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Read Ireland Book Reviews, June 2000
Coincraft’s Standard
Catalogue of the Coins of Scotland, Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle
of Man by Richard Lobel et. al
This book is the first new catalogue on
the subject in 15 years. It covers over 1000 years of coin issues. It
has over 400 pages printed on gloss art paper, large format hardback.
With photographs, histories and information plus prices which reflect
the current market. It has been carefully researched and is lavishly illustrated.
It is an important work for everyone interested in the histories of these
two countries and who wants to learn more about the subject. It will take
pride of place on any numismatist’s shelf.
Anchor Book of New
Irish Writing: The New Gaelach Ficsean edited by John Somer and John J.
Daly
From a nation of storytellers comes a
rich, dramatic collection of short fiction that demonstrates the power,
vitality, and diversity of the modern Irish story. From writers whose
work has become synonymous with the contemporary Irish literary renaissance
- such as Maeve Binchy, Neil Jordan, and Patrick McCabe - to a host of
fresh voices that represent the emerging vanguard of Irish fiction, this
extraordinary group of short stories showcases where Irish writers are
now, as well as where they are headed. Complete list of authors: John
Banville, Sara Berkeley, Maeve Binchy, Elizabeth Bowen, Clare Boylan,
Evelyn Conlon, Anne Devlin, Emma Donoghue, Mary Dorcey, Anne Enright,
Desmond Hogan, Neil Jordan, Rita Kelly, Bernard MacLaverty, Aidan Mathews,
Patrick McCabe, Colum McCann, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, Joseph O’Connor, Michael
O’Loughlin, Ronan Sheehan, Cherry Smyth and Eamonn Sweeney.
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Personal Accounts
from Northern Ireland’s Troubles edited by Marie Smyth and Marie-Therese
Fay
Most people are unaware of the true consequences
of the kind of violence that Northern Ireland has experienced over the
last thirty years. The language used by the media in phrases such as collateral
damage, and friendly fire, conspires to sanitise and conceal the awful,
gory and horrifying reality of the impact of war on the lives of ordinary
people. Based on in-depth interviews and survey work conducted by the
pioneering The Cost of the Troubles Study, this collection represents
the first in-depth evidence of personal loss in Northern Ireland during
the conflict. The events described in this book are told from the perspectives
of interviewees drawn from varied backgrounds and who have a range of
experiences of the conflict. The heartbreaking and unbearable reality
for all is that their loss is irretrievable. No one can repair the damage:
nothing can compensate. At a time when violence is increasingly presented
as entertainment, gun-cultures proliferate and armed conflicts can escalate
seemingly overnight, this collection provides a necessary understanding
of the cost of violence.
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Rediscovering the
Celts: The True Witness from Western Shores by Martin Robinson
Much has been made of rediscovering Celtic
spirituality in recent years. Indeed, many have felt this has been a spiritual
‘homecoming’ for them. But how should contemporary Christians respond
to this phenomenon? In this book, the author explores the flowering of
the unique Celtic expression of Christianity in history. He warns against
romanticising it, and highlights the elements of Celtic Christianity that
are of lasting value. He uncovers the hallmarks of the Celtic Church’s
missionary success - its involvement in the transformation of society,
its approach to worship and spirituality, and its immersion in Scripture.
Much of what he relates resonates with our concerns for society today,
enabling us to gain a real and balanced insight from the witness of the
Celtic Church.
The Annulment: A Novel
of Ireland and Los Angeles by Christopher Thomas Cairney
In this novel, a faint cry of moral stubbornness
curses a powerful university sports culture built upon legal corruption,
money and greed. A novel in the tradition of a post-modern gothic, this
novel is at once a love story, a horror story and a deep investigation
of that fiction constructed for us called ‘modern society.’ The protagonist
of the novel is a writer living in Los Angeles. Recently divorced, he
seeks an annulment through the Archdiocese of L.A. Late one night a stranger
leaves him a book belonging to a learned man in a backwater of Europe.
He tries to return the book to its owner but gets into trouble: with the
IRA in Belfast. What he eventually learns about the book and its owner
profoundly affects his life.
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Irish Traditions by
Kathleen Jo Ryan
This beautiful book contains 122 full-colour
photographs which capture the spirit and beauty of Ireland. It also contains
17 essays by the country’s leading personalities which offer lively insights
onto the character of its people and its rich cultural traditions. The
authors photographs evoke the mists and sunlight that play on the forty
shades of green, the romantic legend, and the dark superstitions of Ireland.
