Benedict Kiely [is] an Ulster scholar, novelist, storyteller, talker, walker, bard,…: he knows Ireland from the stones up. And in his book about his travels around the island, All the Way to Bantry Bay, something of the true nature of the border country in Ireland emerges, something which would never be perceived by the Sunday Times Insight team if it researched for a thousand years, for that knowledge lies in the very seedbed of the mystical landscape—and in the intimate knowledge of the physical land, too….

Ben Kiely walks all over Ireland. He has a great ear for the kind of anecdote that men love to tell each other over a libation: here, it is told with the skill of the seannachi. (p. 18)

All the Way to Bantry Bay is a lovely book in the reading … and, like Ben Kiely himself, a perfect companion for a sojourn...