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Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.90 (Jan 2003)
Volcano in Paradise
by Phil Davison
Foreign correspondent Phil Davison has written an account of a devastating
natural disaster in what has come to be known as “The Emerald Isle of
the Caribbean” and has given it all the hallmarks of a well-constructed
thriller. He neither blinds us with technical data nor sensationalises
the events that caused such disruption to the island of Montserrat from
1995 to 1997. Initially he introduces us to the main characters in the
story, the native Montserratians such as Rose Willock, the mainstay of
the local radio station, and Danny Sweeney, fisherman and watersports
entrepreneur. Also in the cast are Frank Savage, representing Her Majesty’s
government on the island, and Frank Hooper, a Sussex policeman who decided
to take up a post in the Caribbean as an alternative to early retirement.
The author assembles the cast of characters, describing both the people
and their duties in some detail but not without humour, and placing them
in the idyllic and relaxed setting of the island that saw many Irish settlers.
Davison then proceeds to chronicle the precautions taken by those in authority
in light of a possible eruption, combined with the threat of two hurricanes
also approaching the island. In introducing us to so many of the main
players, and by describing both the topography and the lifestyle of the
Montserratians in such detail, the author has ensured that the reader
becomes totally caught up in the steadily unfolding drama. What surprises
is that the problems caused by the pyroclastic flows from the Sourfriere
Hills, known locally as The Mountain, continued for two years or more,
halving the population of the island and forcing those who remained into
a decreasing “safe zone”. Davison concentrates on those who remained,
on the very few who refused to heed advice and stayed in their homes,
some to perish but others to miraculously escape, and on the way in which
the bulk of the remaining population tried to rebuild their lives. Their
indomitable spirit is exemplified by the way in which men such as Kevin
West continued their businesses from makeshift shelters each time they
were moved further north. The incredible work carried out by helicopter
pilots, in particular Canadian Jim McMahon, and the dedication to his
parishioners shown by Dublin priest Fr Larry Finnegan are in marked contrast
to the apparent indifference shown by the government minister responsible
for reacting to the disaster, Clare Short. Following the major eruption
in June, 1997 the islanders were given the option of evacuation to Britain
but felt, rightly or wrongly, that it was a ploy to force them to leave
their homes for good and very few availed of the offer. This is a gripping
account of the devastation caused on Montserrat, by a man who is not unfamiliar
with situations of extreme danger during the course of his work.
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The Broken Cedar
by Martin Malone
Writing about an area and a way of life he knows well, Martin Malone has
produced a novel which has an Irish dimension but is more focused on life
in a Lebanese buffer zone. Malone’s protagonist, Khalil, has been serving
the UN troops in his electrical shop for years and is now coming to the
end of his life, a painful end which is made more painful by an unresolved
crisis of conscience dating back twenty years. The author skillfully delineates
the very sympathetic character of Khalil, his eminently sensible and very
supportive wife Zarifa, and the other inhabitants of Mingi Street who
look to him for help. The problems inherent in the polygamous way of life
are exemplified in both his daughter, Adiva and his neighbours Dahab and
Aziz and the difficulties of living with the effects of the conflict between
Palestine and Israel are tellingly presented. The dialogue is spare and
yet perfectly portrays the relationships between the various characters,
while the descriptions of the area bring to life names familiar from media
reports. The terrible secret that Khalil harbours, and he is the only
one left alive who was a witness to the event, is the lynching of two
UN soldiers as a reprisal for the deaths of three young Palestinians.
He is unsurprised when the son of one of the soldiers, an Irishman, returns
to the Israeli-Lebanon border area to find the bones of his father and
bring them home to Ireland. The search, during which Khalil argues with
himself about revealing the truth, becomes a crusade, and a crusade doomed
to failure. However where Martin Malone has triumphed is in the unexpected
outcome of the search and in the utter poignancy of O’Driscoll’s final
effort to find the remains of his father. The author concludes his novel
with death, death as a final release and a living death from which there
seems no escape.
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Rare Old Dublin
by Frank Hopkins
Dublin seems to have had its fair share of literary attention over the
past month or two, with this latest collection of anecdotes about the
capital taking a historical view of a number of locations familiar to
native and visitor. The intriguing subtitle “Heroes, Hawkers & Hoors”
gives a pointer to what is to be expected in the contents and certainly
we find heroes such as Peg Woffington, the 18th century actress who achieved
fame in both Ireland and England, and the entire Sheridan family of literary
and theatrical renown. A number of the characters belong to more recent
history, however, including Malachi Horan, who died at the age of ninety-eight
in 1945, two years after publishing a book entitled “Malachi Horan Remembers”.