Art historians Desmond Guinness and The Knight of Glin write about architecture
and the decorative arts; novelist Benedict Kiely and actor Cyril Cusack
observe wordcraft on page and stage; architect Patrick Shaffrey and playwright
Hugh Leonard trace the patterns and characters of cities, towns and suburbs;
folklorist John B. Keane invites the reader to a country fair; and Lord
Killanin takes the mystery out of such indigenous sports as hurling and
Gaelic football. Nine other essays cover such subjects as Ireland’s craft
tradition, the Irish gift of the gab, and the rich lode of mythology,
magic and history. All together, this book is a tribute to Irish creativity.
The Songs of Elizabeth
Cronin: Irish Traditional Singer edited by Daibhi O Cronin
Elizabeth (Bess) Cronin, ‘The Queen of
Irish Song’ as Seamus Ennis called her, is probably the best-known Irish
female traditional singer of our ti me. Her reputation was such that collectors
came from far and near to hear and record her singing. Seamus Ennis collected
her songs from the Irish Folklore Commission in the mid-1940s, and again,
with Brian George, for the BBC in the early 1950s. American collectors
also recorded her: most notably Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress
in 1951. Over eighty of her songs are captured on tape, but only a few
of these have ever been available to the public. This new publication
offers the complete collection (in Irish and English), with the texts
of all the songs, and a biographical essay. Accompanying the book is a
set of remastered recordings, from public and private collections, illustrating
the wide range of her repertoire, which included child ballads, songs
in Irish and English, and children’s songs. The book also includes personal
family momentos collected by her son, including her autographed song-lists;
transcriptions of her songs, notes and comments recorded by her father,
and photographic material not previously available. This personal, family
material is combined with unique access to the BBC, IFC and privately
recorded American material to offer a comprehensive account of an extraordinary
singer and her distinctive singing style.
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In Time of War: Ireland,
Ulster and the Price of Neutrality 1939-45 by Robert Fisk
First published in 1983 to outstanding
reviews, this book remains the most detailed and reliable study of Ireland
during the Second World War, or the ‘Emergency’ as it was know in neutral
Ireland. When the Union Jack was hauled down over the Atlantic naval ports
of Cobh, Berehaven and Lough Swilly in 1938, the Irish were jubilant.
But in London, Winston Churchill brooded on the ‘incomprehensible’ act
of surrendering three of the Royal Navy’s finest harbours when Europe
was about the go to war. Eighteen months later Churchill was talking of
military action against Ireland, the only member of the commonwealth to
remain neutral and which chose to keep a diplomatic representative in
Hitler’s Germany; as the Battle of the Atlantic took its toll of British
Convoys, Churchill demanded the return of the ports and the Irish made
ready to defend their country against British as well as German invasion.
In Northern Ireland, a Unionist Government vainly tried to introduce conscription
but failed to prepare the province for the German bombers which devastated
Belfast in two terrible night raids. Along the west coast of Ireland,
British submarines and trawlers manned by the Royal Navy prowled the seas
for German U-boats sheltering in the bays; British agents toured the villages
of Donegal in search of fifth columnists while their German counterparts
tried to make contact with the IRA. This book is the most authoritative
study of Irish neutrality during the Second World War; the author combines
the talents of an outstanding journalist with meticulous research, the
result makes fascinating and essential reading.
Contemporary Irish
Cinema edited by James MacKillop
At a time when national cinemas in France and Japan have been marginalized
on world screens, movies from and about Ireland have attracted huge audiences
and captures top international prizes, including an Academy Award. In
this book, James MacKillop takes a variety of approaches in the treatment
of films and film makers. Essayists, like Harlan Kennedy, John Hill, Martin
McLoon and Brian McIlroy, represent leading journalists and critics; other
contributors include young scholars well grounded in current cinematic
and literary theory. The authors probe cinema’s rewriting of Irish history,
from the controversial ‘Michael Collins’ and ‘In the Name of the Father’
to playwright Stewart Parker’s overlooked miniseries on Ulster sectarianism,
‘Lost Belongings’. Jim Loter brings the writings of Martin Heidegger to
bear on Cathal Black’s dark comedy, ‘Pigs’. And attitudes toward the institutional
church are revealed in Pamela Dolan’s analysis of ‘Playboys.’
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Brian Friel’s (Post)
Colonial Drama: Language, Illusion and Politics by F.C. McGrath
Brian Friel is one of Ireland’s most important
living playwrights and this book places him in the new canon of postcolonial
writers. Drawing on the theory and techniques of the major postcolonial
critics, the author offers fresh interpretations of Friel’s texts and
of his place in the tradition of linguistic idealism in Irish literature.
