"The writing is superb and marked by brilliant dialogue....A unique record of a world of new estates, old illnesses, and common dreams. It is a fine, moving book". -- The Sunday Tribune

Cowslips and Chainies was extremely well received when it was published in Ireland and was a best seller there for many months. In it, accomplished novelist Elaine Crowley beautifully captures the lives of ordinary people in pre-World War II Dublin. By turns hilarious and intensely sad, it gives fascinating descriptions of pawnbrokers and money-lenders, the teeming life of the market, street-games and domestic strife, tenement living in a one-room house.

Through Crowley's eyes we see what people ate, what they wore (how collars were turned, dresses recycled, shoes repainted), and what medicines they took. Infused with wonder and particularity, Cowslips and Chainies conveys an overwhelming love of person and place (cowslips are wild flowers and chainies are pieces of broken pottery children play 'shop' with).