Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.98 (Sept 2003)

Brendan Barrington
Peter Benjamin
Barry Cummins
Geraldine O’Connell Cusack
John Flynn
Chris Jones
Jerry Kelleher
William Laffan
Brian Lalor
Paddy Linehan
Declan Lynch
Sam Millar
Séamus Ó Grianna
Donal Ruane

The Encyclopaedia of Ireland - General Editor Brian Lalor
In the preface to this massive publication the editor asserts that the Encyclopaedia “seeks to present the best of current consensual thought on the wide span of Irish experience” and the contents certainly cover an enormous range of subjects. Each entry, from more than nine hundred contributors, is completely original, and the text is accompanied by some eight hundred illustrations, one a sketch by Queen Victoria of a performance of Dion Boucicault’s “The Corsican Brothers”. Where does one begin in reviewing such a work? I decided to search for a group of sportsmen who would probably be unfamiliar to the present generation but who were renowned in the earlier years of the last century. And the encyclopaedia passed its first test when I found an entry for the Casey Family by James Doherty. Meriting half a page, the feats in rowing, boxing and wrestling of the Kerry brothers were written in detail. Many of the entries were totally unfamiliar but nonetheless fascinating, for example the account by John Wakeman of the Altar Controversy of 1847, during which the rector of the Church of Ireland in the Cork townland employed Catholics in the construction of a new church on the condition that they convert to Protestantism. Interesting but little-known personalities earn their place; Susan O’Hagan of Lisburn, Co. Antrim, worked for the Hall family for a total of ninety-seven years, living from 1802 to 1909. Broader subjects are covered under a number of different headings, with Catholicism being dealt with over eight pages under such headings as Catholic Relief Acts, Catholicism and the Irish Diaspora and Catholic Emancipation. An inordinate amount of space seems to have been dedicated to the subject of food, examining the Irish diet at a number of different points in history and giving an entire page to the humble potato, while the Church of Ireland has a relatively short entry. There are, of course, some omissions, I do believe that tenor Ronan Tynan deserved a place, and I was disappointed that our own Cormac MacConnell wasn’t included along with his brothers Cathal and Mickey. Similarly, the entry for the stone circle at Beltany places it simply in Donegal, with no clue to its actual location. However overall the encyclopaedia is a useful resource for detailed information on aspects of Irish history, politics and religion, as well as a biographical source of Irishmen and women at home and abroad. In addition it reveals gems of trivia, such as the presence in Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s of some of the Russian Crown Jewels, the prevalence of ether-drinking in Counties Derry and Tyrone in the 1840s and the fact that George IV’s footprints can be seen on a granite boulder at Howth. The standing of the consultant editors in their chosen fields is well illustrated by the fact that three, Susan McKenna-Lawlor, Harry White and Fintan Vallely, have their own entries as well as having a number of contributions included. While I would not go along completely with the publisher’s claim that “It is the only reference book about Ireland that you will ever need”, certainly this attractively produced “Encyclopaedia of Ireland” would be a useful and welcome addition to any library, personal or institutional.

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Children of the Far-Flung - Geraldine O’Connell Cusack
The American Wake is a well-documented social event, when emigrants to America or Australia were expected never to be seen again by their families. And for most people this was true, but for the O’Connells from Sligo and the Taaffes from Cork, emigration seemed always to be a two-way journey. Geraldine’s grandfather, Timothy Taaffe, had already spent a number of years in Australia before returning home to Cork, marrying, and raising a family, and it was his sister, a long-time emigrant to New York, who arranged the emigration of Geraldine’s mother and aunts to the US. Meanwhile her paternal grandparents had met and married in the US, but returned home to Sligo at the beginning of the last century, only for their sons Timothy and Michael to begin the emigration saga all over again twenty years later. Thus Geraldine O’Connell Cusack sets the scene for the story of her family, a family that has had divided loyalties like so many members of the Irish diaspora. Counted as Irish in their adopted country, and as Yanks in the place they call home, it is no wonder that three of the five children at some stage made their homes in Ireland, as did their parents who made their second journey home in 1972. In a lively and engaging tone the author tells of her upbringing in the Bronx, of the autonomy given to all their children by her parents Nellie and Michael which gave her the ability to sort out her own educational needs while still in her mid-teens. Much of the narrative is devoted to her sister Eleanor who became Eleanora before finally settling on Deirdre O’Connell, the name under which she will be forever remembered in Ireland for her work with the Focus Theatre. Life to the young and not-so-young O’Connells was a constant adventure and this spirit imbues the narrative. Everyday happenings in the O’Connell household often took on an air of unreality, and the idiosyncratic placing of the children around the dinner table is summed up by the author: “It was part of a continuing mania that passed as normal family life”. Four generations of the O’Connells, the Taaffes, the Carters and the Scanlons are paraded before us in an extraordinary journey that takes in Russia during the cold war, Chile and a Native American settlement in Florida.

