In Kiltumper

Critics Review

• Moving and surprisingly provocative … This couple’s narrative is more than a January-December chronicle, it is the result of decades of care … In Kiltumper is as much a book about the cherishing of a marriage as it is about the love of a place … A heartfelt paean to a disappearing way of life

  Wall Street Journal

• A record, both honest and beautiful, of a sustainable but precarious way of life

  Times Literary Supplement

• Poignant … A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature

  Irish Times

• Beautifully written … A wonderfully lyrical and uplifting read

  Sunday Business Post

• An absorbing and thought-provoking read

  Irish Independent

• An intimate, meditative garden memoir

  Sunday Independent

• While the events chronicled rarely move beyond the garden, and while the descriptions are so intimate they almost elicit grief for the dying cherry tree and spark exhortations to the dahlias to hold on to their heavy heads, it is the gardeners’ personalities that bloom

  Irish Independent

• The small Kiltumper acreage is detailed with a sense of wonder and of pleasure … Chapter after chapter is enhanced with exquisite pencil drawings … Frequently quotable, always eloquent … This is a book full of joy, warmly rich with accomplishment and wonder and a strong sense of mutual commitment

  Irish Examiner

• Arresting … Remarkable … This book, in Seamus Heaney’s phrase, catches the heart off guard … Uncommonly magical … Read it and be restored to yourself

  Irish Central

• I loved their two voices, truthful and gentle and generous, so full of care for their land and for each other … A record of how deeply life can be lived within a garden’s walls

  GEORGINA HARDING

• A beautiful story, with words at once uplifting and poignant. Full of the acceptance and the optimism that only a garden and the act of caring for it brings

  JO THOMPSON

• I read it with enormous pleasure … There were so many episodes I loved, whether they were heartbreaking or uplifting … It was a delight to step into Niall and Christine’s precious garden, into the rhythms of their way of living, and to be refreshed

  TIM PEARS

• This is a book to whet one’s appetite — for reading, writing, gardening — and living. I loved the counterpoint of the two voices as they face age, cancer, the struggle to write, to garden — to keep at it — under the threat of wind turbines and the wild Atlantic wind; not to give up. A triumph

  Katherine Swift

• A celebration of life in rural Ireland

  Irish Times, Best books for Christmas 2021

• Including beautiful pen and ink drawings by Christine, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders

  Countryside

• Whether you like gardening or enjoy reflections on a life lived simply in harmony with nature, this book is a sheer joy … Niall and Christine celebrate the challenges and joys in delightful detail, from feeding Harp beer to brassicas, to running writing workshops and sharing the good life with friends and family

  Woman & Home, Book Club Awards

• Here, they record 12 months of work in their garden, capturing their love of the land – which has been in Christine’s family since the 18th century – and also reflecting on the past and anxiously contemplating what the future holds as climate change takes hold. Through everything, their garden is a lovingly nurtured constant

  Sunday Express, S Magazine

• Twelve months in a cherished garden … The good life, with its ups and downs

  Saga

• A celebration of the solace of country life … Country living, Breen reflects, teaches “about darkness and stars, about sunlight and silence, about things out of your control”: about the inevitability of change. The book includes Breen’s elegant botanical drawings. A warm homage to a piece of beloved Irish land

  Kirkus Reviews

• The book will appeal to any devoted gardener, and it also serves as an inviting snapshot of a place

  Kirkus Reviews