Round Ireland in Low Gear - European Travel Books

Paperback - October, 1998 - Lonely Planet Publications
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By: Eric Newby
ISBN: 0864426275

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About this book

In December 1985, veteran traveler and travel writer Eric Newby and his wife, Wanda, set off on a bicycling journey around Ireland. "We were going there, in short, to enjoy ourselves, an unfashionable aspiration in the 1980s," Newby writes with characteristic wit. It was the beginning of winter, "the dead season, as far as weather went," but the journey, with all of its encounters, is filled with a crackling and warm life.

After looking for bicycles and getting informed about modern, computer-designed models, they hop the train for Limerick. Newby's clever, vivid narrative--punctuated by sips of Guinness and tea, torrential winter rains, snarling dogs, a feast of bed and breakfasts, stunning ruins, and unusual characters--traces the dynamics of a relationship on the road. The bicycle provides a cadence well suited to the winding roads running through Ireland's verdant country and its rugged coast--and to Newby's talents. He seems to absorb most everything into the narrative. Using pedal power, he takes in the landscape and its people, along with Ireland's past and present, weaving in headwinds, pub stops, myths, political realities, and conversations to produce a complex picture of Ireland.

Originally published in 1987, Newby's Round Ireland in Low Gear has been reprinted with new maps by Lonely Planet Publications. This is not a manic tale of some bicycling marathon, but rather a journey--and a book--paced for enjoyment. --Byron Ricks

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Reviews by readers

Wry Literary Treatment, Not a Light Travelogue

Those who have given this work low scores are doing it a serious injustice. It is definitely not an example of perky, predictably upbeat travel writing, but is instead a thoughtful, moody, highly literate and contemplative treatment of a deliberately oddball adventure -- to bicycle through Ireland, at the age of 66, in the chill of winter.

It may be that those who have rated this work poorly are fans of Irish tourism who picked it up expecting it to validate their enthusiasm in a predictable way, and were blindsided when it turned out to be something completely different. But it is far above the norm for travel writing.

The author and his wife both have a great, dry sense of humor, and Newby deftly captures the character of all kinds of amusing types they come in contact with. He is known for his thoughtful travel literature -- in the New York Review of Books recently, Larry McMurty revealed that he has been re-reading one of Newby's other travelogues, 'Slowly Down the Ganges', more or less continuously since it was published in 1964.

low mileage from Low Gear

can't help but agree with another reviewer and concur that this book neither inspires nor stimulates, an unexpected experience with Eric Newby's writing. The occasional and unwelcome slide into condescension displayed might well be a reflection of the author's mood. I suspect this might have resulted from an almost unbelievably bad choice of travel timing for a book of this nature. Ireland, in winter, on a bicycle? As gloomy a metereological prospect as the literary result. Try Tony Hawkes' 'Round Ireland with a Fridge' for an infinitely more enjoyable read.

Oddly Flat

I slogged my way through half of this book before I gave up. (My usual threshold is 50 pages) Eric & Wanda Newby cycle through Ireland in winter and are suprised/perturbed by the weather (?!!).

Mr. Newby is stangely self-centered. The book is a catalog of their travails with little comment on anyone they meet. I assume that he thought this would be humorous and entertaining, but after awhile I wanted him to shut up about himself and go home or get on with describing Ireland. When he does touch on history the descriptive passages seem to be read wholesale out of various guidebooks, which Newby acknowledges and feel like an add on instead of woven into their narrative. There are a few wonderful pages of landscape description but only enough to rate two stars and far too few to justify 298 pages.

I would not recommend this book. Instead read any of the late Thomas Flanagan's three novels about Ireland, The year of the French, The Tenants of Time or The End of the Hunt. Even Ray Bradbury's Green Shadows, White Whale (about living in Ireland while writing the screenplay for John Huston's film of Moby Dick.)

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