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Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.61 (Aug 2000)
Inishowen by
Joseph O’Connor
- O’Connor has produced a long and rather rambling tale which has some
good plot lines and a few believable characters, but on the whole the
book gives the impression that it was written without a plan, with characters
or events being included as they popped up in the author’s head. The theme
itself, the search by an American woman for her birthmother, refers to
a period in the last century when large numbers of Irish children were
offered for adoption to Americans. However Ellen Donnelly, the woman who
has been in correspondence with a nun in Inishowen about her real mother,
somehow never becomes real. We learn that she has disappeared on a number
of occasions in the past, to the consternation of her husband, Morton
Amery, and their two children, that she is aware of her plastic surgeon
husband’s infidelity, and that she has terminal pancreatic cancer. To
be fair, we also learn that she is resourceful and is the possessor of
a sense of humour, and her tactics in successfully demanding a room in
an already full hotel constitute one of the more amusing sections of the
narrative. Martin Aitken is the stereotypical cranky police inspector,
with a broken marriage and a troubled past centred on Inishowen. He is
drawn into Ellen Amery’s search and it is some of the characters they
meet along the way who really stretch credulity. For example it is hard
to believe that the sensible and sensitive Valerie, Aitken’s ex-wife,
would really live comfortably with the unspeakable Morris Nunn. Similarly,
on the other side of the Atlantic Ellen’s friend Dick Spiggot rides to
the rescue with his personal Lear jet, like the cavalry of old, and sets
off for Ireland with Ellen’s husband, son, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend,
ditching the co-pilot in order to fit them all in.
O’Connor throws in the odd trick to make us smile - when Ellen’s lawyer
is naming all the women in Morton Amery’s life over the years, a Miss
Lewinsky is included in the list. Another list, of townland names, is
included to locate us firmly in the Inishowen of the title, where both
Ellen and Martin find a kind of peace. Joseph O’Connor writes well, so
this book can be enjoyed on a certain level, but it is not one that will
stick in the mind.
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Across the River
by Alice Taylor
- In this sequel to “The Woman of the House”, consummate storyteller Alice
Taylor continues the saga of the Phelan and Conway families and the emergence
of the new generation, in Peter Phelan and Danny Conway. The author has
included a number of references to enable those unfamiliar with the first
book, and those who may have read it but whose memory is patchy, to pick
up the narrative with ease, but “Across the River” is also a story in
its own right. Martha Phelan has taken over the reins of the family farm
following the sudden death of her husband, Ned, and her authority is now
being challenged by her hot-headed son, Peter. It is left to Jack, who
has worked on the farm all his life and who almost certainly has as great
a love for the land as any of the family, to keep the peace between the
two. However a threat from outside the family brings a truce and a greater
degree of understanding between mother and son. The long-held animosity
between the Phelan and Conway families is the cause of the threat, and
the cunning and strength of purpose shown by Martha in resolving the row
with Matt Conway throws a light on rural Ireland that some might have
difficulty in believing. Ms Taylor does not overlook the minutiae of country
life, the animosity between parish priest and curate, the rumours of illicit
liaisons and the realities of violent family life, to offset the more
idyllic picture one generally has of rural Ireland.
In the closing chapters of the book it becomes obvious that the author
will shortly be providing a third book on the Conways and Phelans, leaving
as she does a number of loose ends which would seem to lead naturally
to a sequel, and this will undoubtedly join its predecessors in the Bestsellers
List.
Gander at the
Gate by Rory O’Connor
- Of the numerous recent books of childhood memories in Ireland, Rory
O’Connor’s record of growing up in Knocknagoshel, Co. Kerry must be among
the most beautifully written. The author has realistically conveyed both
the fears and the delights of childhood, from the flight from the eponymous
gander to the leaps of imagination required to fill long summer days.
In a chapter entitled “Goboys on the Loose” we are treated to a wonderfully
atmospheric account of a summer day which “went by smooth and sweet, like
the taste of wild honey in the mouth”. The son of two schoolteachers,
the young Rory was given an exhilarating amount of freedom in his young
years, during which he joined forces with friends and cousins in their
search for mischief. However it is through the characters with which he
has peopled his reminiscences that O’Connor leaves the deepest impression
on the reader; his father, a devoted sportsman haunted by his part in
a violent nationalist past; the discipline coupled with understanding
and sympathy shown by his mother, the gloriously eccentric Uncle Jack
for whom nothing was straightforward, and their neighbour Delia and her
emigrant children.
