In other books for teen-agers Miss Dillon has shown she can spin a tale in the best romantic tradition of a [John] Buchan or a [Robert Louis] Stevenson. But never has she written one as stirring as [The Singing Cave], in which an exciting plot vies for interest with a dramatic Irish setting….

A chase thru turbulent seas, a cattle stampede on a high cliff's edge, the recovery of the treasure and its strange fate provide many a thrill. Pat, his grandfather, and their hardy, individualistic neighbors, are skillfully portrayed. And the sea girt, wind swept island exerts a fascination not soon forgotten.

No writer today comes nearer to greatness, without quite getting there, than Eilis Dillon. [The Fort of Gold] is characteristic. The scene again is an island which is not one of the Arans but much like it…. The denouement is not quite satisfactory.

There is much good character-drawing, and the narrative moves briskly. It is perhaps in writing that the book falls short of excellence. There is not quite a broad enough sweep in the story, and the author does not make us hear the thunder of the surf as we should. For all that, this is a very good book….

[The Fort of Gold is vivid.] Of course the author has an unfair advantage: the background and idiom of Ireland have a persuasive glamour that shrivels up her English, French and American rivals [in the contest among authors to create adventure stories worthy of succeeding John Buchan].

It is scarcely fair to start with an island called Inishdara off Galway, with a place called the Fort of Gold or the Fort of Sorrow…. Disbelief is too willingly suspended as the boys find and hide the treasure before ever the yellow-faced Mr. Kelly or the yellow-livered Mr. Crann can lay their thieving hands on it. Eilís Dillon is an enchanter. Tension mounts as the boys find themselves forced to work for Kelly and Crann and at the same time spy on them for their fellow islanders' sake. Both adults and adolescents are entirely credible, events grow more and more thrilling yet never seem improbable or melodramatic, and such incidents as the removal of the gold to another island in bad weather are of an excitement rare in children's books today.