A wonderful walk through the story of Moriarty's childhood growing up on a small farm in north Kerry, and his lifelong engagement with the traditional Catholic sacraments, taking as his point of departure Philip Larkin's poem "Church Going" - a richly meditative essay of extraordinary resonance that begins with a visit to the island of Inis Fallen on Loch Leine: "People say we live in a time of ritual deprivation. Not so people of my age born into Christian Ireland. From three days' of age, I was inducted onto the Christian sacramental road, and that journey I rehearse in this book."
