The Turning Tide

A Biography of the Irish Sea

By: Jon Gower

Narrated by: Jon Gower

An immersive history of a pivotal stretch of water

The Turning Tide is a hymn to a sea passage of world-historical importance. Combining social and cultural history, nature-writing, travelogue and politics, Welshman Jon Gower charts a sea which has carried both Vikings and saints; invasion forces, royals and rebels; writers, musicians and fishermen.

The divided but interconnected waters of the Irish Sea – from the narrow North Channel through St George’s Channel to where the Celtic sea opens out into the wide Atlantic – have a turbulent history to match the violence of its storms. Jon Gower is a sympathetic and interested pilot, taking the reader to the great shipyards of Belfast and through the mass exodus of the starving during the Irish Famine in coffin boats bound for America. He follows the migrations of working men and women looking for work in England and tells the tales of more casual travellers: sometimes seasick, often homesick too.

The Irish Sea is also a place with an abundant natural history. The rarest sea bird in Europe visits its coasts in summer while the rarest goose wings in during winter.

The Turning Tide navigates waters teeming with life, filled with seals and salt-tanged stories and surveyed by seabirds. Lyrically written and fizzing with curiosity, this is a remarkable and far-reaching book.

©2023 Jon Gower (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

‘Fascinating, spellbinding, erudite and great fun.’ Roddy Doyle

‘Remarkable. Lively … Gower writes beautifully [and] the book is profoundly popular.’ Times Literary Supplement

‘The book equivalent of being hosted by a travelling storyteller around a fire.’ Gwenno

‘As full of life and vitality as the sea itself.’ Nicholas Crane

‘The Irish Sea has found her bard. This is a dazzle of storytelling, an enthralling trove of history and a joyful work of travel and reportage, singing with the love of the sea.' Horatio Clare

‘A beautifully absorbing read encompassing aeons of human and natural histories. What a remarkable, generous, compendious achievement.' Neil Hegarty

‘Contagious with delight and fascination. The seeming informality, the twinkle-in-the-eye in the telling, the gentle provocation make it a joy to read. Jon's perhaps brought into a being a new class of book, for it's nothing if not a “Racontography.”’ Cynan Jones

‘In prose as glittering as the ocean itself, Gower unearths the saints and smugglers, the birds and bards that have inhabited this salty kingdom. In The Turning Tide, the Irish Sea roars with a unique passion and character.’ Mike Parker

‘An elegant, engrossing portrait of the turbulent Irish Sea. Bursting with detailed natural history and stories of conquest, love, tragedy, and poetry alike, and so teeming with life, you can’t stop reading.’ Bathsheba Demuth

'A master storyteller, Gower takes us to his hinterland with the excitement of a rockpool explorer … A stunning object.' Nation.Cymru

'A book full of sounds and sensations … Entertaining.' New Welsh Review

‘Riveting.’ Independent.ie