Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.67 (Mar 2001)

CHASING SHADOWS by Chris Sheeran
- The experience of growing up in Derry during the Troubles is documented in this debut novel, focusing on the life of young Seamus Doherty. Declared by his teacher to have a “hunger for learning”, Seamus’ academic career takes second place to his efforts to come to terms with his dead father’s tainted reputation and his mother’s alcohol-assisted withdrawal from the world. The fuzziness of the boundary between ’legitimate’ protest against the army presence, and mindless vandalism, stirs pangs of conscience in the young Seamus and, after a particularly destructive episode involving himself and three friends, he pulls back from that aspect of his life. The way in which he is gradually enmeshed once more in the world of threats and promises, of violence and death, is successfully portrayed by the author, who manages to evoke the aura of mistrust endemic in such a situation. However I felt that much of the dialogue was expressed in ways that were far above the heads of a group of Derry boys in their late teens and it was very much a case of the author’s voice coming through. The pace picks up in the second half of the narrative, his mother’s life is brought back on an even keel, and Seamus becomes involved with a Protestant girl which leads him into further trouble. From here events follow rapidly on from one another and Seamus finds himself more and more confused as to who is telling him the truth about his father. A mixture of fear and curiosity draws him further into the violence and he makes the decision so many others like him made - to leave the country. The final chapters conjure up all the tension of escape, the desperation and yearning of Seamus and Elaine, leading to a climax that is both inevitable and profoundly shocking. Chris Sheeran’s novel carries to some extent the authentic voice of the young men of Derry who are torn between politics and their desire for a normal life.

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CORMAC’S CORNER by Cormac MacConnell
- This is vintage Cormac for those familiar with his work, and a great introduction to his particular way of presenting Ireland for anybody who has not yet come across his writings on our website or in publications in the US. Divided into four books each containing eighteen pieces, the stories move from the frankly fantastic, represented by “The Last of the Little People” and “Watch out for Church Spiders”, to the grim realities of Irish life in days gone by as depicted in “Playing the Virgin Mary”. Cormac’s eye for the unusual, for the poignant, but above all for the humour in Irish life is unerring, and whichever of these is uppermost will produce a story that will leave the reader with something to ponder. His love of his country and his home county of Fermanagh, his love of the gifts of nature and his love for his fellow-countrymen shine through all the stories. Some of the most memorable describe the thrill of the chase, be it hunting rabbits beside the Erne or admiring the speed of the greyhound at coursing matches. However it is in his acute observation of the Irish character that Cormac excels. Shaftie O’Neill, the schoolboy with “an almost incredible inability to learn anything at all from any teacher living” who goes on to make his fortune in England; the chilling singlemindedness of Jigs Daly in “Hit Right in the Blue Bullseyes”; and of course his own father, Sandy, whose exploits are told with admiration and affection. From so many stories it is difficult to pick a favourite but a strong candidate would have to be “Confirmations Aren’t What they Used To Be” in which the author, attending the confirmation of his son and daughter, muses on the reaction of a former MacConnell, Johnny the Crowe. Johnny’s inability to turn the other cheek had unfortunate consequences when ritually struck on the cheek by an elderly bishop during his own confirmation, and the story has been handed down from generation to generation in the MacConnell family. Though I read Cormac’s Corner at one sitting, (and admit to being initially put off by the subject matter of the first story) it would repay a more leisurely approach, dipping in here and there in an idle moment to savour the true breadth of his imagination, insight and flights of fancy.

