The Gallowglass

New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. Near Fine in Very Good+ dj. (c.1958). First Edition. Hardcover. [light age-toning to edges of text block, no other significant wear to book; jacket shows a bit of wear along the top and bottom edges, extremely shallow paper loss at spine ends]. "A Novel of Historical Ireland," set in the period A.D. 900 to 1014, about a paid professional soldier (a "gallowglass"), Ronan MacHugh, "a clanless, homeless young man whom we first meet as the daring head of a band of vagrants. With an old enmity toward Brian [Boru], Ronan offers the services of himself and his tattered band to the High-King, Malachy Mor." What ensues is a "rousing novel of fighting men and fair ladies [that] abounds in vigor, with battles, duels, challenges, escapes, love and amorous dalliance." (St. Patrick even puts in an appearance, "in the retelling of the delightful legend of his meeting with the leprechauns and their attempt to bribe him into evacuating all men from Ireland.") This was rather a late book in Breslin's career as an historical novelist, as it turned out, since he died in 1964 at the age of 51. .