Paul Henry's painting of a village in Connemara illustrates the dual strands of nineteenth-century Irish painting: its preoccupation with rural landscape and people and its receptivity to the forces of European art movements.

During a continental apprenticeship, Henry absorbed the influence of Van Gogh and Millet, but, like other Irish writers and artists at the turn of the century, he was most influenced by his discovery of the landscape and life of western Ireland. Living on Achill Island in County Mayo for seven years, he returned in his mind's eye to that landscape for the rest of his life.

The composition is divided into two sections: heavy cloud formations dominate the upper portion, slate-blue mountains and landscape, the lower. Although Henry shows no figures, the small clusters of white-washed thatched cottages evoke the lives of western country people.