Ciaran Carson employs his poetic vision in this rich prose fantasy, constructing a colourful world fuelled by a mysterious herbal hallucinogenic.
Shamrock Tea is an Irish drug that enables its users to see things not given to ordinary mortals. They can sense colours and sounds more vividly; they can penetrate the surface of paintings; they can cross time. The narrator, his cousin and a strange Belgian friend know their lives are ruled mysteriously by a painting, The Arnolfini Portrait, and they have travelled in dreamlike moments through it into other times. But in the strange world of Shamrock Tea, no story can be straightforward…
Ciaran Carson
About the Author
The Northern Irish writer Ciaran Carson was better known for his poetry than his prose. Shamrock Tea featured the author himself as part of a hard-to-classify blend.