Ireland is a sprawling, glacial paced novel about an Irish storyteller and a young boy named Ronan. The story alternates between a long, rambling tales by the storyteller to chapters set in the modern era about the storyteller and the people he visits. 

One thing that I found frustrating was the fact that the stories are not connected to what is going on in between with Ronan. I also felt that the chapters about the storyteller and Ronan were short enough in relation to the storytelling that there was not the character development that I would expect in a 600+ page book. 

I did enjoy some of the stories, specifically at the beginning about the formation of Ireland by multiple ice ages and the stories near the end about colonialism and the conflicts of recent centuries. There is a twist in the novel related to Ronan‘s family, but I feel that it did not get the time on page that it deserved. 

Overall, I think this is the right book for a very specific reader. Are you interested in the history of Ireland? Do you have a meandering novel? Do you enjoy the art and tradition of oral storytelling? Do you enter a book for the experience rather than for specific characters and plot? If you answer yes to most of these, this might be a book to pick up.