Malachi lived all his life on Killinarden Hill and for the recording of
his memories we are indebted to Dr George Little of the Old Dublin Society.
To be counted among the “Hoors” must surely be the 17th century priest-catcher,
Doctor John Molloy, who had to flee “at the head of a baying mob”. The
notorious “Green Tureen” murder of the 1960s is chronicled with an outline
of the subsequent career of South African Shan Mohangi, while the enterprising
Paddy Joyce from Kilkenny managed to pass himself off to 18th century
Dubliners as Doctor Achmet Borumbad. Among the “Hawkers” whose lives are
outlined is one Patrick Corrigan, known as the King of the Beggars or
“His Lowness, King Hackball” whose mode of transport in the city was a
cart pulled by two dogs. The main stars of the book, however, are the
landmarks of Dublin; Elephant Lane, the old name for Cathedral Street
where once, perhaps, a menagerie stood; the Pitt Street Nunnery, which
was actually a brothel run by one Peg Plunket; and the Pigeon House, which
was named, not for the birds, but after the family of John Pidgeon who
was caretaker in the 18th century. On a topical note in light of the current
controversy, the author has included an account of the 17th century Carrickmines
Massacre. In probing beneath the surface of the familiar in Dublin Frank
Hopkins has amassed a wealth of interesting stories about the city, giving
Dubliners a fresh view of their home and visitors a view of the city not
found in guide books.
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Pioneers in
Flight by Niall G. Weldon
Niall Weldon worked in Aer Lingus for more than forty years and was a
key figure in his later career. He is therefore eminently qualified to
write on the development of the national airline over the intervening
years. First outlining his own interest in flight and giving a brief overview
of the history of flight on the international scene, Weldon then takes
us from the setting up of Iona National Airways by Hugh Cahill in 1930
to the initial idea for a national airline in Ireland. The setback caused
by the Second World War and the abandonment of the first transatlantic
route from Ireland caused a temporary stay to the growth of the company,
but its success in the following decades was testament to the vision and
dedication of the men and women involved in the operation. The author
has chosen an unusual method by which to cover all the many aspects of
the story of Aer Lingus, but a way which makes the book more accessible
to those who do not share his interest in aviation. Profiles of some of
the key players, (Sean Lemass, Max Stuart-Shaw, Dr M.J. Dargen, Tony Ryan)
are interspersed in the narrative, as are sections on topics as diverse
as the original requirements for air hostesses, the behind the scenes
activity in arrangements for the arrival of the Pope and the crash of
the St Kevin in 1952.
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Who Owns Britain?
by Kevin Cahill
Despite its title, Kevin Cahill’s examination of the landowners of Britain
includes a section on those who owned land in Ireland. In Cahill’s introductory
essay, “Britain’s Greatest Secret - The Ownership of its Land” he sets
out the shortcomings of the Land Registry of England and Wales in revealing
information about the countries’ major landowners. In fact he goes so
far as to call it “perhaps the most astonishing case of calculated civic
deceit ever performed on a whole country”. In addition he reveals the
existence of a book published in the 1870s, “The Return of Owners of Land
in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales”, which is probably available
on request in public libraries in Britain. The chapter dealing with Ireland
confirms the high rate of home ownership in this country and the fact
that almost half of those homes are mortgage-free. The author also produces
the startling statistic that the ownership of land by the Irish has moved
from less than half of one per cent in 1845 to the 1997 figure, at which
point 87% of the citizens of Ireland owned 97% of the land. This dramatic
change wrought by the Land Commission he describes as “the single most
comprehensive transfer of land, from landlord to peasant, in recorded
history”. The subsequent fate of the many small farmers, with the number
of farms having fallen by almost three quarters from a peak of 413,000
in 1930, is attributed to the falling population and the small acreage
of many of the farms. This prompts Cahill to comment, “What the figures
tell us is that farming is neither financially justifiable nor economically
meaningful”. He draws a comparison with Britain which, he says, is far
worse off than Ireland; indeed Ireland as an economic and social entity
is painted in a glowing light in this book which no longer accurately
reflects the post-Tiger situation. Although only a small section of this
informative work pertains to Ireland, the whole question of the gradual
change in landownership in these islands has been dealt with in a way
that is illuminating. An associated website, http://www.who-owns-britain.com,
is at present under construction and this will give updates on many of
the statistics in this absorbing book.