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IRISH AMERICA - COMING INTO CLOVER by Maureen Dezell
- The author, who begins by assuring us that her surname is a corruption of an Irish name, has conducted some one hundred interviews with Irish Americans, as well as referring to earlier studies by such as Fr Andrew Greeley and William Shannon, and has produced a perceptive volume on what it means now, and what it has meant in the past to be Irish American. One of the traits she noticed immediately, and with which she could easily identify, was a feeling of inferiority among the group to whom she spoke, a characteristic which she encapsulates in the title to her preface, “Now, who do you think you are?”. The tendency to down-play achievement among the Irish is prevalent both at home and abroad and leads to what Maureen Dezell refers to as “overextended humility”. In answering the question she reveals an ethnic group who have become a powerful force in their adopted country, at the same time developing an Irish American culture which is distinct from the purely Irish one and has to be respected as such. In examining the worlds of politics, religion, and education Ms Dezell charts the evolution of Irish men and women who were typically seen in the 19th century as fighting, drinking ne’er-do-wells by the WASP inhabitants of the Eastern seaboard. Their political development, a product in part of their recognised organizational ability, contributed to their gradual rise in the social strata. As the author explains, “They had what it took to set up a shadow government: the advantage of speaking English - and speaking it well; familiarity with representational government; and a phenomenal talent for political organising”. The Catholic Church also played a significant part in the success story of the Irish in America and this section of the book is particularly interesting, throwing as it does a light on the prodigious efforts of succeeding members of the hierarchy in building parishes throughout the main cities. In a twenty-two year period, from 1880 to 1902, Bishop Patrick Feehan established a record one hundred and forty new parishes in Chicago, while in the 1890s Archbishop Michael Corrigan was building new Catholic institutions in New York at the rate of one every two weeks. Irish Americans could and did live their lives in a completely Catholic world, though since the 1960s this aspect of Irish American life has radically altered. Maureen Dezell also considers the way in which alcohol has come to rule the lives of so many Irish people and is seen as being an important constituent of Irishness as well as being used as an escape from the expression of feelings. The perceived conservatism of the Irish American exemplified by the organisers of the New York St Patrick’s Day parade, and the inhabitants of South Boston during the 1970s’ busing controversy, is also dealt with, and contrasted with the more liberal ethos of Irish Americans further west. In fact for screenwriter Davis McLaughlin, who lived in Los Angeles, a visit home to West Roxbury caused him to take on a different persona, to adapt his outlook on life to fit in with the “Who do you think you are?” philosophy. Maureen Dezell has produced a study of Irish America which challenges stereotypes while at the same time explaining how they arose. For those of us on this side of the Atlantic her book goes some way to explaining the Irish American phenomenon, while for Irish Americans themselves this will be a thought-provoking look at their origins. For all readers, however, it will be both entertaining and of immense interest, even though it deals with less than half of the Irish American population. In the preface the author states that the subject of her book is to be Irish American Catholics, while conceding that, of the one in seven Americans who can claim Irish ancestry, more than half are Protestants. Perhaps it would take another volume to cover their history as well, but at least a chapter devoted to their part in US history would have been a welcome addition to this study.

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DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS by Susanne O’Leary
- This is a light but entertaining glimpse of the world of diplomacy, taking in both the boredom of much of the life for diplomat’s wives and the opportunity for intrigue and romance. Anna O’Connor looks after her diplomat husband, Conor, and their two children and carries out the entertainment duties of her position, but is not entirely happy. Enter a smooth Spaniard who flatters her, an increasingly absent husband and the encouragement of her friends, and the stage is set for a romantic interlude. However things aren’t as predictable as that and the story moves from the salons of Paris to a luxury cruise around the islands of Greece with a short but important visit to Dublin intervening. Among a number of unlikely characters - Juan the Spaniard is just a bit too suave, and Micheal the bogus Irishman verges on the caricature - there is the thinly-veiled portrait of Taoiseach Seamus Nolan. Described as short and rather stocky, with piercing blue eyes and an almost palpable charisma, Nolan is also known to have as his mistress a Dublin socialite who is in the process of writing a book about their affair. Anna and her husband move through a world of conflicting interests, necessary conformity and overwhelming distractions, but ultimately are reunited after an extraordinary episode on a deserted airfield in Northern France. “Diplomatic Incidents” is written to some extent from the author’s own experiences and it would be intriguing to know just how much is fiction and how much is fact disguised as fiction. Classed as romantic fiction by the publishers, this is perfect holiday reading, with its cast of elegant people in exotic locations.

