Read Ireland Book Reviews, April 2000

Medieval Ireland: An Archaeology by Tadgh O’Keeffe
The study of Medieval Ireland between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries is traditionally the domain of history, but in the past decade there has been a phenomenal increase in archaeological data from the period, and the need for a fresh synthesis if felt by many archaeologists and historians. In this lively and wide-ranging book the author addresses this need. Individual chapters re-examine such familiar themes as urban and rural settlement, military, domestic, and ecclesiastical architecture, agriculture and craft, trade and industry. Other topics discusses include diet, dress, burial rites, and entertainment. The cultural relations between the Gaelic Irish and English populations of medieval Ireland are explored throughout the book, as are Ireland’s relations with her European neighbours. With its elegantly written text and numerous illustrations, this portrait of medieval Ireland will appeal to general readers as well as to students and professionals in the fields of history, archaeology and historical geography.

The Story of a Toiler’s Life by James Mullin
This powerful memoir gives new insights into the experiences and forgotten hopes of the white-collar professionals who provided late nineteenth century Irish nationalism with its activists. First published in 1921, after the author’s death, the book’s unfashionable political and religious attitudes ensured its neglect, although it includes memorable vignettes of meetings with Parnell, Davitt and Pearse. It gives an invaluable description of the poverty and sectarian divisions of post-Famine rural Ulster and the anti-Irish prejudices of Britain in the 1880s, but also of the new opportunities provided by a slowly modernising state which a lucky and enterprising boy would attain at great emotional cost.

Ferocious Humanism: An Anthology of Irish Poetry from Before Swift to Yeats and After edited by W. J. McCormack
In this avowedly interpretive anthology of Irish verse, W.J. McCormack traces through several centuries a creativity of contradiction, a ‘ferocious humanism’ which finds poets productively at odds with their forebears, their contemporaries - even with themselves. Swift’s self-lacerating savagery sets the tone, yet this tradition of ferocity also includes great Gaelic poets like Daithi O Bruadair and Aodhagan O Rathaille, as well as Anglophone voices like James Clarence Mangan and Samuel Ferguson. Women poets - from Esther Johnson in the eighteenth century to Eavan Boland and Medbh McGuckian in our own - are in some ways the most representative voices of all in this tradition of outsidership. From Yeats’s tragic laughter to the quieter ironies of Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Michael Longley, from the rumbustious narratives of Merriman and Joyce to the pathos of Wilde’s Reading Gaol, the same sparring spirit is found. Even Goldsmith’s benign muse takes on an edge of ambiguity in this canonical context. Beckett’s outlandish art on the other hand seems more comfortably at home here than would ever have been imagined. This exciting new anthology brings together the very best in Irish poetry to reveal a broad yet sharply-focuses tradition of diversity and dissidence. This compelling collection will provide a wide-ranging reconsideration of one of the world’s richest literatures.

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The Book of Irish Names: The Origins and Meanings of Over 150 Names for Children by Iain Zaczek
The Celtic tradition has given us some of the most beautiful and evocative names. This book lists the most popular names for both boys and girls, giving their derivations, pronunciations, meanings and the legends associated with their historical and mythical namesakes. Comprehensive calendars of Irish saints’ feast days also allow a baby’s birth to be matched to the saint of the day. The names, which range from the ever-popular Liam and Bridget to the more unusual Aoife and Lochlainn, are accompanied with specially commissioned illustrations making this book the ideal present for parents-to-be.

No Drinking No Dancing No Doctors by Martina Evans
In her late 60s Beulah Kingston is still almost as tall, black-haired and headstrong as on her wedding day in 1944. Born into a strict Protestant sect and brought up an innocent in the tiny Irish village of Two Mile Cross, Beulah has more knowledge of the Bible than of her true feelings and desires. Now, as she faces the prospect of hospital and an X-ray for the first time in her life, she finds herself compelled to re-examine the secret passion of her youth and the death of her decent-hearted husband. But what finally triggers the journey into a past shared only by her sister Hester, the ne’er-do-well Danny Fox and the village doctor Joe Costello, is the arrival of her grand-daughter Beccy, the spitting image of the teenage Beulah. Told with imagination and humour, and peopled by living, breathing characters, this novel is a funny and affecting story that conceals a tragic secret at its heart.

