The Last Who Remember

For nearly two decades, Brian Kaller has immersed himself in the communal world of rural Ireland and fumbled toward a more traditional way of life for himself while raising a daughter in the countryside. Kaller's prodigious work with communal elders, archives, oral histories, and memoirs has assembled a portrait of 20th century Ireland that can tell us a great deal about traditional cultures everywhere. The Last Who Remember invites the reader on a tour through rural life and shows how self-reliance and close communities keep the human spirit alive in times of desperate poverty and political turmoil. In each chapter, Kaller examines a different aspect of traditional life: childhood, schooling, eating, socialising, courting, and dying. He describes ancient crafts still practiced, from scything to smithing – and learned many of these crafts himself. The Last Who Remember asks why people in modern societies report less happiness than previous generations, even with the convenience of technology. By demonstrating the social bonds and common rituals of Ireland's traditional society, Kaller questions what we lack in the modern world. By exploring a traditional culture, this book invites the reader to reexamine our assumptions about our own past and reevaluate where our society is heading.