But city life doesn’t suit Fiona so at age ten she is sent back to her beloved isles to live with her grandparents. There she learns more about her mother’s strange ways with the seals and seabirds; she hears stories of the selkies, mythological creatures that are half seal and half human; and she wonders about her baby brother, Jamie, who disappeared during the island evacuation but whom fishermen claim to have seen. Fiona determines to find Jamie and strikes up a friendship with her older cousin Rory to enlist his help. When her grandparents are suddenly threatened with eviction, Fiona and Rory put their plans into action.Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry is a magical story of the power of place and family history, interwoven with Scottish folklore. Rosalie K. Fry’s novel was the basis for John Sayles’s classic 1994 film The Secret of Roan Inish.

    The stories in this volume run the gamut of his thirty years of writing, from his earlier romantic pieces to his later more satiric ones. At the heart of his writing is O'Faolain's great love for Ireland, its people and traditions seen in both their tragic and comic aspects. Yet, written with an enormous compassion and incisive humor, the stories of Sean O'Faolain speak not only for the Irish, but for all humanity through all time.