Tibradden is a farmhouse in the Dublin mountains, where the city meets the country - or, in other words, where housing estates and golf courses encroach on lands grazed by sheep and cattle. When Selina Guinness and her partner Colin, both young academics, moved in with Selina's uncle Charles, an elderly bachelor, they had no idea what the coming years held for them: a crash course in farming, tense discussions with helicopter-borne property developers, human tragedy, and the challenge of dragging a quasi-feudal estate into the twenty-first century. The Crocodile by the Door tells this remarkable story.

With an eye to the colourful history of the house and to the often troubled history of relations between Ireland's landed gentry and their tenants and employees, Selina Guinness has produced a rich family narrative, a snapshot of the uncertain future facing Irish farmers, a classic property drama, and, above all, a moving account of life, labour and loss on a hillside overlooking Dublin.