John Moriarty was an original, a thinker, a poet, a mythologian. He was born and reared just outside the little village of Moyvane in north Kerry. Growing up on his parent’s farm he was attuned to the rhythms of weather and soil from his youth. Having graduated from college and university, having outgrown the academic life of a lecturer in Canada, he would eventually return to Ireland, to Connemara, and later to Mangerton mountain, to discover his bush soul. 

Tracing the extraordinary journey from Moriarty’s challenges with Christianity to his reconciliation of self and soul, Grounded In Story is centred in Moyvane, his home place which lives and speaks through him, with him, in him. Beautifully illustrated by his niece Amanda Carmody, Grounded In Story is a necessary book, a guide into the world, and the wisdom, of this extraordinary man. 

The intention behind this selection of writing is to bring John Moriarty home to Moyvane, to demonstrate the influence of his native place on the development of his thought and to introduce, in his own words, the culture and the characters that had such a profound effect on him.