Oracles of God: The Roman Catholic Church and Irish Politics, 1922-37 by Patrick Murray
This superbly researched book gives a detailed account of the political outlook and activities of the Roman Catholic clergy, nationality and in the localities, during the fifteen years after the Treaty. The author examines and assesses the clerical response to the Treaty, the involvement of bishops and priests in pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty politics, their dealings with Fianna Fail, the fundamentalist Republicans of the left and right, and the Northern State. The author draws on a wide range of hitherto unexplored archival and other documentary material, and on the expertise of local historians and scholars. No other account deals in such depth and detail with the political involvement of the Roman Catholic clergy of every rank in Irish politics, North and South, between 1922 and 1937.

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Easy Guide to Reading Faces: Character Analysis and Predictions by CaZee Carew
This book is written with the desire for all to discover their own personal gifts and the true purpose of their unique journey through life.

I Am Alone by Walter Macken
Banned in Ireland when it was first published in 1949, this novel tells the story of a young Irishman, Patrick Moore, who leaves behind the gray stone and green fields of Galway for the bright lights of pre-war London. What he finds in one way is the drabness of the suburbs under the clouds of the approaching war. Yet all of Patrick’s senses soon become overwhelmed as he meets with new experiences, and in particular with the new and different women of London. However, old allegiances and aspirations intervene, adding a further layer to his existence as an Irishman in London, and when he meets up with his old friend Jojo things really begin to get complicated. As the black planes drone overhead and the world holds its breath, Patrick finds it is crisis time for himself, his wife, his friends and his loyalties. Walter Macken’s intention, so memorably realised here, was ‘To place the very ordinary against a background of implacable and hopeless idealism.’ And so important was this novel to him that he wrote: ‘When I die and they carry out an autopsy on me, I hope that they will see ‘I Am Alone’ engraved on my heart.’

More Bread Or I’ll Appear by Emer Martin
From the bars of New York’s East Village to the neon forest of Tokyo’s underworld, from the hidden waterfalls of Hawaii to the slums of Mexico City, this novel is a journey that spans continents and mental states. / Driven ever onwards by a savage love, Keelin is searching for her sister, Aisling, who disappeared from her home in Ireland one summer without warning. Her family is devastated, haunted by the loss, with only exotic postcards as hints to her whereabouts. But the postcards have long since dried up and Keelin is determined to track her sister down. A schoolteacher, who has always lived with her mother, Keelin has led a sheltered life in Ireland, but as she visits the places where Aisling has been and encounters the trial of friends and lovers that her sister has left behind, she finds herself being sucked into the dark, erotic world that Aisling inhabits. / Things begin to go awry, and the search becomes a ruthless hunt when family secrets are revealed and betrayals imminent. In relentless pursuit, Keelin is forced to question her own identity and put a name to the affliction that continues to curse her family. A brilliantly wild, fast-paced odyssey, this novel consolidates the author’s reputation as one of Ireland’s most exceptional young writers.

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The Cold That Burns: Poems by Siobhan Campbell
With a cool eye and wry humour, the poet challenges the reader to look at what gives us sustenance. If there is no afterlife, how do we continue to honour and commune with the dead? In these fine poems, questions arise at a holy well, or after a grand-aunt’s tea-leaf reading, or when a walking stick seems to hold two very different stories. The collection culminates in asking how ‘modern’ we really are, and whether the attempt to explain mystery through science or logic can actually make us more rational. Holding tight to a residual faith in human endeavour, these poems speak to anyone with a sense of the underlying search for meaning that fuels our relationships with each other and with the world.

A Very Private Affair by Dee Cunningham
When she got married at the age of 22, Margaret took the past, locked it up and threw away the key. Until one day someone found that key. Mick Cleary is a bright Dubliner in his early twenties; he is married with a child and works as a house painter, a job fixed up for him by his Da. Except, as Mick has known since school, Da isn’t really his father, and the kindly rough diamond Nan is not his mother. His working class adoptive parents’ rejection of his academic promise and refusal to allow him to continue his education spurs him to try to find his birth mother. She is not al all what he expects and, as the relationship between Margaret and her son develops, the begin to experience distinctly unfamilial emotions.

