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Donn Byrne was an Irish author of the old style (he was actually Irish-American, but he moved back to Ireland and was fluent in Gaelic) and his novels are period pieces, (the period being very late Victorian/early Edwardian) but beautifully written.

Destiny Bay (1928) is set in rural Northern Ireland, and concerns the fortunes of the local landed family. Narrated by the nephew and heir of the house, Kerry MacFarland. Lots of local color, some great horse racing adventures, gypsies, bare-knuckle boxing, a larger-than-life uncle Valentine, the gentle Aunt Jenepher, and a touch of the supernatural.

Opening:

My aunt Jenepher, who is so beautiful, and is blind, was sitting on a marble bench in the herb garden, whistling, and I was standing by her. I would have you know that my aunt Jenepher is the best whistler in the world; it is one of the many gifts vouchsafed her for the loss of her eyes. She was imitating the clear liquid trill of a blackbird,and the blackbird himself, a fat rascal who had been gorging on the cherry trees, was hopping about in front of her on his inadequate yellow feet, his glossy head nearly as glossy as my aunt Jenepher's , now cocked on one side now on the other, puzzled and a little angry that a mortal lady had stolen his dance music, while in the hawthorn bushes his consort gave loud squawks of dismay.
"Now who the devil - " said I, for I had been looking down the drive, and had seen my uncle Valentine - "now who the devil has he with him now?"
My aunt Jenepher turned around and faced the drive. Her beautiful pale hands lay quietly in her lap and she was as though dreaming. "I think I can tell you, Kerry," she said. My aunt Jenepher had the faculty of seeing people without her eyes. I always felt that she left her body,she stood outside it, and in some mystical way saw people soul to soul. An expensive Dublin physician, with side whiskers, once told me that this was rot, that the human organism has eyes everywhere, in the back of the head, as the saying is, and in the finger tips. They only need developing, and in my aunt Jenepher's case they are developed. I have given a lot of thought to this, and I have decided that the expensive Dublin physician, and his side wiskers, can go to - but need I be explicit? My aunt Jenepher saw people soul to soul.
"It is a very old man," said my aunt Jenepher,"and a very feeble one. A very great nobleman, Kerry, and a very poor one. And - "
"And the boy, Aunt Jenepher?"
"The what, Kerry?"
"The boy in the clothes that are much too big for him."
"Is very noble," said my aunt Jenepher, "and good and very poor."