Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.97 (Aug 2003)

Clare Carroll
Catherine Dunne
Terry Eagleton
Elgy Gillespie
Patricia King
Janis Londraville
Eugene McEldowney
Bruce Pierce
Edmund Power
Mike Reynolds
The Grian Association

An Unconsidered People - Catherine Dunne
It has been rightly claimed that Ireland would have been in an even worse state in the 1950s, both economically and sociologically, without the safety valve of emigration, much of it to Britain. In this study of the Irish in London Catherine Dunne has conducted ten interviews with men and women who “took the boat” in the search for a better life. Two things emerge through almost all the interviews, the importance of the clubs and dancehalls as a social outlet, and the frequency with which loneliness led to drunkenness among single men. Not only did the dancehalls provide a place to meet fellow Irishmen and women, and thus future partners, it was also a networking centre. According to Galway woman Kathleen Morrissey, who moved to England at the age of fourteen, “If you needed a plumber or an electrician we’d always find one at the Galty!” Those who already had family members in London, like Phyllis Izzard, were somewhat cushioned against the feelings of loneliness and fear that the strangeness of city life produced in others, though Phyllis had her independence curtailed by a strict older sister. Those who suffered most were the young men who came over to work in construction, who followed the work from site to site and who never entered the tax system. These men had nothing but Spartan lodgings to return to after work and the pub became an attractive alternative, a place for company and conviviality. Such emigrants, ith no success stories to tell, are those who are now the target of the Aisling Project and Dr Jerry Cowley’s St Brendan’s Village Project. The prospects of employment, the difficulties in finding accommodation when an accent might betray your Irish origins, and the exploitation of their fellow countrymen by contractors are familiar themes throughout the book. The question of the “heart” home and the “made” home is addressed, with very few of the ten interviewees wishing to return home and those who made the transition not always being successful. Many of them expressed gratitude to their adopted home for providing the life that Ireland could not and these, like Ennis man Kevin Casey, expressed anger at the circumstances which forced them to emigrate. A view of emigration from a slightly different perspective is given by Fr Seamus Fullam who has been ministering to the Irish in London for almost fifty years. It is his belief that the greatest challenge experienced was that of culture shock. He also draws attention to the weekly postal orders crossing the Irish Sea which in 1961 amounted to IR13.5m; in the same year the total cost to the Irish State for first and second level education amounted to IR14m. All of those interviewed are in their sixties and seventies and can look back on lives of quiet success brought about by hard work, a belief in family and, in most cases, a reliance on the Church for both spiritual and practical help in times of difficulty. In her introduction the author gives her reasons for not having included those emigrants who “by their own definition, had led lives of failure” but the omission of such stories has led to a sense of imbalance, a certain “sameness” about the interviews. This can partly be explained by the similarity of the questions posed, but one can’t help feeling that the inclusion of some of those who didn’t find steady work, who didn’t manage to buy their own houses, might have given a truer picture of the emigrant experience in the mid-20th century.

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Stella’s Story - Eugene McEldowney
The story of Stella Maguire, christened Estelle and the apple of her father’s eye, mirrors that of many women who had to suffer the isolation, enforced secrecy and increasingly complex web of lies brought about by an unplanned pregnancy. When Stella moves to Belfast after the death of a much-loved brother, her burgeoning social life is enhanced by the arrival of American troops on their way to war in Europe. In a depressingly repetitive scenario the heightened passions of wartime, fuelled by an unfamiliarity with the effects of alcohol, leave Stella to bear a son by a man she knows only as Bud. This anonymity, and the shame it engenders, plays a pivotal role in Stella’s life, a life she reviews in retrospect through the course of the narrative. Eugene McEldowney has captured with remarkable sensitivity the thoughts and feelings of a pregnant unmarried woman in Ireland of the 1940s, the friends she can rely on, the fiction she maintains to her family and the path she takes to solve her problems. However the second part of the book, when Stella meets both success and failure in the US, was marred by an unresolved problem in the earlier chapters. Stella stayed away from her Fermanagh home for four years, first in Belfast and then in Dublin, and the plot fails when it neglects to include efforts by her mother to visit her or at least find out what is going on. Transport, especially during wartime, might have been difficult, but the omission of any effort by the mother to investigate her daughter’s long silence is a flaw in an otherwise well-conceived story. The final chapters, blessedly free of mawkish scenes of reunion, reprise the secrecy and shame of the early chapters but these are surmounted and Stella finally stops running from her past.

