The great Irish humorist and writer Flann O'Brien, aka Brian O'Nolan,aka Myles na Gopaleen, also wrote a newspaper column called "CruiskeenLawn." The Best of Myles collects the best and funniest, covering suchsubjects as plumbers, the justice system, and improbable inventions.

    

    He was executed, along with the other leafers for his part in the Rising.But he was a gentle warrior at heart. Men have painted him the revolutionary poet and the cold idealist, inhuman enough to have people suffer in a war whose cause he had espoused.These five short stories show us that Pearse was a man of deep understanding with an immense human awareness of the way of life or the average person. He analyses the sorrows and joys of the Irish people of his time, and writes of the tragedies of life and death from which they could never escape.Desmond Maguire, a journalist, well-known for his writings in Irish and English, shows his fascination for the tenderness and dignity portrayed in these stories, particularly in Íosagán, which he describes as the most beautiful short story ever to come out of Ireland.The stories are:ÍosagánEoghainín na nÉan - Eoineen of the BirdsNa Bóithre - The RoadsAn Dearg-Daol - The Black ChaferAn Bhean Chaointe - The Keening Woman