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Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.82 (May 2002)
Judas In Kilkenny
by Theresa Lennon Blunt
- This intriguingly-titled first book tells of the author’s struggle to
forge an identity for herself in a world where she feels let down by both
her parents. Growing up in Kilkenny during the 1940s and 1950s, the young
Theresa has all the usual interests of a young girl but is almost overwhelmed
by her mother’s coldness and weakness for alcohol. Add to this her father’s
hurt withdrawal from much of the day-to-day life of the family and it
becomes inevitable that Theresa will look elsewhere for love and attention.
Far more important to her than the companionship of her contemporaries
is her gradually developing friendship with The Old Man, Malachi Dempsey,
with whom she “sailed the sky in a silver ship”. Though a virtual outcast
to the more upright members of the community, Malachi befriends the girl,
aware of all her problems though never adverting to them. He becomes the
rock to which she clings when all around her seems to be falling apart
though she keeps their friendship a secret from both of her parents. The
turning of the seasons help to bring the Irish town to life, with stories
of floods and snow, of spring outings, Hallowe’en activities and Christmas
celebrations, though if the stories are true then Theresa and her friends
seem to have been particularly accident-prone. On one outing along they
river one of her friends narrowly escaped being gored by a bull while,
further along, another friend had to be rescued from the river waters
after a proposed adventure went horribly wrong. However “Judas in Kilkenny”
is much more than a chronicle of life in Ireland in the mid-20th century,
it is the story of a girl desperate to escape the misery and embarrassment
of an alcoholic mother, a distant father and two younger brothers taken
away to a reformatory. Forced to take a job in a factory rather than continue
her education, Theresa endures it for several years before making the
decision to leave on reaching her twenty-first birthday. Her life’s circumstances
have hardened her heart and she is unable to express love, even for those
like the Old Man who have shown her nothing but kindness. Her relationship
with him is an island of brightness in a sea of misery and his death,
one feels, leaves her no reason to stay in Kilkenny. What makes her situation
all the more poignant are the few times when her mother is kind to herself
and her sister, Jane, giving a glimpse of life as it might have been.
The author’s descriptive powers vividly evoke her time and place, and
she has succeeded in relating her tale of a turbulent childhood and youth
with little trace of self-pity.
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The Music Of
What Happens by Annie Coyle Martin
- Ms Coyle Martin’s first novel, set in the early years of the last century
and taking in the horrors of the First World War and the events of Easter
1916 and the aftermath, begins with the death in childbirth of a young
mother and the subsequent fate of her husband and children. The narrative
focuses on the children, Una, Nan and Donny, who are reared by their aunt
when their father, Peadar, escapes to America to put his sorrow behind
him. Una, who is just ten years old when she effectively loses both parents,
has the most difficulty in adjusting to her new situation and much of
the narrative focuses on her gradual acceptance of her new life. The author
has successfully integrated the sense of confusion leading up to the Rising,
through the reactions of the extended Maguire family. The sudden closure
of the local post office at Obanbeg is at first seen as a minor inconvenience,
with little realisation by the inhabitants of Slanabaille that it is a
consequence of the upheaval taking place in Dublin. Joseph O’Neill, who
is married to Emer Maguire, has been involved in the preparations but
missed the actual Rising, much to Emer’s relief, though he is devastated
at the subsequent death penalties carried out on the leaders. Later in
the novel when Una moves to Dublin to teach she is caught up in a raid
by the Black and Tans during which a fellow-lodger manages to escape,
and these historical and well researched events, in addition to the effects
of the economic war and the work of the Land Commission, serve to tie
Ms Coyle Martin’s story firmly to early 20th century Ireland, both urban
and rural. As a commentary on how external forces affect individuals,
“The Music of What Happens” has fulfilled its mission. The author writes
with style and succeeds in sustaining a level of interest, though perhaps
more could have been made of Peadar, the bereaved man who fled to America.
His two journeys home provide some of the more interesting episodes as
he attempts to rebuild a relationship with his daughters and to come to
know the son he left behind as an infant. For this reader, however, the
characters never truly come to life, with the possible exception of Una,
and the final chapters, featuring the next generation of the Maguires
in the form of young Finn, further confuse. The episode of the man who
staged a sit-in on his roof and inadvertently knocked the curate to the
ground, breaking his leg, adds little to the progression of the novel
and the final scenes leave the reader feeling somewhat unsatisfied. This
is an accessible and easily read novel, though a tighter construction
and a concentration on a smaller cast of characters would make “The Music
of What Happens” even more memorable.