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Changing the Times - ed. Elgy Gillespie
Some time in the late 1960s and early 1970s there emerged a group of women journalists who were no longer content with writing about homemaking, recipes to feed the family or the best way to keep one’s hands smooth. Known collectively as the Foley Babes, for they were brought into the Irish Times by Waterford man Donal Foley, the group branched out into more controversial topics, though they were still confined to a “Women’s Page”. Elgy Gillespie, who was one of this select band, has gathered together a number of pieces representing the work of Irish women journalists from 1969 to 1981. Not all of the pieces appeared in the Irish Times; the editor’s own account of her first foray into the life of New York City appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine. Some pieces set out to entertain, such as Maeve Binchy’s description of her first evening dress, while others, like Geraldine Kennedy’s only contribution, dwell on the horror of death and disease. Overall the selection gives a taste of Irish life as it affected women in the years when they were beginning to assert their independence from the establishment. Nell McCafferty is particularly vocal on conditions in her own native Derry and gives a chilling account of Bloody Sunday from the inside. Mary Holland, writing for the New Statesmen and the Observer, provides an analysis of the contemporary state of Northern politics, and Renagh Holohan describes what it was like to be caught up in a Belfast bombing. But the 1970s above all brought to the fore the notion of a woman’s rights over her body, and articles on contraception, abortion and single mothers are well represented. Mary Cummins, Mary Leland and Mary Maher address a number of problems in this area while Christina Murphy takes a lighter look at some of the difficulties encountered, including the enigma of the Forty Foot. Interviews with Seamus Heaney, Edna O’Brien and Iris Murdoch add a literary flavour, with the Irish Times’ current literary editor, Caroline Walsh, conducting the first two. There is also a profile of the then Senator Mary Robinson, a force for much change at that time, by the late Christina Murphy. In all there are contributions from fifteen journalists though the selection is a bit uneven, giving only one sample from Theodora Fitzgibbon, Maev Kennedy, Rose Doyle, Eileen O’Brien and Geraldine Kennedy while others, including the editor and Nell McCafferty, have their say on a number of different topics. However the book succeeds as a barometer of Ireland in the 1970s and the changes wrought in the lives of women from all walks of life.

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The Last Chapter - Edmund Power
In his second thriller Edmund Power has moved from the typical Irish village to the capital, though the ethos of the village, where everyone knows everyone’s business, seems as prevalent. As with his earlier novel, “No Christian Grave”, the story develops too slowly at first and it requires perseverance to continue. However the perseverance is rewarded when the apparent hero becomes the villain of the piece in a startling twist in the plot. The story revolves around the discovery by Brendan Stokes, an unsuccessful writer, of a manuscript written by a recently deceased neighbour, Andrew Whitty, which he decides to claim as his own. Urged on by an overweening ambition to be published under any circumstances, he sets his creative mind to work on the logistics of passing the work off as his own to family, friends and publishers. A philandering wife and a small son of doubtful paternity impinge little on his conscience once he is set on the course of having “Fair Eleanore” published as his own work; not even the arrival of the true author’s niece with her revelations about the provenance of the story can deflect him from his singleminded purpose, though he does ensure her loyalty and support in the time-honoured fashion. From being a sympathetic character struggling to be a successful writer, and encumbered with an unfaithful wife, Brendan’s determination to succeed at all costs brings him to carry out previously unimagined acts of violence and reveals a man who cares for nobody but who is willing to use anybody, even his son, to gain his own ends. Told in the first person, the narrative gradually reveals the change in Brendan’s character, and the reader may believe he or she has learnt how important his writing is to him. However the depth of that importance is only revealed when an old friend of Andrew Whitty, and a prominent character in the book within a book, turns up with a startling claim. The ever-quickening downward spiral leads to the events of the last chapter in which the author has introduced an ironic twist. For Brendan’s fate almost exactly mirrors that of Andrew Whitty in the final chapter of the book which he was preparing to steal. “The Last Chapter” is not without its shortcomings, Edmund Power is less sure of his female characters, but the first person narrative throws an interesting light on the motivation and thought processes of a murderer.

