.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story of a horrible time in Irish history when Cromwell tried to eliminate the Catholic population. Good thing we've gotten past any prejudice against a different religion. Wait. What's that you say?

[Brigid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good! I am surprised that I only found out about these books recently! Good for kids and adults.

[Patrick Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this a lifetime ago. Like all the best works, you join the cast, and live thier dreams as yours.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As good as it was when I read it 20 years ago.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful! Just beautiful!!

[Aisling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an exciting book with some great surprises.

[Margaret M - (having a challenging time and on GR as much as I can) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Don’t be destitute, but be poor…. Have nothing to give away, but enough to remain alive. That’s the plot. If you are destitute you will end up in the Barbadoes. And if you are poor, they can’t take anything away from you, not even your life.” And many of those lives they did take.

A brutal period in Irish history when an estimated 600,000 thousand men, women and children were slaughtered out of an estimated population of 1.4 m. Staggering, horrific, and heartbreaking.

However, it was justifiable to a few because they preached all was being done in God’s name. What an opportunity to throw off all habiliments of civilisation and conscience, knowing that what brutality was endured by the Irish people was ‘pleasing to God’. And so, in 1649, God’s work was everywhere, and so too were the dregs of so many tattered Irish souls, belonging to children, women and men.

The Plot

Dominick is a fictional character in Irish history but what he was subjected to was endured by so many Irish families during Cromwell’s campaign aimed at conquering and wiping out the Irish, which is regarded by many historians and political figures as the most brutal and savage periods in Irish history.

Like many families Dominick is faced with death when his wife is tortured and then murdered by Cromwell’s foot soldiers, during the siege of Drogheda. With a campaign aimed at wiping out the population “no nits no lice”, Dominick goes into hiding with the two children that survived the massacre. Accompanied by a priest he helped save, they move from town to town hiding in dense woodland and burnt-out buildings until they reach Connaught – the most barren province in Ireland where they are given land by Murdoc a man sympathetic to their cause and one of the few remaining Catholics with a voice.

Hot on their heels is one of Cromwell’s rulers, Sir Charles Coote. You know the history, so be prepared to have your heart broken all over again.

Factual Historical Events (Wikipedia)

The Cromwellian conquest completed the British colonisation of Ireland, which was merged into the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653–59. It destroyed the native Irish Catholic land-owning classes and replaced them with colonists with a British identity.

Review and Comments

My new campaign this year is a world tour of books to fulfil my love of history and wanting to understand even more cultures, key figures, and historical periods. I do read a lot of history books which has and will accompany my fictional journey and world book tour.

In this case, I don’t need to supplement my Irish history, as an Irish women, I know only too well what ugliness took place in Ireland. The bitterness caused by the Cromwellian conquest was to become a powerful source of Irish nationalism from the 17th century onwards - the effects of which are still felt today. Many Irish people do not accept the argument presented by some historians that this was a period of ‘conquest and colonisation’ and many countries participated in such practices and was therefore permissible. I agree England was not alone but in no way can this level of savagery be justified.

A very moving and heartbreaking story, a light that shines on the ruthless and genocidal campaign undertaken by Cromwell in 1649, and a touching story of survival when people had nothing else left but self-respect and dreams. Dreams that may not have come true for many, but I suspect they will in my lifetime.

I couldn’t take my tour without starting in Ireland, especially with St Patricks Day in a few weeks. I will finish my tour here too, although, my final book will be a celebration of Irish humour. I couldn’t do this to myself again.

A wonderful story and tribute to all the innocent lives lost in Ireland over the years, from all sides.

and to finish with a typical Irish blessing that most family homes will display

☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️

“May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
The rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.” (and to the non-religious, may your life be happy and peaceful)

[Trisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure how I stumbled across this book written in 1959 by an Irish writer I’d never heard of before. The first in a series of three historical novels set in Ireland, this one opens in 1649 as Cromwell’s forces are laying siege to the walled city of Drogheda.

The book’s protagonist, Dominick McMahon whose young wife has been brutally murdered, manages to flee the carnage with his two young children. Together with a wounded priest they set off on a dangerous journey across Ireland constantly pursued by Cromwellian forces. They eventually reach their destination in the west and are reunited with Murdoc, an Irish clan leader and rebel soldier who was one of the Irish insurgents who had rebelled against English rule and been in Drogheda at the time of the siege.

I suspect this novel is a lot easier to follow for those who are familiar with this period of Irish history. But I would have been lost had it not been for the internet. Macken doesn’t help any by moving his characters along in time without giving the reader any clue as to when the events being described were supposed to have taken place.

I also suspect Macken may have taken liberties with some of the historical details he uses as a backdrop for his story, or maybe it’s just that I would have liked to have had things spelled out a little more clearly. I did discover that one of the characters, Sir Charles Coote, was a real-life person who played a prominent part in Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland but whether he was responsible for the actions Macken ascribes to him is hard to tell. I would also have liked to know if any of the Irish chieftains and rebels who have roles in the narrative actually existed.

At times Macken’s rather ponderous writing style left me wishing the book had been written by someone else. But it was offset by some lovely passages that described the wild beauty of the western part of Ireland at a time when it was still inhabited by clans, chieftains, bards and poets whose lives were on the brink of being changed forever.