Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.63 (Oct 2000)

A Taste for it by Monica McInerney
- Monica McInerney’s first novel follows the trail of her own life to a certain extent, taking in as it does the wine-growing area of South Australia, Ireland and England. As the story opens Maeve Carmody is about to set out from the Clare Valley in South Australia on a tour of Ireland to promote the wines produced by herself and her brother. Before she leaves, however, a case of mistaken identity in their restaurant sows the seeds for a major part of the ensuing narrative, introducing the reader to Dominic Hanrahan, the man who is obviously destined to be the romantic interest in the novel. When the location moves to Ireland, and specifically to Clare, two mysteries unfold in parallel, the exact role of the petulant Carla in Dominic’s life, and the search for Maeve’s birth mother in a village close to where she is staying. Maeve and her Irish counterpart, Bernadette, are conducting a cookery school in Dominic’s restored house, and the international aspects of Australian cuisine are described in some detail, as is the history of wine culture in Australia. However the house provides the setting for many of the twists in the plot, not least the scheming of Carla, and Maeve’s eventual understanding of her mother’s story. The final chapters include a romantic stay in London, a sudden flight back to Australia when Maeve’s nephew falls ill, and a bush fire, before all the threads are drawn together back in Ireland. While it has, perhaps, a little too much culinary detail, this is an informative as well as an entertaining first novel whose author has a natural aptitude for story-telling.

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No Time for Innocence by Lee Dunne
- This autobiography could well be subtitled “The Rise, Fall and first step to recovery of Lee Dunne”, giving as it does a picture of a relentless slide into alcoholism following a particularly successful career as singer, author and screenwriter. I almost called it a depressing slide, but this it never is as Dunne describes his exploits with a mixture of humour and honesty that precludes any feeling of doom in the reader. Never afraid of hard work and always with an eye to the main chance, the young Dunne describes his early years as delivery boy, living in a somewhat dysfunctional family dominated by his mother Katy. Already there is something out of the ordinary about him, he has a compulsion to write and has a piece accepted by RTE; he spends years of his youth giving his aunt her daily insulin injection for diabetes - in fact according to his testament he was the first to spot her illness. A diverse career touring with a showband and later with a fit-up theatre company, eventually takes him to London where his writing ability leads to more success but where his drinking habits become the dominant theme of his life. Always there is evidence of an obvious talent which somehow is lessened by the way it is used or abused. The speed with which Dunne learns to negotiate the streets of London and earns a taxi licence is commendable, but his use of the taxi to further his all-too-numerous amorous encounters tarnishes the image. All the while his longsuffering wife Jean is coping with his frequent absences and more or less rearing their three children on her own. Only a meeting with reformed alcoholics in Dublin convinces him that this is what he is and that he can do something about it.
In “No Time for Innocence” Dunne has given us a very personal view of a life which scaled the heights and plumbed the depths. The change from past to present tense adds immediacy to many of the episodes and he is able to look back and recognize his own self-delusion. There is some sense that his alcoholism isn’t totally his fault, that he had inherited the tendency from his grandfather, but all in all he does take the blame for the break-up of his marriage and for the course of self-destruction upon which he had set out. Without self pity and with a style full of vitality and humour, Dunne has chronicled a part of his life now well behind him.

