Henry O’Neill is best known as an artist, archaeologist, publisher and polemicist as seen through his various books – The Sculptured Crosses of Ancient Ireland, Ireland for the Irish and The Round Towers of Ireland . But they give a mere inkling of the impressive compendium of work that O’Neill produced throughout a long and active career spanning forty years and more.

We find out a lot more through the sketch-books of his that survive, and realise what an incredible amount of travelling and sketching he did through his interest in castles or tower-houses, though he also covered a wide variety of other monuments from prehistoric times almost up to his own day. These sketch-books and note-books have fortunately been preserved in Glenstal Abbey.

Written by well known art-historian and archaeologist Dr Peter Harbison, this book sets out to provide if not a full catalogue of his work but a representative sample of his best painting and sketching.