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The Truth About The Irish - Terry Eagleton
Brought out in paperback last year, Terry Eagleton’s take on the Irish is a little dated in that the Celtic Tiger had not lost its roar when the book was first published four years ago. However so much remains unchanged that the majority of his observations still ring true. In describing Ireland at the end of the twentieth century, with its still predominantly rural society, he comments on the way we promote our Irishness, with the country becoming “a kind of Celtic Disneyland with Queen Maeve standing in for Mickey Mouse”. Most of his topics, listed in alphabetical order, are aimed at debunking much of the myth of Irishry, though he is gentler on some than on others. Seamus Heaney is described as manufacturing “delectable morsels known as poems” in his Dublin workshop. On the other hand his initial take on W.B. Yeats describes him as believing in “fairies, leprechauns, magic, spiritualism, aristocrats, astral bodies, reincarnation, violence, elitism, dictatorship, and forcibly stopping the poor from breeding”. He does redeem himself in the final sentence, however, when he declares that “despite all this, he is one of the greatest poets of the English language”. Some of his debunking sprees glide effortlessly from one topic to another; the section on driving (and he is pretty scathing about the slaughter on our roads) segues into a diatribe against bad planning and the destruction of many fine buildings. The Irish and alcohol, Easter 1916, the Giant’s Causeway and Travellers are among the topics examined by the author in the tongue-in-cheek but informed volume.

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Foilsiu - The Grian Association
This diverse collection which includes a photographic essay and a bibliography of children’s books, is published by the Grian Association, a New York-based organisation which encourages collaboration between the worlds of academia and the arts. James P. Byrne examines, through the medium of James Farrell’s “Studs Lonigan”, the concept of “gaelachas” the Irish-American label which the ethnic group gradually dropped in favour of seeing themselves as totally American. Also included is poetry by Eamonn Wall and Greg Delanty and an examination by Brian Cliff of the place of community in the work of Frank McGuinness. The photographic work by Christina Cahill focuses on the children of Derry and Belfast from 1993 to 2000, while Karen Hill McNamara’s contribution is a comprehensive listing of books for children dealing with the Famine.

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Prodigal Father Revisited - ed. Janis Londraville
The “prodigal father” of the title is John B. Yeats, best known as the father of W.B. and Jack B., but the subtitle throws more light on the subject matter contained therein. “Artists and Writers in the World of John Butler Yeats” presents an array of writers and artists with whom the elder Yeats was associated, mainly after he moved to the United States, and in doing so also throws light on the character and lifestyle of the man himself. Contributions by academics and others explore the lives of Jeanne Foster, Florence Farr, Paul Swan and Van Wyck Brooks as they impinged on the life of John B. Yeats, revealing his appreciation of the arts, his attitude to his own paintings and drawings, and his reputation as a great conversationalist. Also documented are the meals at which he held court in Petipas, the house in which he lived in New York. Unfamiliar with a number of the subjects mentioned, I found an imbalance in the focus on the artists and writers which left one hungry for more information on the “prodigal father”. However this is more than compensated for by the inclusion of art collector and lawyer John Quinn’s description of the last days of his protege which he sent to W.B. Yeats. Here is an affectionate portrait by the man who had provided for Yeats during his ten years in the US, who declared, “He was one of the most brilliant talkers I have ever listened to”. In assuring the son of the ease of his father’s death, Quinn shares anecdotes about their friendship with insights into Yeats senior’s outlook on both life and death. “Prodigal Father Revisited” has been the means of introduction to a number of American artists and writers hitherto unfamiliar to this reader, and that alone should negate any disappointment at the paucity of direct information about John B. Yeats.

