'The Year of the French' is a novel which does a great deal more than tell [the story of the French invasion at Killala in 1798], though it tells it very well indeed. Its main and absorbing interest is in its picture of the society, or societies, into which the French landed, like men from Mars….

[Mr. Flanagan's] special academic interest is Anglo-Irish literature and he puts this interest to good use in this novel, much of which is built out of brilliant pastiche extracts from various 'diaries' and 'work-books.' It is the work of a man learned in Irish history—as very few novelists are learned—but also emotionally involved in it, tied to it by a strange sardonic yearning….

Mr. Flanagan has a fine ear for Irish speech, and a keen eye for the manifold discrepancies of Irish life and Irish thought: especially for the discrepancies...