The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter Book

This is a fine, if not totally remarkable collection of short stories all set near Galway Bay in Ireland. I read something recently (I think it was in "Book Lust" actually, oh well) that Irish fiction writing is almost always influenced by two things, James Joyce and the ongoing Irish/British/Cathotic/Protestant conflicts. I think it's pretty neat that this guy confronted at least one of those head on by naming his short story book "Young Irelanders" (yes, see "Dubliners") and populating it with average joe characters caught in a moment of recognition of their true natures (see the same). Courageous.
None of the stories, save the quite beautiful middle point "Archaeologists," were particularly exciting to read, but they were all solidly constructed. The idea of the story tended to reveal itself a bit too early and then you merely read to see how it played out. I did really enjoy the last story, a somewhat aimless piece about a man visiting his mother in her nursing home. One of the last paragraphs of the book: "Outside I saw her sitting in the wheelchair, hands folded on her lap, and I knew I was living the moment that says nothing, that will allow nothing said of consequence."
Yes, exactly. It's worth the meandering 222 pages to get to a line like that.