Climbing Patrick’s Mountain is bestselling author Des Kennedy’s haunting and elegant tale about coming to terms with one’s past.

Expatriate Irishman Patrick Gallagher, an accomplished but eccentric breeder of prized roses, returns to Ireland as a celebrity host to lead a tour of Irish gardens, and hopes to attract the eye of a wealthy patron to donate funds to his garden back home. What is planned to be a pleasant and lucrative trip soon becomes a voyage of overcoming a painful history as the protagonist encounters the very reasons he left Ireland in the first place. Just as Patrick begins to reconcile with his demons, time runs out in a poignant conclusion.

A vivid coming-of-middle-age story set in today’s Ireland, Climbing Patrick’s Mountain embraces the contradiction of the Irish sensibility: grand humour in the face of ultimate tragedy.

Des Kennedy is a novelist, essayist and veteran back-to-the-lander. The author of nine previous books, in both fiction and non-fiction, he has been three times nominated for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. He’s contributed many articles on environmental issues, gardening and rural living to a wide variety of publications in Canada and the United States, and has been featured on numerous regional and national television and radio programs. A celebrated speaker, known for his passion and irreverent wit, he’s performed at conferences, schools, festivals, botanical gardens, art galleries, garden shows and wilderness gatherings. Active for many years in environmental and social justice issues, he was an organizer of the successful civil disobedience campaign in Strathcona Provincial Park in 1988 and was recognized as a key supporter in the struggle to save Clayoquot Sound. In the ’70s and early ’80s, he lived and worked with two First Nations bands attempting to defend their traditional territories in north-central B.C. against industrial clear-cutting. In the ’90s he was a founding director of a successful community land trust on Denman Island. Des and his partner Sandy live a conserver lifestyle in their hand-built house surrounded by gardens and woodlands.

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"Although Patrick’s Mountain definitely has a spark of wit, it is evenly matched with darker overtones. Kennedy’s got a way with words and knows how to turn a descriptive phrase."

"But this is neither a comic nor a sentimental portrait of the auld sod . . . Instead of gushing descriptions of the countryside and its many hues of green, there are sharp observations of downtown Dublin.”

"Wonderful descriptions of the Irish countryside."

"Kennedy is a fine writer-a novelist, indeed-and [this novel] is an enjoyable ride. It manages to be both a taut and gentle book."