Irish Emigrant Book Review, No. 36 (July 1998)

The Journeyman by Eamon Kelly
- At eighty-four years of age, actor and craftsman Eamon Kelly has recorded in “The Journeyman” his collected thoughts on a long career which encompassed the crafts of woodwork, teaching and acting. Though perhaps best known now for his one-man storytelling shows, Kelly has experienced the range of the actor’s life from the fit-up tours of the towns and villages of Ireland to playing in major theatres both at home and abroad.
Concentrating on his working life rather than his personal life - he mentions his wife Maura and his children only when they are part of a theatrical anecdote - the actor takes us from his days at the College of Art in Dublin where he underwent the practical training to become a woodwork teacher, to the various establishments in Kerry in which he taught, and to his introduction to the Listowel Drama Group by Bryan McMahon. From this point Eamon Kelly’s career developed and the narrative includes mostly triumphs, in Dublin and Galway, in London and across North America. The final chapter tells of the Abbey Theatre’s tour to Leningrad and Moscow and his impressions throw an interesting light on the people and architecture of these two cities.
Kelly’s facility as a seanchai does not desert him in this book, and his turn of phrase constantly reminds us that he is, above all, a consummate storyteller. His description of two cathedrals standing near the Kremlin in Moscow bear testament to this:
“.....to me those two churches seemed a little embarrassed in their new role of museums. They missed, I would say, the incense, the chant and the gentle rhubarb of prayer.”
Again, describing a snowfall in Chicago, Kelly talks of parked cars which “humped the white blanket like knees-up in a bed”.
This is altogether an enjoyable book, my only reservation being an overindulgence by the author in quoting favourable reviews of his many and varied performances.

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Curious Journey by Kenneth Griffith and Timothy O’Grady
- Kenneth Griffith and Timothy O’Grady’s “Curious Journey”, first published in 1982, is subtitled “An Oral History of Ireland’s Unfinished Revolution”, and stemmed from the refusal of ATV’S Sir Lew Grade to offer for television transmission Kenneth Griffith’s documentary on Michael Collins. In creating both the film and the book the authors interviewed nine people who had played a major part in the years covering the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War, up to the death of Michael Collins. Thus each aspect of the period becomes a personal record as we hear from these participants: Donegalman Joseph Sweeney was a student at UCD at the time, and was living at St Enda’s, Pearse’s school. Because he had a bicycle he was used to deliver messages and also helped prepare defences in the GPO. Brighid Lyons Thornton, who came from Galway, helped raise funds for the dependants of volunteers who had been jailed, and received a number of personal letters of gratitude from Michael Collins. Cork’s Tom Barry returned from fighting with the British Army and realised he had three clear choices: “ One, I could join the enemy - the enemy I’d just left - and be a traitor; two, sit in a ditch and be a louser, but I wasn’t built like that; or three, join my own people and do the right thing”. Barry’s reminiscences are particularly interesting since he played such a major role in the hostilities, and his final remarks, in the Epilogue, show that his fundamental beliefs never changed. Maire Comerford, from Wexford was, to use her own phrase, “up to her neck in Cumann na mBan”, and after the bombing of the Four Courts carried a bag full of detonators on the carrier of her bicycle, delivering them to a startled Sean T. O’Kelly without realising the danger she’d been in. David Neligan’s unusual position of being in receipt of a pension from both the British and Irish police forces is explained in his contributions, while musician Martin Walton gives an account of an arms raid in which an ex-British officer was shot dead, and for which he narrowly missed being hanged. Sean Kavanagh, who became a prison governor, includes an account of the sight of a number of Crossley Tenders heading for Croke Park on the afternoon of Bloody Sunday, while John L. O’Sullivan, the only one of the nine who became a professional politician, describes his last meeting with Michael Collins, the night before the leader was assassinated at Beal na mBlath. Only sixteen years of age at the time of the Rising, Sean Harling was a friend of both De Valera and Collins and was used to carry messages between the various members of the first Government, while they still had to meet in secret.
The first hand commentaries, collected during interviews carried out by Griffith, are woven into O’Grady’s narrative to produce a compelling account of what it meant to live and fight through the years from 1916 to 1922.

