The "realists" of today, although apt to revolt or grumble against the rule of the past, have also a powerful and often creative sense of tradition. In the case of Sean O'Faolain this sense is especially, perhaps morbidly acute. It has animated some of his best writing with the mass-emotion of living history; it has also often fallen like an antique blanket smothering the life out of the beings he has created. (p. 3)

His first two novels, A Nest of Simple Folk and Bird Alone, are situated almost entirely in the shadow of preceding generations; a penumbra of folklore and historical conjecture in which however the living figure of a hero is clearly visible.

As a story of family life, a "saga" in the Galsworthian sense, A Nest of Simple Folk suffers from a great hiatus by reason of the author's failure to interest himself in the personality...