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Missing - Barry Cummins
Barry Cummins’ account of a number of people who have gone missing in Ireland over the last thirty years, particularly those in the Leinster area, offers very little new material but it does give an insight into the workings of the gardaí on each case. To each of the six who disappeared in Leinster between 1993 and 1998, Annie McCarrick, Jo Jo Dullard, Fiona Pender, Ciara Breen, Fiona Sinnott and an 18-year-old from Newbridge whose family wished her name to be withheld, a chapter has been devoted. The facts are once again set out, though with an irritating amount of repetition; the author appears to believe that the reader is unable to remember relevant facts from one chapter to the next, and in the case of Jo Jo Dullard, just a few pages lie between the reiteration of the arrests made during the garda investigation. Much attention is given to the persistence of Mary Phelan, Jo Jo Dullard’s sister, in campaigning for further investigation and for the establishment of a dedicated Missing Persons Unit. Indeed one of the more interesting facets of this book is the account of the effect on siblings of the disappearance of a family member. This is particularly true in the case of Ann Boyle, the twin sister of seven-year-old Mary Boyle who disappeared near Ballyshannon in 1977. There is a rather disconcerting description of a re-enactment in which Ann was encouraged to repeat the movements of her sister on that day, in the hope that her closeness to her twin might prompt her to follow the same course; the experiment was not a success. “Missing” is not simply a chronicle of those whose disappearance in Ireland has remained a mystery; the author also uses examples in both Britain and America to highlight the difficulty of pinpointing the exact location of bodies. In addition, Barry Cummins’ book gives an opportunity to the gardaí involved in Operation Trace, through quotations from specific members of the force, to encourage anyone with any knowledge to come forward. This aspect of the work is particularly strong in the abduction of Philip Cairns, in which gardaí believe that the return of the missing school bag has a vital role to play in learning more about the case. Two facts emerge from the narrative, the fear that the perpetrators of some of the attacks might be free to strike again, and the inability of the gardaí, within the present laws of the country, to interview at length those whom they strongly suspect of involvement in at least some of the cases.

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High Ride - Peter Benjamin
Once again, as in the novel “Terms and Conditions”, Dublin-born financier Joe Grace is drawn into a world of millionaires and murderers, this time set against the backdrop of the horseracing fraternity. And once again Peter Benjamin has used the short chapter and a lively turn of phrase as a means to emphasise the fast pace of the narrative. Former champion jockey Tricky Dawson is the first victim; living with Joe’s estranged sister Lou, he is described rather intriguingly by the author thus: “All his life he had strived on excitement”. In order to entrap the man believed responsible for Tricky’s death, Joe works with one of the kings of racing, Sam Landy, in a complicated scam that will bring to fulfilment the desires of both. As in Peter Benjamin’s first novel featuring Joe Grace, the enigmatic Hanny plays an important part though she appears very seldom; Joe spends much of his time, when he is not gathering together large sums of money or fending off attempts on his life, pre-occupied with the direction their relationship is taking. As the murders escalate and our intrepid hero works his way through a series of possible suspects, the action moves from Australia to England, Ireland, Los Angeles and an island in the Bay of Mexico, with each location seeming to be as dangerous as the last for Joe. However the “near misses” seem to be just too fortuitous by the time of the final shoot-out on a Wicklow farm, and I found myself almost wishing that the financial wizard turned investigator would just once receive a serious, if obviously not fatal, injury. The final scene is a surprise, with too much revealed in too short a space, but once again Joe escapes with his life and the book ends on rather a lame philosophical note for a story that has been action packed from the beginning.

