William Carleton was a storyteller first and last. Unlike other Irish literary nationalists of the nineteenth century, he did not look for his true subject in the distant past--in nostalgia or in the rich folklore and mythology of an ancient island culture. Nor was his voice simply that of the traditional Gaelic seannachie (teller of old tales and traditions). More literary journalist than ethnographer, he sought in his stories to re-create the rural Ireland of his youth. His artistic creed was realism, which for him meant the faithful and authentic portrayal of the people, places, and activities of a world that, by the time he began to write, was already disappearing. In re-creating his own life in story he found the surest way to preserve that vanishing world for the future.

In his autobiography (1896) Carleton recalls the time in his youth when, on a visit to his eldest...