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Berry Time by
Eamon Cooke
In Eamon Cooke’s first collection of poetry the light shines clearly through
his work, whether it be the “crystal sunlight” in “Holiday”, the “shawl
of light” of “Gulls” or the “clarity of light” which heralds “Spring”.
In a gently lyrical tone the poet observes the world around him, recording
the thoughts and memories inspired by the changing seasons. In “Headfort
Place in May” he provides the reader with a word picture powerful in its
simplicity: “A blackbird ruffles branches Outside Jack Murphy’s shop.
Dew drop splash Sparkling like diamonds He sips The perfection of the
morning.” Eamon Cooke looks forward and back with equal ease, forward
to his newborn son’s life in the new millennium, back to his mother, “her
eyes quietly absorbed in the hills”, and in doing so allows the reader
to share in moments of his life.
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A Short History
of Orangeism by Kevin Haddick-Flynn
A short history this might be, but it is one that more than adequately
gives an introduction to the unfamiliar, for many of us, world of the
Orange Order. Kevin Haddick-Flynn relates the political and military incidents
that led to its founding after the Battle of the Diamond near Loughall,
Co. Armagh in 1695, and its development into the Orange Order we know
today mostly from our television screens. Along the way he relates lesser-known
periods in the Order’s history, for example the emergence at the beginning
of the last century of a group of Orangemen known as the Independent Orange
Order who embraced social radicalism and, to an extent which caused the
expulsion of one of its leaders, Lindsay Crawford, also embraced the notion
of Home Rule. Particular aspects of the movement, the lily, the sash,
the bands, are explained in more detail and autobiographical notes are
given on a number of the key figures. On one issue the author differs
from the view of Chris Ryder & Vincent Kearney in their book on Drumcree,
for he asserts, “For many, if not most, Orangemen it is primarily a religious
organisation”. The earlier book, on the other hand, put forward the view
that for many Orangemen the religious aspects of the Order have long been
superseded by the tribal aspects.
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Hostage by Carol
Boland
This story for teenagers has a dark theme which is dealt with in a way
that might, as the author perhaps hopes, open up the question of suicide,
but also manages to be rather depressing. The hostage situation develops
in David’s house where a lodger almost forces the family to relive the
tragedy of their father’s suicide four years earlier. It is a picture
of depression spiralling downwards into a breakdown which affects those
who have tried to befriend Sam, the lodger. Rather inevitably, the illness
is traced back to childhood abuse by a priest and the consequent lifelong
effects, but there is a note of optimism, or at least of an increased
understanding, in the final pages. David’s relationships with his mother,
his young brother and his girlfriend, Avril, are credibly drawn though
the final fate of Sam seems a little unlikely, given the circumstances
described in the book.
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Decoding the
Landscape ed. Timothy Collins
This third edition of the book edited by Timothy Collins is the result
of popular demand for a series of essays which take a diverse view of
the landscape of Ireland, with one essay on the place names of the Lebanon
contributed by Desmond Travers, a serving officer in the Irish army. In
his contribution Tim Robinson, the man most associated with the topography
of Connemara in recent years, takes issue with the title of the book,
preferring instead the designation ’encoding’ to describe the focus of
the collection of essays. John Waddell looks at the archaeological evidence
for the place of the Irish Sea in spreading cultural practices, while
the editor reflects on the Clare Island survey carried out under the leadership
of Robert Lloyd Praeger. The artist’s reaction to the landscape is examined
by Marie Bourke of the National Gallery of Ireland, and Breandan O Madagain
and the late Pat Sheeran focus on the literary response to landscape.
The final two offerings, a reflection on Christmas in the Burren by P.J.
Curtis and two poems by Mary Silke underline the many different approaches
to the landscape encapsulated in this publication from the Centre for
Landscape Studies at NUI, Galway.
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The Irish Bachelor’s
Cookbook by Stephen Conmy
The antidote to the celebrity chef books, (and the front cover carries
the promise/warning “This wasn’t written by a celebrity chef”, Stephen
Conmy’s book sets out to provide men on their own with a guide to nutritious,
easily prepared meals, each of which takes no more than 20 minutes to
prepare. The author has achieved this aim admirably, also giving hints
as to drinks to go with each meal, but the somewhat scatalogical comments
and irrelevant illustrations would seem the spoil the book for any but
the most laddish of bachelors.
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