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Yesterday’s Ireland - Paddy Linehan
What a treasure chest of memories this book is. For anyone who remembers the lifestyle of the mid-twentieth century, both the photographs and the accompanying text will bring memories flooding back; for those who don’t date back that far the book will prove a mine of information on the way in which life was experienced in the Ireland of their parents and grandparents. Paddy Linehan is a much-travelled man, but in choosing to write in detail about his own country and his own lifetimes he has returned to his roots and recorded a way of life that has all but disappeared. Whether describing the interior of a typical farmhouse or chronicling the year’s tasks from ploughing to harvest, the author has a sure eye for detail and a facility for relating personal experience that melds perfectly with the general narrative. Both city life and country life are covered, as are the major themes of religion, education, emigration and sport, and the author does not see everything through rose-coloured glasses. Often the captions to the photographs make his point, as in the group of priests at St John’s College in Waterford who, he points out, look well fed and have good boots as well as power. Unusually for such a book, Paddy Linehan has obviously expended much thought on the caption for each photograph. Some are explained in detail, as is the photograph of pilgrims at Lough Derg, while a study of families protesting at the demolition of their Georgian homes in Dublin is accompanied by a historical note on the difference to a child’s life brought by the arrival of the go-car to Ireland. In fact so apt and so interesting are the captions that I had to resist the temptation to speed through the book reading only these, a temptation well resisted since the accompanying text is also enlightening. A number of errors do distract, but only slightly, as they can also entertain; my favourite is the assertion that Brendan Behan “had been interred for his involvement” in the IRA. Horses, cattle and fowl all have their place in Paddy Linehan’s memory, but he reserves a special place for donkeys which, he says, “don’t make judgements; they just accept things as they are....If animals had religion, donkeys would be Buddhists”. Donkeys pulling carts, donkeys carrying people, donkeys carrying loads and donkeys just observing the scene are treated with an affection not afforded to the other creatures. However while he can praise, the author can also criticise or take an admonitory tone when the occasion arises; a photograph of de Valera addressing a totally male meeting is used to point out the leader’s firm opinion that a woman’s place was in the home. And in the final chapter, “Céad Mile Fáilte”, Linehan chronicles all those who have been welcomed, albeit with reservations, to these shores, and concludes: “People from other countries now seek solace on our shores. Let’s hope the Ireland of today and tomorrow continues to extend its céad mile fáilte to them”.

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The Sea’s Revenge - Séamus Ó Grianna
Séamus Ó Grianna, who died in 1969 at the age of eighty, had very definite views on a number of topics, not least “the difference between native Irish and learned Irish”, and this is a constant theme in his short stories. Translated from the Irish by the author himself, the stories focus on life in the Rosses area of Co. Donegal at the turn of the last century and up to the years of the Civil War. Ó Grianna excels in the short story form and sets himself - and others - an exacting standard. In fact in his story “Manus Mac Awaard, Smoker and Storyteller”, he sets out the criteria for the good raconteur: “A good story must not have one word that is not necessary. It must point towards the end from the very beginning. It must stop in a way that will make you remember it and have no loose strings hanging out of it”. And in his tales of matchmaking, of marriages into good farms or marriages for love, the author lives up to this standard. The men are portrayed, on the whole, as the more innocent of the two sexes, with a number of stories pointing to the misery of a scolding wife. One story in which the heroine is bested by the superior wiles of her suitor is “The Best Laid Schemes”, one of the more complex and arresting tales. In the title story we are given to understand that “the sea’s revenge” does not necessarily have to take a life by drowning. The sea and fishing figure largely in the stories, reflecting the author’s own years spent at this occupation, and through the collection runs the thread of history in the making, the rise and fall of Parnell, the Easter Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War. This collection tells of a world now past, but a world with which we are perhaps familiar, having heard its stories from our own parents and grandparents.

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Days of our Lives - Chris Jones
This is a book whose appeal lies in its simplicity; it’s not great literature but it is the story of a Dublin childhood told from the heart. Chris Jones grew up in Clanbrassil Street in the 1930s and 1940s and his family were affected by all the vicissitudes of that time, including the Emergency and the curse of TB. The author’s moving account of the slow death of his lively and favourite sister Eithne would bring tears to the eyes of the coldest heart, as would his telling of the difficulties encountered by his parents, from different religious backgrounds, over their plans to marry. Telling this story in the first person from a conversation held with his father serves to emphasise the real hurt that was engendered by the situation. Not all was doom and gloom, however, and the young Christie also enjoyed days with his cousins in Dublin Castle, trips to the seaside in Wicklow and all the normal pleasures of young boyhood. This is a slim volume which brings to life in a particularly vivid way the hard times but also the pleasures of growing up in Dublin.