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Mister, Are You A Priest? by Edward Daly
- Although the author describes his book as “a rag-bag of memories”, the completed work in no way reflects this description, presenting as it does a coherent and at times deeply-affecting chronicle of a life both in and out of the spotlight. The man who was to become Bishop Edward Daly of Derry was born and grew up in the border town of Belleek, in Co. Fermanagh, and the first chapters tell of an Ireland long since disappeared, and of parents with ambitions for their children who sent their eldest son to boarding school in Derry to complete his education. In contrast with many recollections of schooldays, the future bishop’s years in St Colum’s were less than idyllic and the intervening years have not presented a rosier picture. His years in Rome as a student priest were cut short in the final months by the death of his father, resulting in his being ordained, after which he ministered as a curate in Tyrone. At several junctures in the book Bishop Daly’s sense of humour emerges, and one of his best stories concerns the production of a play on Robert Emmett in a particularly republican village. Such was the unrest and growing verbal abuse from the audience towards those conducting the “trial” that the actors feared for their safety, the “judge” handed down a verdict of “not guilty” and the entire cast fled the building. On another occasion, when there was something of a stand-off between republicans at the top of the hill near the cathedral in Derry, and Ian Paisley and a group of supporters at the bottom of the hill, someone set fire to an ice-cream van and sent it rolling down the hill. As it went Fr Daly couldn’t help remarking on the incongruity of the strains of “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” blaring forth from the speeding van.
It is only fitting that more than half of the book deals with the author’s time in Derry, from his introduction to what was a depressed and badly housed section of the community, through the development of the Civil Rights movement and the many acts of violence with which he and his fellow-priests had to deal. The story leads inexorably to the day on which an obscure Derry curate became a universally recognized figure, January 30 1972, Bloody Sunday. Here the author’s description of events brings us with him as he first tries to escape the gunfire himself, and then as he begins ministering to those who were not so fortunate. For Fr Daly it was the last straw in a long period of personal stress in trying to help the victims of violence and injustice, and he subsequently left Derry for a period to work with RTE before returning as the new bishop on the resignation of Bishop Neil Farren. As well as offering an insight into a much beloved and respected priest and bishop, Edward Daly’s book gives an unparalleled insight into the experiences of the citizens of Derry over the last thirty years and such has been the demand, the publishers have had to undertake another print run within weeks of its publication.

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Noel Browne, Passionate Outsider by John Horgan
- In his biography of a man described by colleague David Thornley as “infuriatingly wayward and endlessly likeable”, John Horgan sets out to give a separate and detached view of the politician’s life from that set out in his autobiography “Against the Tide”. Written from a sympathetic though clear-sighted point of view, the book takes us fairly quickly through Dr Browne’s difficult and traumatic childhood, which also displayed some of the characteristics of privilege, and on to his political life. This was, of course, dominated by the defeat of his Mother and Child scheme, though Horgan points out that Browne found just as much opposition among his own professional colleagues as he did from the hierarchy, in the persons of Archbishop John McQuaid and Bishop Browne of Galway in particular. The narrative becomes a succession of political enthusiasms almost invariably marred by Browne’s lack of a tactical sense and the anger which was liable to erupt at any time; it is a catalogue of friends who become enemies and of enemies who admit to a grudging admiration. One could be forgiven for losing count of the number of political parties to which Browne affiliated himself and it is a measure of the esteem in which he was held by so many of the people that he was elected to both the Dail and the Seanad. And it must also be said that he was a source of inspiration to many others both in and out of political life who helped to further his campaigns.
Of course Noel Browne’s health was always a factor, and he had recurring bouts of the TB which had killed three members of his immediate family. The one stable point in his life was undoubtedly his wife, Phyllis, who was a constant source of strength and who managed their lives and brought up their two daughters while overseeing the inordinate number of moves occasioned by her husband’s erratic life. And in his final years Dr Browne found some contentment in the house he and Phyllis shared in Connemara. The picture that emerges from this biography is of a man driven by his own experiences to bring about change in the lives of his fellow citizens, but a man who lacks the political acumen to bring his plans to fruition. The fact that the author was involved with his subject at one time in his political career lends credence to the whole and makes it compulsive reading. It has also persuaded me to make up a long-held deficiency by reading Noel Browne’s autobiography.

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Being Irish ed. Patrick Logue
- While the one hundred contributors to this anthology come from a diversity of backgrounds, there are one or two recurring themes in their views of their own and other people’s Irishness. There seems to be a consensus in the belief that as a result of the Celtic Tiger we are in danger of losing, or might have already lost, some of those qualities which were presumed to characterise the Irish. Nowhere, it seems, is this more obvious than in our attitude to those from outside Ireland who are now seeking acceptance in our country. We see this from a number of different angles, from the view of such as Barbara Nugent, Chief Executive of the Sunday Business Post, who asks “Are we beginning to show cracks in our cultural strengths....Is skin colour blinding us to what is our true nature....?”, while Sr Stanislaus Kennedy sees it as our challenge that we welcome “the strangers who seek refuge here”. At the same time we are left in no doubt as to the reality of the situation for many of our immigrants. Shalini Sinha, who had already experienced being part of a minority in her native Canada, had imagined that in moving to Ireland she could “share an experience of colonial resistance” but found the reality very different. Similarly Fee Ching Leong, who has lived in Belfast for twenty-five years, still looks forward to the day when she will no longer be a second- or third-class citizen.
The contributions from the North reflect, as would be expected, a wide spectrum of views, with a distinction being drawn between the notion of Irishness as embracing Catholicism, nationalism and aspects of culture, and a more basic geographical Irishness. Some, like David Hewitt, can declare quite simply “I was born on the Island of Ireland. I have lived there for 60 years. So I am Irish”; conversely DUP member Gregory Campbell resorts to capital letters in his assertion, “....if King William’s portrait were to be hung on every Town Hall in the Republic, WE WOULD STILL NOT WANT TO BE PART OF IT”. Contributors include Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, Paddy Maloney and Dana, Pat Buckley and Andrew Greeley and many other representatives from all walks of Irish life. Some views are very personal, some political, a few whimsical and at least one poetic, but very few raise a smile, which presumably reflects the perceived seriousness of the subject to a good number of people.

