I give the man credit: he uproots his family from his wealthy East Coast job to move to Cork, Ireland. He describes the scenery and the Irish in straight-forward objectivity, yet I got the feeling half-way through the book (by then the family had been in Cork three months) that they were a little sad about Ireland. Were they truly happy being foreigners in such a cold and reclusive country?

He doesn't hold back. If the local teens were thugs toward their three kids, he wrote about it. If the locals were a bit leery of the new American neighbors, he didn't hold back, either. But what kept bothering me during this read was wondering if the three kids were happy in their new country? The boys seemed a little homesick and troubled.

The descriptions of the terrain and towns in this book are very good. I could feel the fog, rain and sadness in every page. I could envision the mountains and the craggy cliffs when he wrote about the ocean. He gave Ireland the mystical image we have heard and read the world over.

This book is somehow sad, but a very worthy read. I can see why the Irish drink as much as they are known to drink. I can also see why so many immigrated to the US for a better life. It's good to see the country of one's parents but one must also understand why our parents left their country to start anew.

So far, I find it very humorus and well written. I have been very busy and unable to complete the book but I am anxious to complete.

I'm surprised no one else mentioned this. The type-face is extremely small throughout this book. In fact, it is so small that I find it completely exhausting to read.

I don't even have glasses, yet feel like I need them every time I sit down and read 10 pages of this book.

Strange decision by publisher. I'm enjoying but have decided to give up on this one.

I'm surprised no one else mentioned this. The type-face is extremely small throughout this book. In fact, it is so small that I find it completely exhausting to read.

I don't even have glasses, yet feel like I need them every time I sit down and read 10 pages of this book.

Strange decision by publisher. I'm enjoying but have decided to give up on this one.

It is not your typical - this is what to expect when you live abroad - book. It describes the personal experiences of one family in a very captivating way. The books deals with the emotions, the differences in mentality, and not so much with detailed technical aspects of moving to a different continent. Food for thought and fun to read.

It is not your typical - this is what to expect when you live abroad - book. It describes the personal experiences of one family in a very captivating way. The books deals with the emotions, the differences in mentality, and not so much with detailed technical aspects of moving to a different continent. Food for thought and fun to read.

I delighted in the armchair journey with David Monagan and his family as they embarked on their adventure to Ireland. It's refreshing to read a travel memoir that gets past the stereotypes to relate what's truly special about Ireland and its people.

This book is a must read for anyone who has ever longed to leave the familiar to take on new challenges and adventures. It also offers lots of delicious nuggets along the way and inspiration to book the next flight to Ireland.

Monagan offers a sobering take on how Ireland accepts and rejects his attempts to relocate there in the early 00's. His observations on petty theft, killer (literally) traffic, suburban blight, environmental destruction, binge drinking, relocated romantics, and boorish behavior certainly should correct the sentimentality of many visitors to his adopted city of Cork and its environs. It's rare, it still seems, to find a book outside of the Irish presses that interrogates today's gritty attitudes amidst an unsettlingly glitzy urban Ireland outside of Belfast or Dublin. The book works best when tackling the changes Ireland finds itself in over especially the last ten or fifteen years. Monagan's very good on how Irish conversation draws out the naive outsider to reveal a weakness while the native conversant remains protected, watching but not revealing. He also plumbs the puzzling indifference shown by many Irish today to the loss of their heritage as foreign capital invades and conquers in the name of profit once again.

What hobbles this account are a variety of structural and factual stumbles as he recounts his move. First, how he and his family survive, after renting out their Connecticut house and relocating, remains too unclear, given that David has only free-lance writing to pay the exorbitant food, tuition, tax, and housing bills that anyone living in Ireland is sadly familiar with. How his wife fares with her work is also left too vague. Secondly, parts of this book read as if he inserted his free-lance work (on the Kinsale Old Head golf course monstrosity and on the volunteer rescue brigades) as chapters here rather jarringly. Third, the facts behind the reason for the various pieces sculpture garden at Sneem, the confusion of Knock with Croagh Patrick, and the ignorance that he shows towards not bothering to find out the simple reason the local GAA field is called "Pairc Ui Choamh" show a superficial attention to telling details that a more thorough chronicler would have investigated.

To be fair, the author has corresponded with me since I originally posted this review, and noted, correctly, that to delve too "academically" into the pedantry behind the offhand Pairc remark, uttered by not the author but another man at the match, would take away from the anecdote and interfere with the telling of the whole incident. I agree, and stand corrected. By the way, the author has gone on to stay in Ireland, appear on talk shows, and to pursue his writing career, more power to him.

However, I respectfully wish that he'd have gone further into what could have been intriguing stories. For instance, he raises in one sentence a potentially illuminating example of rural Irish culture on Valentia Island but neglects to develop this further, leaving the reader deflated at the hasty end to a chapter and wondering why he bothered to bring it up, since his time spent exploring there remains enigmatic. Finally, the end of the book stutters and hesitates as he vacillates whether to return to the US for good in the wake of the 2001 attacks. The last portion rushes while the first part had taken its time exploring the first year there. The book ends less than neatly, not knowing when to stop the story. This may be appropriate in reflecting Monagan's divided loyalties, but it does not culminate in a well-crafted conclusion on the page.

I still recommend this as an antidote to the "I bought a B&B/farm and here are tales from the lovable locals I met" genre for its portrayal of anti-American sentiment, threatened cultural and ecological conditions, and intriguing if too brief scenes from rural Co Cork that add to the book's relevance. It's worth comparing to the nearly contemporaneously composed travelogue by British writer Pete McCarthy, "McCarthy's Bar," in its overlapping and concurrent Cork focus. And it recalls in its considerations of Northeast US-Irish upbringing that of another contemporary, Steve Fallon, whose Boston-meets-Connemara journey frames his book "Home with Alice." Like these, "Jaywalking" examines the attempt of Irish Americans to settle in reverse of the usual historical direction, and in its reminders of how delicate the values of Irish life become in an relentlessly consumer-driven and globalized existence into which Ireland has now plunged itself (nearly?) wholeheartedly.

For those who treasure their Irish heritage, Jaywalking with the Irish is a dream come true. David Monagan describes his families life in Ireland and their first hand experiences with the changes in the Irish standard of living, and the "Celtic Tiger". However, as much as things have changed, Monagan story demonstrates how the Irish personalities,their character, their superstitions, their humor and warmth are still the same. Great book!

David Monagan's story of his family's exploration of their Irish roots is both riveting and revealing. His adventurous pilgrimage to the land of his forebears is at once humorous, occasionally heartbreaking and is extremely well-written to boot. Monagan's fascination with the Emerald Isle began when he studied at Trinity College in Dublin, and was heightened over the intervening years by trips back with his wife, Jamie (including their honeymoon) and later with their 3 kids. Finally, in 2000, the Monagan family left rural Connecticut and embarked upon their "Great Irish Escape", landing in Cork City. Monagan's graceful, vivid prose carries us though the mysteries, wonders and hardships of settling in a country that is both familiar to him and unwelcoming to "Yanks." His insightful and dead-on descriptions help us get to know the colorful characters he encounters along the way. We are at his elbow as he hoists a pint at his favorite local pub, the Hi-B, when his children discover first-hand the vagaries of the Irish educational system, and when the family explores the verdant Irish countryside. Monagan writes with honesty, wit and compassion. This is an Ireland that I must visit! This book is one great read!!