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Our Side Of
The House by Michael Kerr
- For his first book journalist Michael Kerr has chosen to look back on
his childhood in a seaside town in the North of Ireland, a childhood which
was dominated by the fact that his mother ran what was known as a “Board
Residence”. The author begins the narrative as he is about to leave home
to take up a place in an English college, and his imminent departure causes
him to look back on his life to date. One of a family of nine, and the
first of four boys after five girls born to Annie and Michael Kerr, the
young Michael’s overriding memory seems to have been the upset caused
by the number of visitors staying in their house in Portstewart and the
consequent disruption to the family. Permanent residents like Maisie and
Davy were augmented in the summer months by whole families who often arrived
unannounced but who were seldom turned away by the soft-hearted Annie.
This annual invasion forced the family to pack their belongings into cardboard
boxes and retreat to their side of the house, but the title chosen by
the author has, of course, a deeper resonance. For at a very young age
Michael learned that all newcomers were discussed to see did they come
from “our side of the house”. Although we are dealing here with the 1960s,
before the latest round of Troubles hit the North, there was always a
’them’ and ’us’ situation regarding schools, friends and jobs. Michael
hears a visitor questioning his mother about someone with the words, “Do
ye know is he from our side of the house?” and immediately the phrase
strikes a chord with him. It is a question he has heard time and time
again when a new person in the neighbourhood is being sized up by his
parents and other adults. The Catholic-Protestant divide has a special
meaning in the Kerr family for at least three of Michael’s sisters become
involved with Protestants and all three have caused upset in the home.
Judette, the oldest in the family and Michael’s favourite, marries Derek
and to escape bitterness they emigrate to Australia where they are followed
by Bredge, Roisin and Trish, the last-named having just split with a Protestant
boyfriend because the pressures of disapproval become too great for both
of them. Meanwhile Anne and her husband David, not only a Protestant but
one who played in an Orange band on the Twelfth, were rushed into a hasty
marriage, after which they settled down in Portstewart. Michael himself
has Protestant friends but ultimately wants to escape to a place where
no one will ask whether he is Catholic or Protestant, an inevitable question
even in a relatively peaceful part of the North. This is an intelligent
and affectionate look back at the world which shaped the author, a world
dominated by his family but peopled with a cast of unforgettable characters.
Eminently readable, though I’m not sure that the phonetic attempts to
portray accents add to the narrative, the book portrays a world of remarkable
innocence and stability.
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Far From The
Shamrock Shore by Mick Moloney
- Long noted for his deep interest in and passion for the music and folklore
of his native Ireland, in “Far From the Shamrock Shore” Mick Moloney has
taken a novel look at the way in which emigrants from Ireland recorded
their history through song. Spanning some three centuries and encompassing
the major landmarks of the Irish emigrant experience, the story revolves
around popular songs of each period, whether it be the difficulty of securing
a job when the rule of “No Irish Need Apply” held sway, or the courage
of Irish soldiers who took part in the Civil War. It is the author’s belief
that “..we speak of our personal lives and our history as a people through
song and music”. He demonstrates that those Irish who had to leave their
native land, particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
maintained a connection with home through the composition of songs which
expressed their feelings of loss. Those escaping the Famine, as well as
suffering the loss of their families were, in their weakened state, also
bereft of all that was familiar to them. This loss was felt equally by
the considerable number of those who became known as the Scotch-Irish,
a group represented by the song “The Green Fields of America” whose Presbyterian
ancestors had also left their native England and Scotland to settle in
the northern counties of Ireland. Emigration for opportunity lacking at
home, and the rigours of working on the canals, railways and mines were
all recorded in song, but it is not all doom and gloom in Moloney’s selection.
The emergence of the Irish as a political force at the turn of the twentieth
century is reflected in “Muldoon the Solid Man”, while their significant
contribution to popular culture is also well documented. A beautifully
produced volume with fascinating photographs and reproductions of songsheets,
Mick Moloney’s book is further enhanced by the addition of a CD featuring
the sixteen songs which provide the core of the narrative, performed by
the author himself. This is a book which will attract anyone with an interest
in how the Irish adapted to their new circumstances in America, and in
particular the way in which their integration was eased by the use of
song to give expression to their feelings.
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Beyond by Michael
Foley
- The sexual revolution of the 1960s is the basis for this entertaining
but sometimes unlikely tale of two couples in Derry whose lives become
entwined through the charms of the two women. That there is something
unconventional about the marriage of Marie and the ambitious young accountant
who is the narrator is apparent from the opening pages, when they decide
to cut short their honeymoon out of boredom. Meanwhile Helen and Neil,
the other pair of the foursome, have a sex life so charged that the presence
of other people presents no deterrent to its fulfilment. Michael Foley
has created from this scenario a story that reflects both the humour and
the ultimate sadness of the situation, the suspicions of motive that bring
an apparent paradise to a bitter end. The final chapter brings the sense
of realism which one feels is missing from the lives and attitudes of
the two couples, and with it a palpable sense of loss.