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Aloys Fleischmann ed. Ruth Fleischmann
- Taking the views of a number of people who knew her father has made Ruth Fleischmann’s book an interesting collection of consensus and disagreement. What comes across very strongly, and is agreed upon by all the contributors, is that Aloys Fleischmann had unbounding energy and endless patience, and that he was indifferent to fame. Also emphasized, naturally, is his contribution to the musical life of Cork through the Choral Festival, the string quartet and his work in the university. According to Professor John A. Murphy, while he could have devoted himself entirely to the academic life, Fleischmann “was committed to the principle of gown serving town” and much of his time was devoted to bringing both classical and Irish traditional music to a wider audience. While his boundless energy and innate stubbornness certainly got things done, these same qualities could become difficult for those on whom they were brought to bear, who often gave into him out of pure exasperation and weariness. Two diverse opinions are given with regard to the Professor’s sense of humour. While Emeritus Professor of Chemistry John P. Teegan states categorically, “I don’t think he possessed any sense of humour whatever.... I don’t think I ever saw him laugh”, countless others attest to Fleischmann’s good sense of humour, though even in this group there is some disagreement. While some who knew him suggested that his humour could be somewhat ribald, filmmaker Louis Marcus was of the opinion that the Professor was quite unconscious of the double entendre and “was quite devoid of a Rabelaisian sense”. What is evident from this collection of memories is that, whether people liked him or disliked him, all were unanimous in their admiration for his dedication and his contribution to the musical life of both Cork and Ireland as a whole.

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Maire Bhui Ni Laoire - A Poet of her People by Brain Brennan
“O Donagh, the report has filled me with anguish That you’ve turned from the fold and joined the speakers of English.”
So it is in one of Maire Bhui’s last laments that she reveals her reverence for the faith and for the language of her birth. And Maire Bhui Ni Laoire - A Poet of Her People by Brian Brennan is a fine book, paying homage to a unique and rare woman of Irish history and literature. Brennan’s maternal grandmother was the great-granddaughter of Maire Bhui Ni Laoire (1774-1849), the celebrated singing folk poet of West Cork. The first half of the book chronicles early Irish history as it pertains to the Bhui branch of O’Leary clan, the O’Learys once holding lands in Munster under the patronage of the MacCarthys. Maire Bhui’s life journey was not an easy one. She was a simple farmer’s wife and mother of nine and, as the British could achieve much better control over the Irish by ensuring their ignorance and inability to access formal education, she was “technically” illiterate. Yet she became one of the most celebrated Irish-language folk poets of the 19th century, orally recording the events of her history with raw devotion and fundamental intensity. And it is in the second half of the book that a generous selection of “The Songs of Maire Bhui” bursts forth. Irish-language lovers will relish the poetry in all its lyricism and English- language readers will benefit from the concise accompanying translations. Her laments, love songs, religious meditations and aislingi (vision poems) fairly rise up off the page with passion and faith. Her poetic voice is at once lyrical and pure, as with “Young Man of the Burkes (An Burchach Og):”
Ba phras e a siul ar bharr an drucht gur sciob si an Burchach lei
Light was her step atop the dew, as she swept young Burke away.
But sentimentalities yield to the deadly serious. In “The Battle of Keimaneigh (Cath Ceim an Fhia),” Maire Bhui’s best-known song, which tells of the 1822 clash between the local militia and the Catholic secret society Whiteboys, her words are exacting and ferocious and defiant:
Nior fhan fear bean na paiste i mbun aitribh an ti acu Ach na gartha do bhi acu, agus milte olagon, Ag feachaint ar an ngarda ag teacht laidir ina dtimpeall, Ag lamhach is ag lionadh is ag scaoileadh ina dtreo... ...Thanadar na sarfhir i gcoim athais le Clanna Gaeil Is chomaineadar na paintigh le fanaidh ar seol.
Not a man, woman or child was left in their dwelling or house Without grief-cries and thousands of wailings, As they watched the guard vigorously surrounding them, Shooting and loading and firing in their direction... ...The heroes joined the Clanna Gael at a mountain recess, And they drove the fat rabble away down the slope.
“The Battle of Keimaneigh” is still a part of the folklore of west Cork, and is sung and recited there still. It is all too easy to lose oneself in the wonderful content of this book and all the thoughts and visions it provokes. Maire Bhui Ni Laoire =AD A Poet of Her People is an engaging text, and quite an achievement for Dublin-born author Brennan, a respected Canadian journalist and a popular musician, it is his first published book and it should be on the mandatory reading list of every Irish-language class and in the hands of every lover of Irish culture and history. Reviewed by Sandra Dempsey, an award-winning playwright living in Calgary.