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Miscarriage & Stillbirth - Bruce Pierce
Primarily aimed at those who are charged with the care of parents who have experienced the death of their baby, Bruce Pierce’s book looks at the way in which feelings of loss and bereavement were ignored in past years and the gradual development of an awareness of the importance of grieving. He gives due attention to the part played in the healing process by self-help groups, mostly set up by bereaved mothers, in the increased understanding of the enormous effect of both early and late miscarriages, and of neonatal death. A hospital chaplain himself, he addresses the question of baptism for those who don’t survive birth, and offers ways in which clergyman can handle the request in the most sensitive manner. The book has an extensive bibliography, a list of associated websites and a series of prayers, reflections and liturgies for use by people of many different denominations.

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Ireland and Postcolonial Theory ed. Clare Carroll and Patricia King
This groundbreaking study examines what Edward Said describes as “the crucial question of whether or not Ireland was a colony, and whether its history is therefore in large measure a colonial and subsequently a postcolonial one”. The question, Said asserts, puts at stake “nothing less than the whole question of Irish identity, the present course of Irish culture and politics, and above all the interpretation of Ireland, its people, and the course of its history”. Editors Clare Carroll and Patricia King have gathered an impressive collection of a dozen scholars and critics to examine Ireland’s history, literature, and society through a postcolonial perspective. The wide-ranging contributions draw on comparisons with other, less contested postcolonial nations to assess what Dr Kevin Whelan refers to as Ireland’s “uneasy anchorage in postcolonial studies”. This global insight is one of the strengths of the collection: Gauri Viswanathan offers an illuminating discussion of James Cousins, the “Irish Poet from India”, and Edward Said draws parallels between the Irish and the Palestinian experience, for example, while Joseph Lennon offers a thorough overview of Irish Orientalism, placing Ireland in context with other marginalized cultures. Other volume highlights include Dr Whelan’s fascinating discussion of Irish postcolonial memory, myth and historiography, Seamus Deane’s stimulating essay examining the Irish use of language, and Luke Gibbons’ consideration of the impact of their historical perspective on the United Irishmen’s unusually inclusive version of Enlightenment thinking. This is a volume that will excite academics in any of the fields related to Irish Studies, and firmly demonstrates the importance – and illuminating power - of postcolonial questioning. (Reviewer: Noreen Bowden)

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Tragedy at Tuskar Rock - Mike Reynolds
This is an enlightening and compelling account of an investigation into the 1968 crash of Aer Lingus flight EI712, which was flying from Cork to London when it crashed into the sea near Tuskar Rock, off the coast of County Wexford; four crew and fifty-seven passengers lost their lives. An initial investigation into the tragedy was inconclusive, leading to persistent rumours that the plane may have been accidentally shot down by the British military, during a training exercise. Three independent investigators, two French and one Australian, were assigned to the investigation; the author was their Irish assistant, and the power of this factual account is greatly enhanced by the author’s status as an insider in the investigation. The book details the investigators’ attempts to formulate a theory that would take into account the sometimes-contradictory evidence of eyewitness accounts and flight records. They thoroughly investigated several hypotheses, including the rumours of accidental British military strike, and the possibilities of ice on the wings, flaws in the aircraft design and maintenance, or damage from a bird strike. They discovered errors in conclusion in the original report, which had gone unnoticed. Although the most suspicious of the conspiracy theorists were proved wrong, the story of the search for the truth is intriguing, and a little bit of mystery remains. (Reviewer Eric van der Zee)

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