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LOCAL HISTORY:IF YOU HAVE a favourite place in Ireland – a holiday destination or even a holiday home – you’ll probably wish you knew more about it or its situation. Who lived in this house before us? What is that large ruin on the headland? What are those beautiful purple flowers I haven’t seen anywhere else? Who is the man we see out with his sketchbook every day when we go for a walk? Those are the kinds of questions that you need a local person, and possibly a local person with an interest in history, to answer.

So Burren Villages, by Sarah Poyntz (Mercier Press, 254pp. €16.99) will be of interest to anyone who loves the Burren, because although it deals beautifully and succinctly with the history of this unique landscape, it concentrates more on the people who live in the Burren villages of Ballyvaughan, Bell Harbour, Gleninagh and Fanore, both natives and people who have moved into the area and the communities in which they are gathered.