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Molly’s Grandson by Francis X. Curry
- This is a chilling story which becomes even more chilling when one reads on the back cover of the book that it is based on stories told to the author as a child. “Molly’s Grandson” tells of the brutalisation of an orphan boy, John James McCarron, by members of the Irish League, itself a development of the Molly Maguires. James is deprived physically and emotionally to ensure his success as an “Avenging Angel”, a hit-man for the Movement who will feel nothing for his victims but the satisfaction of a job carried out efficiently. We are given details of the week-by-week and year-by-year brutalising process, as well as Johnny’s few attempts at making contact with his fellow humans, and the final outcome is something of a surprise, given the cold-blooded violence with which it is preceded. This is a slight volume, just 99 pages, which tells one part of the story of the Irish in Pennsylvania.

A Wrenboy’s Carnival by Gabriel Fitzmaurice
- This collection of poems by the Kerry poet has been described in the Foreword by Declan Kiberd as “a literal re-member-ing, a piecing-together of past and present memories”. Thus it contains both new poems and those dating back over the past thirty years, but all of them rooted in his native place. Fitzmaurice’s belief in the importance of tradition and custom is well expressed in “Hunting the Wren” when he puts forward the view that rituals have lost their original meaning:
“The romp of spirit, the riot of soul Is pathetic when ritual lacks a role.”
Humour also abounds in this collection, and the portrait of the Christmas Eve drunk in “I Thirst” is particularly engaging. Having watched the man make his own offering at the altar, Fitzmaurice’s final stanza refuses to condemn the man but takes the tolerant view:
“But the Christ who thirsts on Calvary Has waited all these years For a fellow cursed with the cross of thirst To stand him these few beers.”
There is nostalgia in many of the poems, winkles on Good Friday, first love in the Gaeltacht, revisiting the haunts and the music of his youth and, in particular, the lovingly-drawn portraits in “My People”. Fitzmaurice looks back at the heroes of his childhood and connects that far-off time to the childhoods of the pupils he teaches and of his own two children, bringing together a diversity of themes rooted in a common background.

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Seaweed Memories by Heinrich Becker
- This collection of stories takes us back to the world depicted in “Man of Aran”, to a time when the inhabitants of the Aran Islands and of Connemara depended on the kelp industry for their livelihood so that much of their time was taken up with battles with the sea. Originally published in Irish as “I mBeal na Farraige”, the stories were collected by the author, who had already published a work on the boatmen of the Elbe in his native Germany. The scene is set with a description of a gathering house and the storytelling tradition associated with it, and from this point we are given first-person tales of narrow escape from the sea, of drownings and near-drownings, of superstitions associated with the sea and seaweed-gathering and of the great characters who peopled that world. Their dealings with each other and with authority are chronicled in the tales, as is their belief in a world beyond this one whose inhabitants had to be treated with great respect. “Seaweed Memories” tells of the comedy and tragedy of life lived on the margins, both geographically and economically.

