The Cow Book

Superb … an unexpected triumph, surely a prize-winner – Richard Benson * Mail on Sunday *I usually view rural Ireland from a train or car window but reading this gripping, fascinating book I felt I was becoming a cattle farmer – Roddy DoyleJohn Connell’s The Cow Book starts well… and gets better. This is an important slice of living, breathing agricultural history written with absolute honesty by an insider who has the rare quality of being able to see it from the outside too – Rosamund YoungA gorgeous read, full of warmth, truth and tentative wonder. John Connell has written “an elegy to the nature I know”, but this book is an elegy to so much more - to art and myth and sorrow and longing – Sara BaumeThis book is a vivid and sharply observed account of a way of life which is almost invisible, a new hidden Ireland. It is also a fascinating portrait of a single sensibility, a born notice, someone on whom nothing is lost, observing birth and death, the landscape and his own heritage – Colm TóibínIn lyrical prose, Connell describes the timeless rhythms of farming, the ancient relationship between man and beast, the fellowship that binds rural communities of Ireland, and the fierce generational struggle between father and son – Jane Shilling * Daily Mail *[A] sweet book … a beguiling introduction to aspects of everyday agricultural life * Oldie *

John Connell was published in Granta’s New Irish Writing issue and has also had a story published on Granta.com. He lives on his family farm, Birchview, in County Longford. Connell studied journalism in Dublin and Sydney and went on to become a new media and storytelling lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney at 22. His investigative work at the time led to his becoming an Honorary Research Fellow with the Australian Centre for Investigative Journalism and multiple awards including two Walkley wins in the radio field. He was a producer with ABC Radio National as well as SBS.

His novel The Ghost Estate was published by Picador in March 2015.