The Courtship Gift by Julie Parsons
When best-selling thriller Mary, Mary was released last year in paperback, it consolidated its position as one of the most innovative and popular psychological thrillers in years. ‘Makes Patricia Cornwell read like Paddington Bear’ said the NEW YORK TIMES. Now author Julie Parsons is all set to repeat that success with the paperback publication of her second novel, The Courtship Gift. / This novel is a journey into the dark heart of contemporary Dublin. On a cold April night, Anna Neale arrives home late and discovers her husband dead in his study, his face in a rictus of agony. The simple security of her life vanishes forever. Crippled by the sudden, unbearable discover of huge undisclosed debts, fraud and infidelities stretching back through the entire course of their marriage, Anna is forced to seek refuge - to begin her life again penniless, vulnerable, alone. Then a man called Matthew calls to bring her his ‘courtship gift’ - a stunningly powerful thriller which explores the true nature of evil.

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Rich and Rare: The Story of Irish Dress by Brid Mahon
The Gleninsheen gorget, one of the treasures of the National Museum of Ireland, which features on the cover of this book, is an early example of the types of personal adornment the Irish have used in their dress down the ages. In this entertaining and compact treatment, the author looks at traditional Irish clothes - whether of kings and queens, their soldiers and servants or the fisherfolk along the western seaboard - from the earliest times to the present. She examine, among other things, the way in which certain colours, such as purple, could be worn only by certain classes of people. The author has made a study of natural dyes and their use in traditional clothing; a table showing the various flora and fauna that have been used over the years to dye clothes is included.

Irish Folklore by Brid Mahon
The written literature of medieval Ireland has been described as one of the earliest voices from the dawn of Western civilisation. Earlier still are the oral tradition and the oral literature, which have been passed down to our own day. The author is one of a small band of workers who, over the period of thirty-six years, helped gather what is probably the largest and most important body of folklore in western Europe. This material is now housed in the archives of the Department of Irish Folklore in University College Dublin. Writing with a succinct and readable style, the author drawn on this treasure trove of material in her accounts of the ancient sagas, the great traditions of storytelling, the attitudes of the Irish to the spirit world and the customs relating to hospitality and gracious giving.

Irish Marriage Customs by Maria Buckley
Drawing on literary, historical and folklore sources, from Mr. & Mrs. S.C. Hall in the 1840s to Kevin Danaher, the author has put together a fascinating account of how people went about the business of marriage in the Ireland of yesteryear, in a way far removed from today’s expensive and commercial formalities: how matches were made; why Shrove was important; what the ‘Skellings list’ meant; why couples once commonly married at home; how the bride and groom travelled; what ‘strawboys’ and other diversions were; and, how long the celebrations lasted.

A Guide to Irish Mythology by Maeve Walsh
The mythology of the Irish Celts, as anthropologically rich and rare as that of the Greeks and Romans, has long excited the imagination not only of the Irish but of the world at large. It has provided a rich soil for Irish literature for over two centuries, loaming the poetry of Irish bards from Mangan to Heaney. It was the source of the Literary Revival and like all mythologies it is the record of a people explaining themselves to themselves. This account, conveniently arranged in alphabetical order and cross-referenced, lists the personalities, immortal and semi-divine, the places and the magic objects that go some way to illuminate that marvellously complicated and enigmatic entity, the Irish psyche.

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The Irish Famine 1845-1852 by Edward Purdon
This short account provides in a convenient and readable form the story of the disaster, its causes, the inadequate official response to it, the forced emigration that followed it and its legacy of bitterness which remains to this day.

The Civil War 1922-23 by Edward Purdon
On 6 December 1921 Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins signed the document which gave 26 counties of Ireland dominion status and a remarkable degree of political autonomy. Eight months later, both were dead and the country, which should have been celebrating its great leap forward towards freedom - was crucified by civil war. The story of this brothers’ conflict, with its score of killings, torture, reprisals and long-lasting bitternesses, is told succinctly and readably in this book.

The 1916 Rising by Edward Purdon
The Easter Rising, which lasted for five days at the end of April 1916 and made Pearse, Connolly and MacDermott household names, is probably the single most important event in the history of modern Ireland. Attitudes to it have ranged from acclamation to execration. It seemed to end in abject failure with its participants jeered and spat upon by their compatriots, yet within weeks it was realised that its purpose had been attained: a spirit of revolution had been kindled in a quiescent country. The effects of that gesture for good or ill are with us still and this account of its context, course and consequences is required reading for those who would understand the history of this island ever since that triumphant failure.

