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Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.42 (January 1999)
The Great Shame
by Thomas Keneally
- Subtitled “A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New”, this
new work by the author of the award-winning “Schindler’s Ark” deals with
the deportation of Young Irelanders and other offenders to Australia,
and follows the careers of the most prominent in the United States. Keneally
gives a number of explanations for the title; the shame inspired by the
dramatic fall in population after the famine, the shameful misgovernment
of Ireland during the 19th century, the discrimination practised against
Catholics, and the failure of Irishmen in the last century to bring about
an independent state. The book opens with an account of the deportation
of Hugh Larkin, from whom the author’s wife is descended, and we follow
his fortunes on the journey to Australia and his eventual emergence as
a free man running a store in a small town. A reasoned explanation is
given as to the apparent abandonment of his wife and two sons in East
Galway and his subsequent marriage to a fellow deportee, and this first
section of the book gives a gripping account of what it meant to be cut
off from all that had been familiar. The author then takes up the story
of more famous Fenian deportees such as William Smith O’Brien, Thomas
Francis Meagher and John Mitchel, and their subsequent emergence as political
and military leaders in the United States. A considerable portion is taken
up with the participation of Meagher and the sons of Mitchel in the American
Civil War, while the organisation of the escape of a group of Fenian prisoners
from Fremantle gaol aboard the whaler Catalpa, involving co-operation
between Irishmen on both sides of the world is described in great detail.
While the story of the movement backwards and forwards across the oceans
of the world of a number of noted names in Ireland’s republican history
has its own importance, my enjoyment of this work would have been increased
had the author focused more on the lives of the ordinary men and women
who made new lives for themselves following deportation. This is, nonetheless,
a meticulously researched and exhaustively notated and indexed account
of a turbulent time in our history.
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Famine Diary
by Brendan O Cathaoir
- Between 1995 and 1997 the Irish Times published a daily Famine Diary
compiled by Brendan O Cathaoir which, in his own words, “seeks to unearth
the stories of the unrecorded”. The diary opens with the discovery of
the potato blight in September, 1845 and proceeds to give a relentless
account of the country’s descent into famine, disease and human degradation
over the next three years. The author’s effective use of the present tense
brings an immediacy and a sense of involvement to the narrative, for which
he has combed a number of sources including letters, and newspaper and
parliamentary reports. The news of increasing want from many parts of
Ireland, particularly the south and west, is recorded alongside the attempts
of the Young Irelanders to bring about the Repeal of the Union, and the
British Government’s sometimes criminal concentration on what they saw
as sound economic practice, at the expense of humanitarianism. The failure
of the potato crop for three consecutive years had a devastating effect
on the population, eventually involving even those small farmers who had
managed to carry on with difficulty during the earlier disasters. Blame
was laid on the shoulders of the indolent Irish themselves, on absentee
landlords, on priests inciting their flocks to violence and ultimately
by Charles Trevelyan on “an all-wise and all-merciful Providence”. Similarly,
in an extraordinary statement from Lord Shrewsbury, an English Catholic
peer, the famine is seen as stemming from the “unerring, though inscrutable,
designs of God”. What emerges particularly strongly here is the total,
and in some cases wilful, ignorance of the English about Ireland; as the
author puts it, “The satiated never understand the emaciated”.
Brendan O Cathaoir by no means confines himself geographically to Ireland
and some of the most affecting descriptions are those of the fate of emigrants
landing at Grosse Ile in Canada. He also notes the large number of religious
of all denominations, and medical practitioners, who died as a result
of tending the victims. The work of the Quakers is not overlooked and
the attitude of the Society of Friends to what is happening in Ireland
is in stark contrast to that displayed by members of the British Parliament.
“Famine Diary” places in context what one Laois priest described as “a
conspiracy against life”, and takes the reader past the statistics and
legislation to examine the enormous difficulties experienced by those
suffering and those trying to alleviate the suffering caused by the Great
Hunger.
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Every Dead THing
by John Connolly
- John Connolly is the writer to whom a record advance for a first novel
was made by his publishers, and their faith seems to have been rewarded
in this multi-layered thriller which somewhat resembles a mountain climb
- each time you think you’ve reached the summit you find another peak
to scale. Set in a swathe of American states from Maine to the Deep South,
“Every Dead Thing” is an examination of our attitudes to mortality as
well as a story of one man’s search for the person who killed his wife
and daughter in a particularly bizarre and cruel way. What gives the book
its edge over others of the genre is the complexity of plot and the psychological
depth of the killer’s motives, which draw on Renaissance scientific and
artistic works, as well as the metaphysical poets. The particular method
of killing is not for the squeamish, but there is a kind of awful fascination
in linking it to its historical inspiration. The Travelling Man has a
mission in life, a desire to show his fellow men the futility of both
life and love, and it is Bird Parker’s mission to track him down. In following
a suspected victim to Virginia he uncovers another series of deaths and,
as with each new development, his discovery leads him forward while also
linking to past events so that the whole becomes a complicated but logical
web of interconnecting strands. Gangs in New York and New Orleans make
their own not insignificant contribution to the mortality rate, while
characters such as Angel and Louis, living just out of the law’s reach,
have their own place in Parker’s eventual success.
