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Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.79 (Feb 2002)
Last Tango In
Ibiza by Ardlea Writers’ Group
- This novel is the result of a combined effort by the members of the
Dublin-based Ardlea Writer’s Group although it follows slightly different
lines from those chosen by the authors of two other tandem novels, “Finbar’s
Hotel” and “Ladies Night at Finbar’s Hotel”. In those works each writer
was responsible for one chapter whereas in “Last Tango” the authors have
each created individual characters, thus leading to greater consultation
as the story progresses. Edited by William Rocke, who conceived the idea,
the story follows a group of Dubliners as they fly off for a two-week
holiday in Ibiza. Naturally we have the three ready-for-anything girls,
Georgia, Alison and Bernice, along with two lads, Mark and Wayne. The
other young person in the group, Caroline, has a secret which she reveals
only towards the end of the book, much to the astonishment of her fellow-travellers
and the despair of Mark. The party also includes three married couples
experiencing varying degrees of contentment in their marriages, and these
I initially found hard to distinguish from one another. The party is completed
by two single more mature Dubliners whose relationship is one of the enigmas
of the narrative. The action encompasses wild parties, redundancy, the
Spanish aristocracy, infidelity and a child born out of wedlock, a dance
competition and a silver wedding celebration, as well as an involvement
in the drug business for one of the holidaymakers. The island itself is
well documented with many references to different features, though I believe
none of the authors has actually visited Ibiza. This combined effort,
while undemanding, successfully engages the reader’s interest, and what
emerges strongly is the enjoyment of the authors in completing their first
attempt at writing a novel.
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Believe It Or
Not by Patrick Semple
- Patrick Semple is a Church of Ireland clergyman and in this book he
shares with us the path to his vocation and the various byroads to which
his calling has led him over the years. He tells his story with both honesty
and humour and gives an insight into the workings of the Church of Ireland
as well as the trials and tribulations of being a rector in a minority
religion. It was during his early schooldays in Wexford that the author
first became aware of the differences between Catholics and Protestants
though it becomes apparent that differences between various strands of
Protestantism can offer more serious barriers to ecumenism. This phenomenon
Patrick Semple encountered both during his training days and when he returned
to the college to give lectures in adult education. Three years in Belfast,
at the beginning of the Troubles, were followed by a year in the US furthering
his studies. When he and his wife then returned to Ireland they were appointed
to Stradbally in Co. Laois where the new rector threw off his “townie”
reputation by undertaking a day’s farming work once a fortnight for a
number of his new parishioners. In addition to chronicling his life of
ministry, Patrick Semple reflects at length on the role of the Church
of Ireland, the way in which its ministers are perceived by their flock,
and the place of religion in Ireland as a whole. He goes so far as to
assert, “In most of us there is but a thin veneer of Christianity on top
of deep layers of tribal and primitive folk-religion”. The author amplifies
his argument with mention of the tribal ritual, particularly as it manifests
itself in the North of Ireland where “There are two tribes both claiming
allegiance to the same God, the summary of whose teaching is ’Love God
and love your neighbour as yourself’, and some of them hate each other’s
guts”. The honest and critical examination of the Church of Ireland’s
structure apparent in this account is reminiscent of Fr Tony Flannery’s
“From the Inside”, for both have a realistic approach to the role of organised
religion in today’s Ireland.
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Home With Alice
by Steve Fallon
- Subtitled “A Journey in Gaelic Ireland”, this is an interesting mix
of whimsy, scholarship and sociological history as revealed on the author’s
travels around the Gaeltachts of Ireland. A Bostonian by birth, Fallon
is employed as a writer by Lonely Planet and is well placed to record
his observations of a series of locations. However the practicalities
of the journey are enhanced or inhibited, whichever view one takes, by
the ’presence’ of his long-dead Aunt Alice, the one relative who retained
and promoted a sense of Irishness within the family. Barry’s quest is
for an understanding of the language and to this end he attends a school
in Connemara. He also visits the Gaeltacht areas of Cork, Kerry, Mayo,
Meath and Donegal, commenting on both the different accents and pronunciations
and the differing attitudes to the native language. It was the author’s
Aunt Alice whose memory prompted him to learn “a language that had been
swallowed by the past” and he hadn’t been long in Dublin when the spirit
of Aunt Alice presented itself in Mulligan’s, a presence that was to accompany
him on his journey around the country, making him take time to consider
what he was doing and his motives for the quest. Following their arrival
at the Irish school in Carraroe, Fallon executes a rather abrupt shift
of topic from the description of a drunken youngster to a concise history
of the development and subsequent decline of the Irish language. Further
anecdotal chapters on his experiences inside and outside of the classroom
are followed by a careful consideration of the meaning of the Gaeltacht,
a quest which leads him to Dingle, to Oideas Gael in Donegal, to An Rinn
in Waterford, on to West Cork and also takes in a visit to Rathcairn in
Co. Meath. A look at how the revival of the language has been helped by
the presence of Raidio na Gaeltachta and TG4 leads us once again into
a surreal scene beside the water in Carraroe where he says farewell, but
not goodbye, to his Aunt Alice. For she it was who inspired his search
for the language of his ancestors and it is only fitting that she should
have accompanied him on his journey, a journey which above all else reveals
the author’s genuine interest in the Irish language.