Dublin’s Little
Jerusalem by Nick Harris
- Mr Harris has retained detailed memories of the large cast of characters
who made up the members of Dublin’s Jewish community, particularly in
the middle decades of the century, and there is no doubt that his book
will bring back many memories for those familiar with the Clanbrassil
Street area of the city. Indeed he even sets out a plan giving the owners
of all the shops in that street in its heyday. The mystery which shrouded
the origins of his own parents and many others who came here from Russia
gives testimony to the suffering from which they were fleeing, and the
author speaks in admiration of the support they gave each other in rebuilding
their lives. The gradual dilution of orthodoxy, the emigration of younger
members of the community and the closing of the Adelaide Road Synagogue
all contributed to the present decline in numbers and it would seem from
reading this account that Dublin is the poorer for the gradual passing
of a vibrant and colourful section of society.
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A Compact History
Of Birr by Oisin Deery
- Mr Deery has here set out an overview of Irish history from the Ice
Age to the present day, based on the Co. Offaly town of Birr. All the
major historical events including Viking raids, the seizure of land during
the reign of Elizabeth I, the Famine and the succession of Ireland’s attempts
to free herself from English rule are set within the context of Birr and
its surrounding area. The author devotes a chapter to the importance of
the Ely O’Carroll clan and their eventual departure for America, and given
prominence also is the Parson family, whose influence on the town was
matched by the fame of one of its members. William Parsons, who lived
in Birr Castle in the early decades of the 19th century, was responsible
for the construction of the “monster telescope”. The author brings us
up to date with the designation of Birr as a Heritage Town some ten years
ago, the rebuilding of the telescope and the twinning of the town with
the US O’Carroll strongholds of Baltimore and Annapolis.
A Voyage Round
My Life by Henry Boylan
- A Dublin life of a very different kind is chronicled by former civil
servant Henry Boylan, who came from a long line of seafaring men in Swords.
His seagoing career was halted by the Depression of the 1930s but his
alternative route, the civil service, led him into a more varied existence
than is usual in such an occupation. Given the position of General Manager
of Radio Eireann while still in his twenties, it was here his career as
a playwright also began. Indeed the book is interspersed with his own
fictional writings under the general heading of “Interlude”. A fluent
Irish speaker, Boylan was assigned to Gaeltacht Services and spent many
successful years improving the Irish tweed industry all along the west
coast, though not without receiving some considerable discouragement from
a senior politician of the time. Agreeing to undertake the compilation
of “The Dictionary of Irish Biography” on his retirement is an indication
of the boundless energy and willingness to take on a variety of tasks
which makes Henry Boylan’s account of his life of more than usual interest.
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A Place Too
Small For Secrets by Paddy Kennelly
- If Chaucer had set his Canterbury Tales in Kerry he might well have
come up with the cast of characters contained in this entertaining and
insightful series of monologues. Some of the inhabitants of the fictional
village of Knockore are first introduced by Jim the Rubbish Man, no better
person to know the hidden side of his neighbours. And gradually through
their own words or through those of other people we come to know the wealthy
and the hard-pressed, those nursing a long-held grievance or a past sorrow,
and those like Cranky Andy Boo who take a cynical view of life. The subjects
come alive through the carefully-turned phrase and the perceptive tone
of Kennelly’s work which provides a picture of an interconnected and realistic
group of diverse characters.
The Collected
Stories Of Benedict Kiely
- introduced by COLUM MCCANN - Some seven hundred and sixty pages of the
writings of Benedict Kiely is a feast to be savoured, but savoured piecemeal.
His short stories delight, provoke, amuse and induce contemplation while
they explore his native place and the people who inhabit it. As Colum
McCann says in his introduction, “What consistently sets his outrage apart,
and makes it real, is Kiely’s deep, enduring and moving adoration for
the landscape and the people of his country. Presented chronologically,
the short stories are taken from his collections “A Journey to the Seven
Streams”, “A Ball of Malt and Madame Butterfly”, “A Cow in the House”
and “A Letter to Peachtree”. Finally, and standing on its own, is Kiely’s
novella, “Proxopera”, which McCann describes as “undoubtedly one of the
greatest anti-war books ever written”. This is a collection to be taken
slowly in order to assimilate all that the consummate storyteller reveals.
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The Black Bull
Of Ardalba by Maire Welford
- This first book by Maire Welford leads into a mythical world familiar
to most Irish Children, the world of Queen Maeve and the saga of the Brown
Bull of Cooley. Here, however, we learn of Queen Maeve’s own prize animal,
the black bull which four children are entrusted to lead to safety to
the lands of the West. Involving elements of time travel, historical detail
and good old-fashioned adventure, this book will have a wide-ranging appeal.
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