I enjoyed this book immensely, though I admit to reading the final chapters
of the story in the vain hope that my guess as to the identity of the
culprit would be proved wrong, that a new twist would present itself.
By way of compensation, however, Connolly resists the temptation to tie
all the ends up neatly, by leaving unresolved the growing relationship
between Parker and criminal psychologist Rachel Wolfe, who has been with
him for much of his odyssey.
The Candle Factory
by Bernard Neary
- The very fact of a family business being in existence for more than
500 years will catch the imagination, and Bernard Neary’s story of that
business manages to capture the atmosphere of Dublin and its craftsmen
from the latter years of the 15th century to the present day. Rathborne’s
candle factory is believed to have been set up in 1488, in Winetavern
Street, when the family left Chester for Ireland following the demise
of that city as a prosperous port. By the early years of the 17th century
the family had relocated to St Michan’s parish, north of the river and
eventually they settled at Dunsinea in the Castleknock area before making
their final move to East Wall in the 1920s. The author has clothed this
bare outline with a wealth of detail on the history of candle-making,
the traditions of the craft which have remained unchanged to this day,
the uses made of candle-power down through the centuries and the way in
which the Rathborne family ensured the survival of their company during
lean times; in Dunsinea they also owned a farm on which their workers
were employed when business was slow.
While the obvious uses of candlelight are all listed - household and street
lighting, carriage lights and churches, a surprising fact was that until
the beginning of the 19th century many lighthouses were still using candle
power. A mark of the Rathborne family’s business acumen is shown in their
becoming suppliers of oil to the lighthouses when oil lamps took the place
of candles as a source of light. In the present day, of course, decorative
candles have again become big business and Rathborne’s, though the family
connection is now broken, continues to prosper. This is due in no small
part to its workers, and Bernard Neary includes many pen portraits of
workers and management, with their memories adding considerably to the
interest of the text. Nor does he confine himself strictly to his subject,
but manages to include such asides as the plot of a film made on the factory
premises, the headstone details of a family who perished when the RMS
Leinster was torpedoed in 1918, and anecdotes of the last days of candle-power
in rural Ireland.
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Emerging Voices
by Pat O’Connor
- In “Emerging Voices”, Professor Pat O’Connor examines the place of women
in contemporary Irish society, comparing their present position with that
of women 30 years ago. Covering aspects ranging from coping with the family
and work to the particular problems experienced by young Irish women,
the author comments on the difficulties facing women in gaining equality
despite the steady erosion of male supremacy in institutions such as church,
state and economic system. While women have an increasing presence in
paid employment, in part due to a fall in family size, heavy emphasis
is still placed on the caring role. In particular, young women still have
low levels of self-esteem, seeing themselves as inferior in a male context.
Professor O’Connor has produced an in-depth study of the role of women
in modern Ireland, concluding that their position is in a state of change
which must be reinforced by the State if it is to develop further.
Trams to the
Hill of Howth by James Kilroy
- A series of nostalgic photographs makes up a significant part of “Trams
to the Hill of Howth” by James Kilroy. The author is a Howth resident
and has been active in the restoration of the vehicles, and his enthusiasm
is evident throughout the book. The narrative gives a history of the area
and chronicles the inter-company disputes which led to two distinct sets
of vehicles, the Howth Trams and the Hill Trams. The route taken by the
trams is described in great detail, with historical anecdotes providing
added interest, and I particularly liked the photograph of the “privacy”
wall built up at the point where the open-topped trams passed the Stella
Maris convent. An atmospheric series of illustrations comprises the second
half of Kilroy’s book, with a selection of colour photographs taken in
the 1950s of a number of identified trams on various stages of their journey
from O’Connell Street to Howth summit.
The Last Years
of ’The Wee Donegal’ by Robert Robotham
- Another exercise in nostalgia is provided by Robert Robotham’s lavishly
illustrated record of the last ten years of the railway in Co. Donegal,
before the company converted to bus and lorry transport. The first line,
the Finn Valley line, was opened in 1863 and connected Strabane with Stranorlar,
and it was to Stranorlar station on December 31, 1959 that the last passenger
steam train pulled in. Watched by a large crowd, the station lights were
extinguished one by one until the entire area was in darkness. The Donegal
Railway was one of the first to use railcars rather than passenger cars,
since they were more economical and also had the advantage of being able
to stop anywhere along the route, which the author believes contributed
to the longevity of the service. The colour photographs serve to emphasise
the rural environment of the line, since grass seemed to grow right up to
the rails; indeed in some of the illustrations the railcars appear to be
making their way through a meadow rather than following a railtrack. Much
of the text accompanying the photographs has been supplied by Joe Curran,
the son of the last general manager of the company, and this adds a welcome
personal touch to the narrative.
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