Hindsights by Liam o Murchu
- There is a curious familiarity in reading this book after John Horgan’s biography of Noel Browne, since many of the characters described by Liam O Murchu have already been encountered. Sean McEntee, for example, he credits with laying the groundwork for Noel Browne’s successful fight against tuberculosis, while describing him as a “dapper but irascible man”. The author came into contact with Dr Browne when he was working in the Department of Health, “....a refined and cultured man....carrying some deep inner conviction”. Each chapter is devoted to someone in public life with whom the author had some dealings, and we hear from the inside track, stories of such prominent people as Jack Lynch, Bishop Eamon Casey, Siobhan McKenna and Cyril Cusack. There are no startling revelations but we do get a glimpse of some aspects of Irish life over the past half century.

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Land and People by Eibhlin Ni Scannlain
- Deriving from Ms Ni Scannlain’s MA thesis, this is an examination of the changes wrought in the lives of the population and the ownership of land in 19th century north west Connemara. The book is divided into pre-Famine, Famine and post-Famine sections and traces the decline in population in the area and the eventual transfer of land ownership from the landlord to the indigenous people. Mention is also made of benefactors, in particular the Quaker couple James and Mary Ellis, whose work in Letterfrack caused it to be described by a visiting clergyman as “an oasis crowning the bold and magnificent mountain wild with the most striking effect of contrast and variety, altogether ’won’ by money and skill from nature’s uncultivated waste”.

A Day to Remember at the Giants Causeway by Declan Carville
- Aimed at six to ten-year-olds, Declan Carville’s book chooses one of Ireland’s most famous natural attractions as a setting for the adventure of Conor and his dog, Murphy. The twin threats of the elements and the legendary Finn McCool beset the pair in their adventure at the Giant’s Causeway and even when Conor returns to the safety of his own home there is a suggestion in the final line that all might not be well. Illustrated by Brendan Ellis, this book is the first of three to be published in the next few months.

North Down Memories by Keith Haines
- This collection of photographs dating from the 1860s to the 1960s are for the most part previously unpublished and therefore give a less familiar view of the whole North Down area. The photographs are categorised under headings such as People, Leisure, The Wars and Sport, and each is captioned with sufficient detail to provide interest even for those unfamiliar with the area. For anyone who has a knowledge of this part of Ireland, the book will provide a nostalgic view of its people, places and events.

A Dublin Memoir by Vincent Flood
- Although this look back at a Dublin childhood does not purport to be great literature, and indeed my proofreader’s pen was itching to mark the script, it is nonetheless a vibrant record of a childhood and youth lived in a number of relatively deprived districts of the capital in the years surrounding the Second World War. Vincent Flood’s family suffered the common fates of illness, unemployment and unhappy schooldays, yet he conveys a world of enjoyment and discovery for a group of young boys. Their forays into adulthood included plucking up the courage to take dancing lessons, and finding the even more necessary courage to invite girls to their first dress dance. The contrast with our own age couldn’t be greater, with both the girls and boys of nineteen and twenty having to receive permission from their parents to go to the dance, their journey there on a bus, and the small part played by alcohol in the proceedings. The friends’ final adventure is a trip to Paris by air from Dublin and this first journey outside their own country, according to the author, “remained fixed in their minds forever”.

At the Coalface by J. Anthony Gaughan
- Fr Gaughan has successfully combined pastoral work with a significant literary output over some forty years of his time as a priest, but this book concentrates on his work in a number of parishes in the Dublin diocese. The pages are peopled with a procession of characters both lay and clerical, from Archbishop John Charles McQuaid to the young boys for whom he ran a Boys Club which managed only to “divert them from mindless vandalism”. Fr Gaughan found himself at various times in the well-heeled suburbs of Dublin 4, a scattered parish in the Wicklow mountains and among the dockers of inner-city Dublin. It is interesting in this time of fewer vocations and a general falling-off in church attendance to read of the full seminaries, the generally large congregations and the involvement of so many people in the life of the parish. The author is not backward in giving his opinion of those with whom he worked but contrives to take the sting out of negative comments with a degree of gentleness. While regretting that we in Ireland are no longer “Faith people”, he nevertheless expresses his satisfaction with a vocation which has brought him both challenges and rewards.

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