Flann O'Brien's gloriously wicked satire of the traditional Irish peasant novel, The Poor Mouth tells the shamelessly ironic story of Bonaparte O'Coonassa, born in the West of Ireland `on a terrible winter's night'.

A hymn to the world of potatoes, rain and `excellent poverty', this cruelly funny assault on the fashionable Gaelic Revival of the day brought the wrath of the custodians of national sentiment upon O'Brien's head for many years thereafter.