Charles Stewart Parnell by Sean McMahon
Charles Stewart Parnell, the ‘uncrowned king of Ireland’, remains the great enigma of Irish politics. A Protestant landlord, he was worshipped by Irish nationalists, who mourned his early death as if he had been a member of their own families. He taught the Irish MPs how to use their power in the British parliament and may have been on the point of achieving a form of Home Rule when the discovery of his secret affair with a married woman, Katharine O’Shea, caused his downfall. His death from a heart attack shortly afterwards left the Irish leaderless but still empowered to complete his work. This short book combines in readable form the story of the life and career of a remarkable Irishman.

Daniel O’Connell by Sean McMahon
Born in west Kerry to a family which retained some of the remarkable features of the old Gaelic clans, Daniel O’Connell formed himself into the leader of his people, equipping himself for the task with long hours of tedious study to turn himself into one of the most brilliant lawyers in a legal system that was horribly biased against Irish Catholics. O’Connell made tireless efforts to remove the last disabilities suffered by Catholics by constitutional means and found victory with emancipation in 1829. Although the goal of national independence eluded him, he started the process. This short and readable life of Daniel O’Connell covers the highs and lows of a giant who admitted to having very human weaknesses but managed to wear with justice and dignity the trappings of greatness.

The Story of the Claddagh Ring by Sean McMahon
‘Let love and friendship reign!’ is the motto of the famous Irish Claddagh ring. This lovely token of fealty - a ring in gold or silver comprising two hands surrounding a heart and surmounted by a crown - takes its name from the Claddagh, an ancient fishing village now part of Galway city. The earliest surviving examples are from about 1700 but it is known that the rings were popular much earlier. Tradition has it that in the Claddagh these rings were handed down from mother to daughter. Now the Claddagh ring is a sought-after piece of jewellery and a symbol of romance the world over.

A Book of Irish Insults by Sean McMahon
Insults may be defined at their simplest as remarks or descriptions not intended as complimentary. Ireland can number among its sons and daughters some of the wittiest insulters ever - Swift, Behan and Myles na Gopaleen are just three who come to mind. This book is filled with insults and witticisms. / All the books in this wonderful series are priced at 4.99 Irish pounds (about 7 US dollars).

A Compact History of Ireland by Sarah Healy
This book provides in succinct, accessible form, a thematic rather than strictly chronological account of Irish history. The story of Ireland has been told many times but never quite in this form. The author’s book begins with a comprehensive historical portrait which presents the whole fabric of three thousand years of Irish life. For subsequent chapters she has selected for development the significant threads of the historical web, the themes of invasion, rebellion, the Black North, and aspects of the culture, especially literary theory, that make the whole of Ireland the cultural jewel of the Western World

The Story of Irish Emigration by Frank D’Arcy
The small island of Ireland provides a striking example of exile and opportunity, of exodus and disaster, of new communities and faithful memories, from the idealistic monks of the 6th century to the ambitious professionals of the late 20th. Emigration to the ‘New World’ as we know it began in the 18th century. During the famines of the 1840s, the flood became an exodus and literally millions crossed the Atlantic. Later in the 19th century, as the Industrial Revolution flourished in Britain, huge numbers of Irish made the shorter journey to work there in the mines and mills, to build roads and bridges and enlist in armies. This movement of population continued apace until the 1960s. In a distant corner of the British Empire, the Irish too made their mark. So many Irish were deported or simply emigrated to Australia that a substantial minority of the population can claim Irish descent. The Irish had a strong influence on the communities where they settled, becoming a substantial political and religious force, particularly in the United States. This book gives a fascinating account of the Irish in exile in the four corners of the globe.

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The Blarney Stone by Peg Coghlan
The ‘blarney’ or gift of the gab is one endowment all Irish people are said to possess. The reasons for the existence of this power over words are complicated but the hospitable Irish, generous as ever, have provided even strangers with the means of achieving it. All they have to do is kiss the Blarney Stone in the MacCarthy castle in the village of Blarney. This book tells the story of the Blarney Stone. It also explains why thousands of people each year climb an exhausting circular stairway in a village near Cork to achieve the envied Hibernian fluency.

