Though it is more than seventy years since it was first written, Caislein ir, Samus ' Grianna's best-known novel, still has the power both to touch the heart with its story of the blighting of young love and to delight the ear with the excellence of its idiomatic Irish.
The story of Sim Phdraig Dubh and his sweetheart Baba Mhirt n growing up at the turn of the century in the rocky peninsula of Rannafast in the Rosses of Donegal is one of bitter sadness, as they are deprived by fate and economic necessity of the magic glimpsed as children:
A Shim, goid an cinel tithe iad sin, arsa sise, ag amharc ar na nalta, at os cionn lu na grine? T, arsa Sim, sin caislein ir a bhfuil na daoine beaga ina gcna iontu..