Before the Famine Struck describes life in the parish of Kilfearagh in West Clare in the years before the Great Famine. Despite the rather grim living conditions of the people, their lives were by no means joyless. The book describes old customs, the Kilkee Races, hurling and dancing on green and strand, the drink and temperance scenario, and faction fighting. It also humorously describes the tourists and visitors (including day trippers) and a summer ‘transplanting of a little Limerick’ in the hotels and lodges of Kilkee.