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The Dublin Review, Autumn 2003 - ed. Brendan Barrington
The latest edition of the review has a topical essay by Colm Tóibín on the way in which Robert Emmet has been treated in a historical context by both revisionist and post-revisionist historians; Anne Enright has an entertaining account of the realities of childbirth, easy to identify with by those of us who have experienced “nature’s amnesia”; historian Diarmaid Ferriter records the recent releasing of documents relating to the War of Independence; and Tom Lee’s “Cerology” is an extraordinary story set at the turn of the 20th century. Other contributors include Anthony Caleshu, Brian Dillon, Judy Kravis and David Wheatley.

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Dublin Journeys in America - John Flynn & Jerry Kelleher
Cork Journeys in America - John Flynn & Jerry Kelleher

These two books feature a total of one hundred and two profiles of men and women “who have embodied the close connections between the United States” and the two Irish counties. This some have achieved by becoming major players in the history of the United States, like Revolutionary General Richard Montgomery from Swords and Cork-born Patrick Cleburne, a general in the US Civil War. Others, particularly in the field of entertainment, spent much of their working lives in the United States and made the journey in the opposite direction to spend some years living in Ireland, among them Angela Lansbury and Hurd Hatfield. Some of the links between Ireland and America are tenuous at best; Judy Garland merits an entry on the grounds of her maternal grandmother, a Dubliner called Eva Fitzpatrick Milne, while Bishop Berkeley of Cloyne, after whom Berkeley University is named, was a Kilkenny man who spent two decades of his life in Cork before moving to England shortly before his death. In both volumes the reader will meet both familiar and unfamiliar characters, some described with an interesting non-sequitur. Of Thomas P. O’Neill we are told, “Tip’s mother died when he was a baby but he graduated from Boston College in 1936”. In a similarly unlikely juxtaposition of information we are told of historian Michael O’Brien, “His brother Seán was a teacher and Fenian and his mother was knocked down a flight of steps in a British raid on the family home”. These, though, add to the entertainment of the two volumes, each of which is also amply provided with photographs of some of those profiled.

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Cries of Dublin - Ed. William Laffan
The discovery last year in Australia of a series of drawings by Irish 18th century artist Hugh Douglas Hamilton has resulted in this beautifully produced volume depicting the life of Dublin’s poor. Seven contributors have given a considered analysis of each painting, whether it be “Hae Ball, King of the Beggars” or the enchanting portrayal of the egg seller with her young child. The historical accuracy of each subject matter is augmented by an appreciation of its artistic merits, often by comparison with other entries. Most of the illustrations depict only the figure or figures representing the different trades though some, notably “A Shoe Boy at Custom House Gate” and “Oyster Carrs at Ormond Market Gate”, are set against a recognisable backdrop. Amid the tradespeople and the beggars but as much as part of Dublin life, I suspect, is the drawing entitled “A scolding match at the Fish Market”. There are many depictions of court life and life in the comfortable classes of the 18th century; the opportunity to study this collection of contemporary portraits is one that will lead to a greater knowledge and understanding of the period, and the privations experienced by those at the bottom of the social pile in Dublin. In addition to the editor, William Laffan, contributors include T.C. Barnard, Anne Crookshank, Desmond FitzGerald (Knight of Glin), Joseph McDonnell, Brendan Rooney and Sean Shesgreen.

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Tales in a Rearview Mirror - Donal Ruane
In this thoroughly enjoyable series of encounters, a Dublin taxi driver has put together a selection of stories about customers he has carried, a selection that includes humour, anger, social conscience, sympathy and wonder in equal parts. Donal Ruane took to driving a taxi after losing money in a film venture, and his loss has definitely been our gain, for his book provides an entertaining but also realistic account of Dublin characters, from the prostitute whose journey includes a side trip to her dealer to the young one from Dublin 4 cashing cheques forged in her father’s name. By the very nature of the business many of Ruane’s customers are drunk and this can cause a number of problems ranging from having no money to pay the fare, to being liable for a “soilage charge”. The encounters are related in an intimate and conversational style but not all are set out merely to entertain. There is both poignancy and sympathy in the story of the young woman picked up from Holles Street in “Lucan, please”, while “Poles Apart” features two sets of people, recovering drug addicts and members of Mount Juliet golf club, who live only half a dozen miles apart but whose lives barely touch each other. To the non-Dubliner the use of dialect in the conversations is a bit tedious, but at the same time it does add to the authentic tone of the stories.