Irish Saints by Peg Coghlan
The island of Saints and Scholars was aptly named and produced hundreds of true saints from the 5th to the 9th century, although there are officially only three canonised saints: Laurence O’Toole, Malachy and Oliver Plunkett. This book provides biographies of a representative selection of the women and men whose sanctity, austerity, humanity and scholarship are the glory of Irish history, the remarkable people who lit a light that shone in the darkness and was never quenched.

The Untilled Field by George Moore
First published in 1902, this novel proved the one of his works that pleased its author best for its affectionate portraits of Irish rural life. Though modelled initially on Turgenev’s ‘Tales of a Sportsman’, the stories soon became original inspirations woven out of Moore’s memories of the peasants who lived and worked on his family estate in Mayo. Moore took as his theme the pathos of their existence: the bleakness: the imaginative, cultural and emotional austerity that compelled many, often whole parishes, to emigrate and leave their homes in ruins; the indefatigable resilience of those who stayed and endured: and the fragile consolation offered by their religion. The painfulness of his subjects he offset by the gentle humour of his treatment. Moore’s antipathy to the Catholic clergy was soon to become notorious but the tragic-comic plight of the parish priest who finds his power and moral authority undermined by the poverty of his parishioners and the cunning they develop in order to survive provokes in these tales some barbed satire but much compassion and amusement. The delicacy of discrimination, the emotional control that reveals Moore’s understanding and pity through a technique of powerful understatement is unusual in his work and unusual too in the tradition of Irish fiction. This book is one of the richest and most perfectly written novels of the 20th century, and the depth of feeling that went into its composition is evident throughout. / This new printing of the text of the 1931 edition also contains the texts of ‘In The City’ and ‘The Way Back’ which Moore omitted from that volume. It also contains an introduction by Professor Richard Allen Cave.

Fallon’s Wake by Randy Lee Eickhoff
This is a modern day novel of intrigue and suspense set against the rich history of Ireland. It is the story of Tom Fallon, an ex-IRA assassin who has retired to a small cottage on Long Woman’s Grave in an attempt to put the past behind him. His days are quiet, filled with regret over deeds past, until a visit from a soldier convinces him that he must return to the Republican movement. This time the issue is drugs, and Fallon realizes he must help the IRA stop the drug shipments into Ireland, if only to prove that the organisation has the best interests of the country at heart. / But what starts as a simple attempt to make peace with the past quickly opens the door to a dangerous future as Fallon becomes enmeshed in a dark game of international crime, a shocking intrigue that involves political leaders at the highest levels. In the process, he also stumbles upon the bitter truth, buried below decades of war - a truth that leaves a country torn at the seams with one last hope for peace. / This novel is a story of the search for peace, not just for Tom Fallon, but also for Ireland itself, the country he loves and serves. As Tom struggles through these personal realisations he must re-evaluate everything he has come to know and trust, and seek out the one last chance for peace.

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The Sorrows: The Ulster Cycle by Randy Lee Eickhoff
Continuing his modern retelling of the ancient collection of Irish sagas known as ‘The Ulster Cycle’, this book comprises three stories which symbolically portray Ireland’s rich history and cultural heritage. / The first story, ‘The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn’, is the Irish equivalent of the Greek tragedy of Jason and the Argonauts. It is the tragic tale of three brothers who must pay a ‘blood-fine’ for murdering an enemy of their clan. The tale reflects the great sorrow of the civil war, which has plagued Ireland for centuries. / ‘The Fate of the Children of Lir’ tells of an evil stepmother who, jealous of her husband’s four children, changes them into swans. After nine hundred years they are released from their fate, reflecting the triumph of Christianity over paganism as well as the tragedy of the Irish being driven from their homeland. / The final story, ‘The Fate of the Children of Uisliu’, is more commonly known as the Story of Deirdre. In this take, Conchobor, the Red Branch King, tries to force Deirdre to be his wife, symbolising England’s attempt to force the Irish into servitude and rendering Deirdre a tragic symbol of both ancient and modern Ireland. / Filled with adventure and tragedy, this book provides another insightful look into Ireland’s past through three of its most enduring tales.

