The material [of Castle Conquer] is rich and interesting: a feudal Ireland for a background; a plot of political conspiracy and peasant revolt; a love tale; Irish tenant farmers, peddlers, soldiers, landowners; Irish songs, frolics, dancing, fairs. The prose is fresh and easy-flowing. And a music comes into it by way of lovely Irish names and the peculiar Irish-English dialog. Nor, given the peasant rhythm, can one seriously object to the book's slow movement, or to the somewhat episodic way in which it unfolds. What, then, is wrong? This: for some reason, perhaps because Mr. Colum has placed too much reliance upon his content, upon its inherent soil-ness and lyricism, upon the general interest in Ireland's struggle for political autonomy, because he has given himself too sparingly unto his work, the poetry of the material and the poetry of the prose fail to achieve a mutually transforming contact...