Here Come the Mountainy Men: A Memoir, by Sean Rothery

Green fields surrounded St Mary’s National School at the foot of Three Rock Mountain in County Dublin in the 1930s. The author, as a boy, went from the little playground in that tranquil rural world to the despotic concrete yard of an inner city school. This is a story of those early, lonely and sometime fearsome days to the sheer wonder of senior English classes with a great teacher.

The author’s passion for the natural world shines through in the naming of grasses and the pleasures of blackberry and mushroom picking. The growing up years of World War II were exciting times, from military aircraft spotting to turf cutting. Joyful days of drawing in the School of Architecture are remembered and memories of young love are indelible. The lure of the sport of mountain climbing was tempered by the death of friends in the high Alps. Stories of long cycle trips are richly recalled with tales of elation and suffering, the first time in Paris, grape picking in France and hedonistic wild swimming in the warm Mediterranean. The changing relationship with his father ebbs and flows throughout the narrative.

Above all, Here Comes the Mountainy Men is a charming, poignant and exquisitely written memoir about growing up in Ireland in the mid-twentieth century.

About the Author

Sean Rothery was educated at St. Mary’s National School in Sandyford and at Synge Street CBS Secondary School in Dublin. He entered the School of Architecture in University College Dublin in 1946 and graduated in 1951. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Architectural History by Trinity College, Dublin in 1989. He worked as an architect in Ireland and in East Africa and his later career was as Assistant Head of the Department of Architecture in the Dublin Institute of Technology and as lecturer in Trinity College. He has lectured widely in Ireland, the US and Europe. He is the author of six other books, including Everyday Buildings of Ireland, Shops of Ireland, Ireland and the New Architecture, A Field Guide to the Buildings of Ireland, A Long Walk South, and Snow on the Equator, and editor of Searching: Nuala Rothery, Writings.