The Raid: The Ulster Cycle by Randy Lee Eickhoff
This book is rollicking, bawdy, sometimes hilarious, ultimately both tragic and glorious. It is a tale of epic proportions yet never loses the human dimension. It is one of the world’s great adventure tales.

The Feast: The Ulster Cycle by Randy Lee Eickhoff
[also available]]

Speaking Volumes: A Dublin Childhood by Edith Newman Devlin
In this highly original genre-defying book, the author remember her childhood in Dublin in the 1930s and 1940s as a poor Protestant living among even poorer Catholics. She tells of her strange home in the gate lodge of Jonathan Swift’s hospital for the insane, and of her increasingly strained relationship with her devoted but undemonstrative father. Reading was her salvation, and in novels like Jane Eyre, Hard Times and Anna Karenina she found her own inarticulate experience better understood and better expressed. Pithy, illuminating commentaries on the emotional truth of great literature alternate with chapters of strong personal memoir to make this unique book as universal in its reach as it is individual in its telling.

The Truth about the Leprechaun by Bob Curran
This book is an expose of the wee folk of Ireland. Intrepid folklorist Bob Curran not only explores the legends, but also warns of the realities beyond the myths surrounding his diminutive shoemaker and his cousins in the fairy world. From the origins of his hero of Irish folklore - fallen angel, diminished god or son of other fairies? - to his habits, occupations and characteristics - this book offers enlightenment on little-known aspects of the wider fairy world, as well as turning the spotlight on the real Leprechaun - elusive, complex and contradictory.

Hungry for Home: Leaving the Blaskets by Cole Moreton
This book tells the story of an Irish island and the dramatic events that led to its being abandoned. The author goes in search of the missing islanders, discovering a few survivors still alive within sight of the Great Blasket. Following the footsteps of the emigrants who had left half a century earlier, he seeks out the dead man’s brother and discovers an extraordinary end to their untold story. Driven out of a home locked in the Middle Ages, the exiled islanders had crossed the Atlantic and made a new life in the world’s most advanced nation. This is a book about home and what it means, a voyage to America from the edge of Ireland, and a gripping account of a quest for a vanished people. But most of all it is the story of a family, the Kearneys, and their breathtaking journey from one way of life to another.

The Irish Brandy Houses of 18th Century France by L.M. Cullen
In the latter half of the 18th century, particularly in the 1760s, Ireland became the focal point of the international brandy trade. This pioneering study, based on exhaustive research in French archives, tells the story of the Irish families - Hennessy, Saule and Jennings, Galwey, Delamain, and others - who played a leading role in brandy distilling in the Charente region of France. Family connections and intermarriage, trading problems, marketing and finance, the role of smugglers and the effects of the French Revolution are detailed by Professor Cullen, against a backdrop of a burgeoning French economy and the expansion of world demand for brandy during a time of urbanization and grain surplus.

The Little Hammer by John Kelly
In a paint-splattered room, a young man and successful Irish painter confronts his shocking and murderous past - a dark day on the beach at Bundoran, Co. Donegal, when he quietly dispatched a palaeontologist with his own geological hammer. His life is further disrupted by the beautiful Billie Maguire, an Ingrid Bergman lookalike who leads him all the way to Prague and involves him - and his beloved and devoutly paranoid grandmother - in yet another grievous crime. Struggling to keep reality and unreality apart, he wishes only to be taken seriously - as sinner and lover, artist and murderer. This novel is a triumph of linguistic brio, dark imagination and wild wit from one of Ireland’s exciting new talents.

Ireland - The Inner Islands: A Journey Through Ireland’s Inland Waterways by Kevin Dwyer
Here is Ireland’s inland waterway network as never seen before. In these magnificent photographs, the reader senses the mood and atmosphere of Ireland’s rivers, lakes and canals from the Lee Navigation in the north. Revealed here are the beauty and tranquillity of the Barrow, the Grand and Royal Canals, the Shannon and its lakes, the Shannon-Erne Waterway, and less obvious waterways such as the Munster Blackwater Navigation. The reader is not only taken on a journey on the waterways but also through the countryside, villages and towns of Ireland. This book is a timeless tribute to the great natural beauty of Ireland.