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Is This Love?
by Tina Reilly
- Although Tina Reilly writes with a light touch, the subject of her third
novel comes from the darker side of love, the side where physical abuse
is condoned and accepted. Two sisters, Maggie and Pamela, have reacted
differently to an abusive father and both have seemingly forged lives
for themselves that have put the past firmly behind them. However nothing
is as simple as that and the author has constructed parallel stories of
the paths the girls have taken, the non-acknowledgement of past hurts
which have led them in two totally different directions. Coupled with
an accepting mother who not only failed to protect them but also looks
set to repeat her earlier mistake, the circumstances of their lives gradually
change over the course of the narrative. In an interesting reversal of
character, Pamela realizes she has to become stronger while Maggie learns
that she must become, not weaker, but more open to others, and the two
reactions leave one sister regaining her self-confidence while rejecting
her husband, while the other learns to trust again and accepts the man
who loves her. Both, in a sense, have found freedom through facing up
to the past. While the theme sounds distinctly depressing, in using alternating
first person narration by the two sisters Tina Reilly has managed to give
a humorous twist to her story, not least in the characters of Maggie’s
workmates Louis, Lucinda, Josie and Romano. And although the character
of the mother seems just a little too much the stereotypical subdued wife,
the menace hinted at in the person of her new beau, Geoffrey Parker, is
well wrought. It is a tale of wrong swept under the carpet for so long
that its eventual coming into the light is bound to change the course
of a number of lives.
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Clones Lace
by Maire Treanor
- This lavishly-illustrated volume sets out the history of lace-making
in the Clones area of Co. Monaghan as well as providing detailed instructions
for both the beginner and the more competent on how to make many of the
examples of work illustrated. Maire Treanor herself came late to lace-making,
having come to Clones from Armagh to set up a heritage project, but was
soon involved in the classes and was instrumental in the establishment
of the Cassandra Hand Summer School. This annual event is named after
the rector’s wife who is credited with setting up the first lace-making
initiative in the area as a famine relief scheme, and tribute is also
paid to the contribution of the Sisters of St Louis. At the time when
the author set about reviving the tradition, its exponents were almost
all elderly and many in ill health but she was fortunate to find a number
of women in Monaghan and Fermanagh who were willing to pass the craft
on. The social life of the Monaghan/Fermanagh area over the past two centuries
is an integral part of the history of lace-making in the area and the
author has successfully brought alive to the reader the characters associated
with the craft.
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Ireland Standing
Firm & Eamon De Valera: A Memoir by Robert Brennan
- These two works are taken from articles published in the late 1950s
in the Irish Press and give a fascinating insight into 20th century politics
in Ireland from a man who was always close to the centre. “Ireland Standing
Firm” deals with Robert Brennan’s years as Irish Minister in Washington,
a period which coincided with the Second World War. Brennan’s reminiscences
focus on the efforts required to maintain Ireland’s neutrality in the
face of enormous pressure from both Britain and the United States. The
second section, the memoir of Eamon de Valera, is written from the viewpoint
of one who had been close to the leader since 1916 and who obviously held
him in high esteem. He follows de Valera’s career through to 1958 and
highlights his speech to the League of Nations in 1932, going so far as
to claim that, had he been listened to, the world might have been spared
the horror of World War II. In giving a number of examples of Dev’s integrity
and honesty the author lays the basis for his final summation, that de
Valera was “the greatest political genius - perhaps the greatest statesman
- which our country has ever produced”.
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Early Irish
Saints by John J. O Riordain CSsr
- fr o riordain has included in his book many of the saints whose names
are familiar to us but about whose lives we may be a bit hazy. here we
find st enda, who seems to have attracted so many other potential saints
to spend some time on aran with him. st patrick, of course, heads the
list, with st brigid and st brendan earning a chapter each. st adomnan,
who was one of the successors of st colmcille on iona, also features,
as does st gall, after whom an entire canton of switzerland was named.
in addition to relating details of their lives, the author also records
the particular qualities for which each saint is remembered, at the same
time revealing his own devotion to those he has numbered in his study
of the early irish saints.
New Hibernia
Review - Center For Irish Studies, University Of St Thomas
- The Winter 2001 edition of this quarterly review, which “offers plainly
argued writing on Irish life and culture for the scholar and lay reader
alike”, contains contributions on literary, sociological and political
topics, as well as poetry and a number of reviews. Joseph Kelly’s essay
on Bishop John England of Charlestown gives an insight into the apparent
reversal of his views on the slavery prevalent in the country at the beginning
of the 19th century. A different aspect of slavery is dealt with by Kate
Cochran, who considers “Castle Rackrent as Slave Narrative”. William H.
Mulligan writes of the Irish miners who emigrated to Michigan to work
on the copper mines, while Joseph P. O’Grady examines the role played
by Peter Brooke in the ongoing search for peace in Northern Ireland.
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Healthy Getaways
& Complementary Health Centres by J. Miller, A. Bracken
- The increasing popularity of complementary health in this country is
reflected in this volume which gives a detailed and very useful list of
many of the courses on offer. Organised on a county-by-county basis, each
entry gives practical information such as location, cost, courses on offer
and directions to the location. In addition the two compilers have tried
to set out the philosophy of each health centre in order that the prospective
client can choose what will be of most benefit. The centres vary from
the better-known forms of alternative treatment such as acupuncture, which
is available in almost fifty locations, to Fango, a treatment with heated
volcanic mud which can be sourced only at a centre in Co. Clare. A number
of indexes contribute to the accessibility of this publication, including
a glossary of complementary medicine disciplines, an index of centres
by county and an index by therapy type.
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