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Following these nostalgic reminiscences is perhaps the most urgent narrative in the collection, \"Proxopera,\" in which a grandfather is thrust into the sectarian contest. Binchey, as he is called, is forced by the IRA to decide whether to participate in their proxy operation to deliver a bomb to the house of a judge or to forfeit the lives of his family. But, he protests, Judge Flynn is \"one of the best men in the north\"; precisely, retorts the gunman: \"He lends credit to the system.\" In this novella, often hailed as an antiwar statement, Mr. [BENEDICT KIELY] sabotages the militants' grandiloquence by detailing the mundane: the disguising socks on their heads, the bomb in a milk can. And Binchey's son skewers their banal anti-English rhetoric: \"Man, you love the Brits, you couldn't exist without them. . . . They give you the chance to be Irish heroes.\" The ancient Celtic title, which means both \"wise one\" and \"warrior,\" is particularly apt for Mr. Kiely, an author whose work is so richly marinated in both the history and the struggles of old [Erin]. \"The Collected Stories of Benedict Kiely,\" which brings together all 48 of his short stories and his acclaimed novella, \"Proxopera,\" reveals a life's work devoted to remembering and retelling. His characters -- shopkeepers, schoolteachers, curates and pretty girls -- are forever dusting their memories for stories of their own to tell, while softly trudging along in towns that have slept since the Battle of the Boyne or been awakened, if briefly, rebellions from 1798 to 1916 and the world wars.

Spread out before me in the shine are the mountains from the tip of Rossinver and Dartry to Ben Bulben; all at their most beautiful except where those heroes, known to a colleague as the Whitewashed Warriors have obscenely scrawled \"Brits Out\" on the nose of Ben Bulben. They'd daub on the Ark of the Covenant or the backside of the Poor Old Woman if they could locate them. The noonday bus for Sligo goes by, half-empty, the driver dismissing me with one wave of his hand, which the lady in the shop at the crossroads cannot understand. Neither can I. That evening in the old rectory [at Drumcliffe] I listen to great talk from my Sligo friends. Dusk gathers over the mountains. Behind some hedge some Whiteboys, the Whitewash Warriors, muster with another coat for their sign on the mountain.

2 plump local tomatoes, chopped half a bunch of fresh cilantro, washed and chopped (save some sprigs for garnishing) Thread the squid bodies lengthwise onto skewers, so they lie flat. Thread the tentacles onto separate skewers. Place the salsa into a large white bowl, remove the squid from the skewers, and pile high on top of the salsa. Garnish with a few sprigs of the cilantro.

Benedict Kiely, an Irish author and journalist who wrote about the Northern Ireland of his youth with humor and appreciation for life's absurdities, died on Feb. 9, the Arts Council of Ireland announced on its Web site. He was 87. He explored the subject in fiction as well. In \"Proxopera,\" Mr. Kiely's widely acclaimed novella of 1977, a retired teacher is ordered by Irish Republican Army soldiers to plant a bomb in his town in Northern Ireland. Mr. Kiely was born Aug. 15, 1919, in the town of Dromore, County Tyrone, and raised in nearby Omagh. He entered Jesuit training as a young man but left after about one year. He moved to Dublin and graduated from the National University of Ireland before working at the Irish Independent newspaper and later the Irish Press, where he was literary editor for more than 10 years.

Kiely's first book, Counties of Contention: a Study of the Origins and Implications of the Partition of Ireland (1945), reflected the moderate nationalism that he adhered to all his life. His Poor Scholar (1947) is a critical biography of William Carleton, a pioneer of the modern Irish short story and a major influence on Kiely himself. Modern Irish Fiction (1950) is a work of assured literary criticism. By the time his first novel, Land Without Stars, was published in 1946, Kiely was a leaderwriter on the Irish Independent - his instructions were to \"avoid coming to any conclusion about anything\". But in 1950 he resigned. The banning of his novel In a Harbour Green (1949) had not endeared him to the management; furthermore, a positive review he wrote of George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer prompted complaint from readers and Kiely was no longer asked to review plays. A friend suggested he would be happier at the Irish Press, where he then spent almost 15 years as literary editor. He retired from full-time journalism in the mid-1960s, became a visiting professor of creative writing at several American universities, and later lectured at UCD. Richard Pine writes: Ben Kiely and I were nodding acquaintances as co-denizens of Barney McCloskey's pub in the then Dublin \"village\" of Donnybrook, where we both lived. It was close to the studios of Radio TelefIs Eireann (RTE), where I worked and where Kiely contributed his mesmeric west Ulster voice to the radio programme Sunday Miscellany. From Omagh to Donnybrook may seem a big stretch, but Kiely's gentle and gentlemanly manner meant that he readily found a home in this locale of academics and broadcasters.

THE remains of renowned writer and broadcaster Benedict Kiely, inset,...