' . . . a wonderful achievement . . . Ulster past, present and future is in the marrow of his bones . . . The whole thing has the restraint of something profoundly felt, and the movement from section to section evinces a complete grasp and understanding of all the main constituents of Ulster's life and history . . . a poetry of total recall.'
                                             — Hugh MacDiarmid, Agenda

The Rough Field, published first in 1972 and now in its fifth edition, is recognised as a classic of contemporary Irish writing.

This extended meditation on Ulster, the province by which John Montague's poems have been haunted, presents in counterpoint some of the auhor's finest work. The historical and personal, autobiographical and mythological, blend in a magnificent exploration of his own and his people's inheritance.