Publisher's Synopsis
"Castledermot, properly Dysert-Diarmada, is a small town of about 700 inhabitants in County Kildare. The name by itself is worth talking about. It shows up the vicissitudes of Irish place-names; and it illustrates this, too, that much of the glory of the past, suggested by the original name, is obscured and hidden away by barbarous modern un-Irish terms." Chapters include: County Kildare: its clans, round towers, castles, monasteries and convents, and more; Dysert: what it means, the place and the word; Dyserts, What They Were: Croagh Patrick and Slieve Donard and others; The Lake Dysert; The Ocean Dysert; Faded Memories: Should Saints Be Forgotten?; The Irish Lay Brother; Towns Cradled in Hermits's Cells; A Duel Between Names: Dysert-Diarmada or Castledermot?; Dysert-Diarmada Wins as a Place Name; An Objection From Shakespeare; Irish Place-Names Disfigured: Loop Head, Mutton Island, The Ovens and others; Ireland as a National Art Gallery: battles, portraits, groups, legends, sports, historical events, penal scenes and landscapes; Dysert-Diarmada as a Painting: key to a gallery of local pictures; A Ready-Made History of Dysert-Diarmada: local writers, the Sacred Promontory, Camden's Mistake, the Gaelic League and supplementary facts. An Index of Place-Names Explained and a General Index complete this work.