REFLECTIONS AT COOLE ed. Sean Tobin
- The Lady Gregory weekend, known as the Autumn Gathering, has been taking place in and around Gort since 1995 and this book is a reflection of the lectures given over the last six years. Topics include various aspects of Lady Gregory’s life, for example Professor John B. Lyons discusses the correspondence between Lady Gregory and Oliver St John Gogarty, while author John Quinn talks about Lady Gregory’s early years in “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Lady”. Her association with the theatre, in particular the Abbey, is also well chronicled with particular reference, of course, to W.B. Yeats and J.M. Synge and the text is complemented by photographs both old and new, of the Gregory family and of scenes from past weekends. A link is provided by the presence of “Me and Nu”, Lady Gregory’s granddaughters Catherine and Anne, though with Catherine’s death two years ago the family is now represented by Anne de Winton. I found particularly interesting the programmes from each of the weekends contained at the end of the book and these, even more than the lectures, convey the atmosphere of what has become a permanent part of the literary calendar in Ireland.

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THE IRISH ACT OF UNION by Patrick Geohegan
- In this new study of a pivotal event in the history of Anglo-Irish relations, the author has set out to treat in tandem the collapse of the union and the resignation of British Prime Minister William Pitt, and their connection with the inability to grant Catholic emancipation as part of the Act of Union in 1800. With access for the first time to secret service papers which show the extent to which illegal funds were used to ensure the passing of the Act, Patrick Geoghegan deals first with the reasons behind the Act of Union and the methods used to have it succeed. In the second part of his work he concentrates on the subsequent fall of government in Britain and links the two sections with the theme of emancipation for the Catholics. In doing so he has not only roadened our view of the character of William Pitt, he has also shown an early example of an attempt to create stability between the two countries which failed, and in failing created further political disintegration.

NOT OF THIS WORLD? by Glen Jordan
- In his preface to this book, Ken Todd, President of the Methodist Church in Ireland, claims that evangelists in the North of Ireland have “turned piety into pietism and made salvation too individualistic”. The book sets out to garner the views of some seventy evangelists on the way in which their movement affects their own lives. The result of a research project, “Not of this World?” begins with a brief outline of the history of evangelism. This is followed by an examination of the different types of evangelists, and what emerges here is that many of them dislike being labelled as Protestant, Baptist or Presbyterian, preferring instead to be looked on first and foremost as Christians. The problems facing the evangelical movement today, some of them of the movement’s own making according to the interviewees, are nicely captured by one commentator who refers to the exclusivity of his Sunday churchgoing as “our holy huddles”, which take no cognisance of the outside world. The book is not without humour, and the author’s description of a Belfast July 12 parade ends with the comment, “Yet only a Northern Irish Protestant, it seems, would have a festival involving uniforms, gloves, bowler hats and a four-hour slog in the roaring heat of a July day and call it a celebration”. The author tackles the difficulties which Northern evangelicals have with both Catholicism and ecumenism, bringing to the subject a particular personal view since he was reared as a Catholic himself. His conclusion records a need for evangelists in the North to move out from their “holy huddles” and take their places in the wider world, a move that some will find more difficult than others.

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THE MAKING OF THE CELTIC TIGER by Ray MacSharry & Padraic White
- Today’s Celtic Tiger was born out of the Celtic Pauper, the doom and gloom of the 1980s and long before. This book tells the story of the miracle of the emergence of the Celtic Tiger. Hunger is a good sauce. This really is the story of the vision and energy of the IDA, whose sheer hard work, professionalism and good fortune has brought us to where we are today. We are the envy of most of the developed and developing world in terms of our economic progress. This is also about the long view and how that was translated through the sales and marketing machine which is the IDA. Not to be forgotten also are the efforts of the many other helpers in this Journey. One interesting anecdote is about Dan Flinter, current Chief Executive Enterprise Ireland, who gave us those magical figures of 29% Return on Investment in Ireland. These are the figures which he plucked from data provided by the US Department of Commerce and which were then represented back to American industrialists, showing a return of over four times the EEC average. In effect, this book should be dedicated to the efforts of the many Irish civil and public servants who have served us so well.