The more fundamental side of life is amply illustrated by the procession
of “girls” who came to the house to look after the children, a number
of whom had to leave abruptly after having enjoyed the delights of the
local hayshed more than was advisable. An indication of changing attitudes
over the past seventy years is illustrated by a description of days spent
by the author with a travelling family, joining them round their camp
fire and listening to the tales of an old man. Another wonderful storyteller
was Kerryboy who held his small audience enthralled with the saga of boxer
John L. Sullivan. All in all Rory O’Connor has succeeded in producing
a wonderful evocation of a childhood spent in more tranquil times.
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The Blackwater
Lightship by Colm Toibin
- Colm Toibin’s novel, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize last
year, contains an extraordinarily closely observed description of physical
decline, around which a number of relationships ebb and flow. Declan is
slowly dying of AIDS and his final weeks and months are lived out in the
presence of the three women in his life, his grandmother, his mother and
his sister. There has been little contact between the latter two for a
number of years, to the extent that Lily was not invited to her daughter
Helen’s wedding and has never met her two grandsons. As the relationships
unfold the author contrives to reveal how we reflect in our own parenting
the way in which we ourselves were reared; Helen’s inability to treat
her sons Cathal and Manus equally is a mirror image of Lily’s differing
attitudes to Helen and Declan. An innate reticence and inability to express
and explain one’s feelings and actions seem to be at the core of the problematic
mother-daughter relationships and it is in the resolution of these that
Toibin excels. The reader is given glimpses of possible routes to reconciliation,
of healing the many hurts that have been inflicted over the years, with
no easy answers and a great sense of striving to attain some kind of middle
ground. Through it all Declan’s friend Paul takes charge of the situation
in Dora Devereux’s house in Wexford, his assertive personality having
its own effect on the interaction between Dora, Lily and Helen. The story
is unresolved in many ways, we are not witness to Declan’s inevitable
death, and there is no emotional reconciliation between Lily and Helen,
but what is suggested is far more powerful, and indeed credible, and we
are left with the feeling that the first small step has been taken. “The
Blackwater Lightship” is a beautifully written book and should not overlooked
by anyone who has a chance to read it.
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Townlands of
Leinster by Flann O Riain
- In another book compiled from an Irish Times regular column, Flann O
Riain works his way through the province county by county, giving details
of a number of street areas and townlands which wander off into all kinds
of tenuously related details. Thus the section on Arbour Hill in Dublin
lists the inhabitants in 1863 and follows one, Mrs Mary Dignum, back to
her roots in Leitrim, Roscommon and Longford in a dynasty which included
bards and the saintly Maolpeadar O Duignenan. In the notes on Gorey in
Co. Wexford the author focuses on the Lett family who were listed as one
of the principal landowners in the county. He traces the family to a Cromwellian
Captain Thomas Lett but quotes from a source book that suggests the family
came originally from Lithuania. The geographical information on each townland
is accompanied by some aspect of the history of its inhabitants and each
section is rounded off with the number of listings in current telephone
directories north and south for the particular family mentioned.
Christ Church
Cathedral Dublin - A History - ed. Kenneth Milne
- This is a collection of essays from a number of contributors chronicling
not only the history of the cathedral itself but also the waxing and waning
involvement of the people of Dublin in the life of Christ Church. From
the Reformation an enclave of the colonial presence in Ireland, the cathedral
eventually became in the 20th century the preferred place of worship of
a small group of mostly middle-class members of the Church of Ireland.
The change from a church attended by numerous citizens of Dublin, through
the lean years and on to its revival as an integral part of the life of
many Dubliners today is recorded here, as well as its architecture and
the restoration work carried out on the building over the centuries. Among
the contributors are Maynooth lecturer Raymond Gillespie, who covers the
period of reform in the 16th and 17th centuries; Barra Boydell, who lectures
in music in Maynooth, traces the development of the musical life of the
cathedral; and Roger Stalley, Trinity’s Professor of the History of Art,
focuses on the architectural and decorative aspects of Christ Church.
Editor Kenneth Milne, who is the historiographer of the Church of Ireland,
has here produced a volume which fills a longstanding gap in the provision
of a history of one of our most prominent cathedrals.
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