Sin Eater

Thomas Lynch's fifth collection gathers together two dozen, 24-line poems - a book of hours - on the life and times of Argyle, a sin-eater, the figure who historically appeared at Irish funerals to eat bread and drink a bowl of beer, and so consume the sins of the deceased. Set on the West Clare peninsular, where the author keeps an ancestral home, these poems explore the nature of religious experience, faith and doubt, communion and atonement. They are accompanied by 24 photographs and a watercolour by Lynch's sons, Michael and Sean.