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On the Brinks - Sam Millar
The earlier part of Sam Millar’s narrative reads like a fairly standard account of life for a republican held in a Northern prison, the latter part reads like a standard American detective story as told from the point of view of the criminal. The reason is that “On the Brinks” is a fairly accurate reflection of Sam Millar’s life from his first introduction to the republican cause to his heading to America for a fresh start which never quite materialises. Millar spent time working for a chain of casinos and also ran a rare comic store in Queen’s, and in the course of his working life he met up with a number of rather odd characters, Ronnie the Liverpool Irishman who was always one step ahead of the game and, oddest of all, the apparently austere Father Pat, a priest whose only mission seemed to be helping the poor and homeless, but who proved more adept than most at accumulating other people’s money. There is no appeal to sentimentality in Millar’s story, we hear very little of his common-law wife and four children, and he has managed to convey the idea that the major event in his life, the theft from the Brinks store, was a kind of schoolboy prank that might or might not work. The story is compelling and is written with a style that makes it hard to put down. Only at the very end does a prosaic note steal in, when the author gives an account of the various fates of his fellows in court. That said, it is Millar’s ability to give a detached view of the brutalities and mistakes of his own life that makes “On the Brinks” read more like a work of fiction than the memoir it actually is.

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Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me - Declan Lynch
“Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me” explores the strong bond between father and daughter against the backdrop of the music scene of the new prosperous Ireland. The story centres on the aging musical hippie Freddie Dowd and his beautiful daughter Nadine whose world is changing after a death, a huge cheque and a new house guest. Their changing world brings them into contact with recognisable characters - the alcoholic musician, the hard-nosed manager and the bubbly television starlet with the dark secret. The Dublin of the book is anything but recognisable - champagne, cocaine and cars; the money and glamour of the music scene of the new Ireland. The relationship between father and daughter is presented as strong and open at the start. Nadine, though just turned seventeen, drinks with her father, smokes without reproach and leaves school with his blessing; Freddie’s parental control of Nadine extends only to her choice in music and books. This unorthodox way of parenting appears to work as the character of Nadine is controlled, composed and wise beyond her years, despite having an absent alcoholic mother and an impoverished childhood. This is until the death of Dorothy, Freddie’s ex-wife and Nadine’s mother, bringing the past and the alcoholic jazz musician ’Bricks’ Melvin into their lives. Their domestic bliss is also under threat from the changing fortunes of Freddie who is to be made a millionaire with his song, “Do Nothing Till you Hear From Me”, by boy-band producer Paddy Lamb, a character obviously based on real-life Irish pop Svengali Louis Walsh. The money takes Freddie into the showbiz side of the music business, a world which he previously despised, leaving his precious beautiful Nadine in the hands of the fatalistic drunk Bricks. Exposure to these supporting characters changes Nadine and Freddie’s idyllic relationship, pulling them apart till the dramatic climax of the book pulls them back together. This book could have been set in any major city - London, New York, Barcelona. It is only brief mentions of places around Dublin and an occasional reference to U2 that distinguish this as an Irish book. The characters of Bricks and Paddy Lamb appear stereotypical but, as the book progresses, they reveal themselves to be more than two-dimensional. The death of Dorothy, ex-wife and mother, extends no more than a shadow over the book though it opens the action, the newly found wealth of Freddie and Nadine appears to have more of an effect on them than her death. This suggests a shallowness in the main characters and that Lynch has tried to tackle too many issues in the one book - suicide, alcoholism, money versus art, drugs and music - resulting in a superficial treatment of all. This character driven novel has the style of a J. G. Ballard book, drink, drugs and the moral low-ground. It shows all without condemnation, allowing the reader to make up his/her own mind on the unorthodox father-daughter relationship and characters in the music industry. The book makes some interesting observations on the nature of the music business and people involved in the music scene; from Lynch, a former Hot Press journalist and current Sunday Independent columnist, the insight can be expected to be accurate. (Reviewer: Carlene Lyttle)

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