THE ART OF SEAMUS HEANEY ed. Tony Curtis
- This edition of commentaries on the works of Seamus Heaney is, according to Tony Curtis, primarily aimed at students but he expresses the hope that it will lead the reader to a greater and continuing appreciation of lyric poetry. In this fourth collection of essays which includes three new ones, contributions on a number of Heaney’s poems and on his lecture series at Oxford are provided by poets and academics from all over Britain. The editor himself, Professor of Poetry at the University of Glamorgan, takes as his subject the “Field Work” collection, while Heaney’s latest publication, the translation of Beowulf, is examined by Professor Helen Phillips of the University of Liverpool. Philip Hosbaum, a former teacher of the poet at Queen’s, considers the craft and technique employed in the composing of “Wintering Out”, while the collection also includes a number of drafts of his poem “North” by means of which the reader can trace the development of both thought and language.

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PRAYING FROM THE MARGINS by Glen O’Brien
- Glen O’Brien’s reflections on the gospels are taken from the viewpoint of a gay man, marginalised by his sexual orientation, but also as a Christian and as such one of God’s people. Taking the familiar gospel stories, Martha and Mary, the Prodigal Son, the Road to Emmaus and others, the author shares his own thoughts on how these stories reflect on his own life, as well as voicing the reflections of close friends. This is a thought-provoking volume that represents a plea for understanding allied with a degree of confidence in the author’s own identity, though a note on the back cover informs us that Glen O’Brien is a pseudonym.

CATHAL BUI 2001 POETRY AND SHORT STORIES
- ed. Monahan & Nolan - This collection presents a selection from poems and short stories entered for the Cathal Bui 2000 Summer School Competition, and features work in both Irish and English. Also included are guest contributions from Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney and two Cavan poets, Noel Monahan and Tom MacIntyre. There is a section of “Young People’s Poetry” and although not all ages are given it would appear that nine-year-old Aine Chambers is the youngest entrant with her poem “Winter”. The short stories cover a wide range of themes, some executed more successfully than others, and notable among them are Grainne Conlon’s “God Likes Clean Feet” and “The Age of Innocence” by Helen Carragher. The Cathal Bui Summer School takes place each July to commemorate the 18th century border poet.

WORLD WAR II, RESCUE AT DRUMSHEE by Cora Harrison
- The latest addition to the Drumshee series maintains the standard of storytelling of the previous books while stretching credibility to extreme lengths in the final chapters. Two young English children, Marjorie and Clive, are evacuated to distant relatives at the familiar Drumshee homestead in Co. Clare, and here meet up with a number of cousins. The brother of one of these is missing at sea and it is his eventual survival, and their part in it, which seems just too coincidental. However the tale is well told and is sure to appeal to pre-teen readers, especially those who are already familiar with the long history of Drumshee.

BREAKING THE SILENCE by Larry O’Loughlin
- This book for young adults is a disturbing fictional account of the trauma of male rape and the long-term damage caused by such abuse. The silence referred to in the title is that engendered by guilt, by fear and by the unwritten code that one doesn’t “tell” on one’s peers. Declan, abused by members of his basketball team and, more traumatically, a witness to an incidence of male rape, withdraws from everybody and everything in his life and only comes to terms with what he has suffered when a younger friend is similarly threatened. Intertwined with this theme is the story of the forgotten refugees of Bhutan, with whom Declan has spent a year while trying to escape his problems. The author has pulled no punches in this narrative and has succeeded in delivering the message that the abused bears no guilt, and help is available. The last section is devoted to addresses and web addresses of Rape Crisis Centres, and a short account of the flight of southern Bhutanese into Nepal.

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