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Only a Paper Moon by Cristina Pisco
- Cristina Pisco has based her intriguing love story, “Only a Paper Moon”, on an actual event which took place in Clonakilty in 1943. The forced landing of an off-course USAF B-17 bomber is the starting point for the weaving of a number of stories, the central one being the love affair between the Southern diplomat, Beauregard St Soucis, and Mary Burke, trapped in an unhappy marriage to a brutal husband. Running parallel to this is the developing relationship between Les Wagner, the youngest member of the crew, and Imelda, a member of the travelling community, while Matt Russo’s courtship of the widowed Kitty Kelliher is played out in a minor key. Ms Pisco has integrated fact and fiction into this account of the effect on this small rural community of a sudden influx of exotic strangers and their even more exotic mascot, Tojo the monkey, who succumbed to the damp Irish climate and died in the local hotel. It was reassuring to learn from the author’s note at the end that the ceremonial burial of Tojo actually took place, as the absurdly humorous description could otherwise have been accused of overstretching the reader’s credulity. While I found “Only A Paper Moon” both interesting and entertaining, it is nonetheless a curious mixture of conventional romantic fiction and acute observation of daily life in an Irish town. The village rumour-machine, a rumbustious dance in a local hotel and the self-importance of the members of the Local Defence Force combine with an illicit love affair, wife-beating, near-rape and murder into a somewhat uneven narrative which perhaps tries to include too much.

Home for the Races by Dick Byrne
- In “Home for the Races”, his first published novel, Dick Byrne has chosen familiar territory and a timeframe of which he has personal knowledge. Set in the Galway of the 1950s, the book will provide readers of a similar background with a series of snapshots of the town as it then was, with its bars and restaurants, its characters, and the dance centres of Salthill. Among such features which will jog many a memory are Delia Lydon’s bar in Quay Street, the American bar at the corner of Eyre Square, “Galway John” Ward and, of course, the Hangar in Salthill. Revisiting many of these is Claddagh man Martin McDonagh, home from England after seven years working on the building sites and arriving just as the Galway Races begin. He sets out on a marathon week of drinking and enjoying the craic with his friends, but his singleminded pursuit of the best pint is interrupted by the appearance of an old love and the meeting of a new one. In making his choice between the two, Martin is brought to realise the direction in which his life must now move. In “Home for the Races” Dick Byrne has captured the many facets of Galway life, from the excitement of a day at Ballybrit during Race Week to the altogether different thrill of fishing the Bay for mackerel. The closeness of the Claddagh community is typified in the instant recognition Martin receives after his long absence, when he is firmly “placed” within his family by those whom he encounters as he roams the city in search of old memories. In the final chapter we see Martin leaving Galway as he arrived, by steamtrain, and leaving on a note of hope for the future.

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The Last Corporation Man by Vincent Flood
- In “The Last Corporation Man” Dubliner Vincent Flood shares his memories of working as a carpenter for the “Corpo” in the 1950s. Using a third person narrative and writing in a uniquely colloquial manner, the author succeeds in conveying the hardships of the time as experienced by the workers and the tenants of the buildings they were sent to repair. The grim realities of life are leavened with a number of darkly humorous incidents including the clearing of a blocked drain at the city morgue and the accidental barricading of an old lady in a derelict house. Interspersed with a number of black and white photographs, the narrative succeeds in giving a flavour of Dublin life before the advent of the Celtic Tiger.

Memoirs of a Garda Superintendent by Tim Leahy
- Covering thirty-four years as a member of the Garda Siochana, “Memoirs of a Garda Superintendent” by Tim Leahy provides a fascinating look at the development of our police force since the 1940s. It seems hard to credit now that those gardai who lived within the station, and who were charged with the protection of the public day and night, were themselves subject to a curfew of 11pm. Although this archaic rule was not generally enforced, in Tim Leahy’s first posting in Cork city it was strictly adhered to. The author’s progression through the ranks to the position of Superintendent is told with a degree of detail which renders the narrative of particular interest to anyone with even a modest knowledge of the country. His recounting of the names of towns, villages and townlands, of colleagues and friends in each area, include many which are familiar and this serves to form a bond between author and reader. Tim Leahy’s interests in life ranged far beyond his profession, enabling him to integrate easily into each new environment and ensuring him an active retirement. After spending time in Cork, Kerry, Tipperary, Kilkenny, Waterford, Cavan, Laois and Donegal, his final posting was to Clare, which he has now made his home. The author writes well and is not afraid to express his own views on many aspects of law enforcement in this country. My only reservation about “Memoirs of a Garda Superintendent” is that the author perhaps devoted a disproportionate number of chapters on his formative years in Kerry, and the traditions and customs to be found there; it is only in Chapter 8 that the garda story begins.

