East Galway, between Corrib and Shannon and Clare and Roscommon, is for too many people an area to race through to get elsewhere farther east or west. This book should make them stop in their tracks, and realise what major (and even minor) church gems there are to be discovered there. It includes earlier and later medieval monuments such as Kilmacduagh (Galway's Glendalough), with its famous leaning tower, and the attractive ruined friaries of Kilconnell and Ross Errilly among others.

But the major surprises of the book are the rich and largely undiscovered heritage of stained glass which can be explored there. Labane and Loughrea respectively saw the genesis and the high point of 'Celtic Revival' stained glass in Ireland with some of the most famous products of Sarah Purser's An Tur Gloine (Tower of Glass) studio. But this impetus towards the development of an Irish school of stained glass inspired new parish priests and rectors in the eastern part of the County to follow suit, and decorate their smaller parish churches with some remarkable, yet little known stained glass, the illustrations of which make up a major focus of this fascinating book. A wonderful microcosm of Irish church art down through the centuries.

DR. PETER HARBISON, member of the Royal Irish Academy, Honorary Member of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Art and Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, is the author of many books on Irish art and archaeology, including The Golden Age of Irish Art, 600-1200; The Crucifixion in Irish Art; and Treasures of Ireland. His Guide to the National and Historic Monuments of Ireland has been the standard work on the subject for thirty five years.