Dónall Mac Amhlaigh Bücher

This vivid picture of an Irish navvy's life in England in the 1950s mirrors that of an entire generation who left Ireland without education or hope. Days without food or work, the hardships of work camps, lonesome partings after trips home, periods of intense isolation and bitter reflection, all were part of the experience.

A classic account of Irish army life by a working-class writer whose work and contribution to literary culture is only now being fully appreciated.

This well-crafted novel is one of the few novels in either Irish or English that explores this generation of Irish people, often termed the silent or lost generation when over a half-a-million people emigrated, primarily to Britain, to work in the post-war economy there - building England up and tearing it down again.