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Hard Time by Fr Raymond Murray
- “Hard Time”, by Fr Raymond Murray, a former chaplain to Armagh Gaol, comprises a series of reports and letters issued by the author over the period 1971 to 1986. Constantly reiterating the belief that events inside a prison have important repercussions in the wider community, Fr Murray begins each report on a positive note but, by the eighties, he is being much more critical of the way in which prisoners are treated, in particular railing against the forced strip searches of the women, a practice he refers to repeatedly in calls for its abolition. Of the two letters contained in the book one is addressed to the Diocesan Senate of Priests on the subject of strip searches, while the other was sent from a number of priests of the diocese to the Governor of Armagh Gaol, emphasising the prison chaplain’s personal responsibility for all materials necessary for the celebration of the sacraments. Fr Murray’s position as chaplain came to an end when the women were transferred to Maghaberry in 1986.

The Unappeasable Host by Robert Tracy
- The title of Robert Tracy’s “The Unappeasable Host” is taken from an early poem of Yeats about the “sidhe”, but which this author believes can be equally applied to the Anglo-Irish gentry, and in particular the literary members of that group, the subject of this work. Tracy, who is Professor of English and Celtic Studies in the University of California, includes in this study Maria Edgeworth, Yeats, Joyce, Synge and Elizabeth Bowen in a group of essays which have been written over a period of some thirty years in a study of Irish identity.

United Irishmen, United States by David Wilson
- David Wilson’s work on immigrant radicals in the United States, entitled “United Irishmen, United States”, details the contribution made to the democratisation of American life by the influx of members of the United Irishmen seeking a more liberal environment. Wishing to be aligned with America rather than France, immigrants such as John Binns, Matthew Carey, John Chambers, Richard Caldwell and William McNevin repudiated Jacobinism and allied themselves with Thomas Jefferson, hoping to bring about in the US what they had failed to achieve at home. Wilson treats of the attitude of the United Irishmen to education, to blacks (despite their anti-slavery beliefs), to women and to trade unions. Dating the origin of Irish-American nationalism to the period between 1795 and 1812, the author states that by the latter date the immigrant United Irishmen had “emerged as forceful and dynamic figures in the cultural, religious and social life of the new republic”.

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The Uniforms of 1798-1803 by F. Glenn Thompson
- A book which will help bring to life the many works on the 1798 Rebellion is F. Glenn Thompson’s “The Uniforms of 1798-1803”. Filled with detailed and colourful illustrations, each regiment and fighting group is accorded a page of description and explanation of the differing uniforms, as well as showing some of the flags under which the different factions fought. Mr Thompson is a long-time member of the Council of the Military History Society of Ireland.

Landscapes with Figures by Liam de Paor
- In a second volume of essays by Liam de Paor, entitled “Landscapes with Figures”, the historian deals with “Ireland’s place in the New World Order”, complementing the earlier collection which focused on early Ireland’s interaction with the outside world. The essays, ten of which are previously unpublished, cover such diverse topics as the County Clare of Brian Merriman in the 18th century, an interpretation of the Easter Rising, a series of interviews with Protestants in the North of Ireland, and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.

Voice of Rebellion by William Farrell
- William Farrell gives a first hand account of the 1798 Rising in Carlow. Written between 1832 and 1845, it describes vividly the scenes of horror that ravaged the county at the time and also tells of Farrell’s own part in the rebellion which nearly cost him his life. Edited by Roger McHugh of UCD, “Voice of Rebellion” is introduced by actor Patrick Bergin whose family has lived in Carlow for generations.

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