This idealism has dominated Ireland’s still incomplete emergence from
its colonial past. It appeals to Irish writers like Friel who, following
in a line from Yeats, Synge and O’Casey, challenge British culture with
anitrealistic, antimimetic devices to create alternative worlds, histories,
and new identities to escape stereotypes imposed by the colonisers. This
book is an important and accessible and scholarly introduction and illustrates
how Friel playfully subverts the English language and transcends British
influence. His reality is constructed from personal fiction, and it is
his liberating response to oppression.
Double Visions: Women
and Men in Modern and Contemporary Irish Fiction by James Cahalan
In this book the author examines gender issues in the writings and lives
of a dozen notable Irish authors and their fictional characters. Covering
literature from the late nineteenth century to the present, he seeks to
close the gender gap in Irish literary history by pairing similar works
of fiction by both men and women. The author addresses, for instance,
how women writers’ characterisations of men compare with men’s representations
of women. Sensitive to other distinctions such as class and region, the
author reveals differences in perceptions of shared subjects - such as
politics and autobiography - to illuminate a series of ‘double visions’.
Contents include readings of the Aran Islands narratives of Emily Lawless
and Liam O’Flaherty; the comic fictions and serious careers of Somerville
and Ross and James Joyce; the coming-of-age novels of Edna O’Brien and
John McGahern and Brian Moore; the ‘Troubles’ novels by Jennifer Johnston,
Bernard MacLaverty, Julia O’Faolain and William Trevor. The book’s introduction
is a far-ranging critique of feminist criticism and gender issues in Irish
cultural history, while the conclusion touches on several other resent
Irish novels and films.
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From the Sin-E Cafe
to the Black Hills: Notes on the New Irish by Eamonn Wall
Eamonn Wall arrived in the United States
in the 1980s as part of a wave of young, educated immigrants who became
known as the ‘New Irish’. In this book he comments on his own experiences
and those of his generation, who identify as much with contemporary ethnic
and immigrant America as they do with the long-settled Irish American
community. His starting point is the now-closed Sin-e CafE9 in New York’s
East Village, which was a hangout in the early 1990s for expatriate Irish
musicians, actors and writers. He comments on the poetry, fiction, essays
and memoirs of both the New Irish and Americans of Irish heritage, locating
them within a literary and historical context. But this is also a deeply
personal book in which Wall wrestles with his own identity as an Irishman
living in America, raising his children and learning to love the American
landscape, from the streets of Manhattan to the Black Hills.
The Photograph by
Eamonn Sweeney
From a moment frozen in time, this novel
sets out to retrace the stories of four men: Henry Caslin, former dancehall
owner and later Taoiseach of the Irish Republic; Jimmy Mimnagh, ruthless
businessman, failed politician, hopeless drunkard; Seamus McKeon, a successful
journalist and TV personality; and finally Father Gerry Lee, a priest
with a predilection for very young children and strong links to the IRA.
The author draws his masterful portraits convincingly and with great poignancy,
tracing the four men from their humble beginnings through four decades
of public and private life. An extraordinarily rich narrative emerges,
in which the personal stories of the central characters and the larger
issues of Irish National politics and identity are woven together to show
the brutality and the tenderness, the ambiguities and the certainties,
the comedy and the tragedy of half a century of Irish life.
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The Easter Rising:
A Guide to Dublin in 1916 by Conor Kostick and Lorcan Collins
This book is a vivid and entertaining
guide to the events and locations of the Easter 1916 Rising. Defying all
the odds, 1600 men, women and children went out on 24 April, Easter Monday,
1916 to fight for an independent Ireland. The battle raged for 6 days
and resulted in the destruction of many parts of Dublin city. The bloody
executions of the leaders by the British after the Rising awakened a generation
to the cause of Irish freedom. Vividly illustrated, this book takes the
reader through the battle-torn streets of Dublin. The reader hears the
sounds and small the gun powder of the times; the reader meets the main
players of the complex dramatic episode in Irish history.
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The Appeasement of
Terrorism & The Belfast Agreement by Patrick Roche
Published by the Northern Ireland Unionist
Party and written by its deputy leader, this book purports to be “a clear
and devastating analysis of the concessions to Irish nationalism and Sinn
Fein/IRA terrorism in the Belfast Agreement. The book looks at the formation
of the Adams/Hume pan-nationalist front; the political elevation and legitimisation
of Sinn Fein/IRA terrorism in the Mitchell Report; The UUP capitulation
in the Belfast Agreement to the fundamentals of Irish nationalism; the
corruption of democracy and the rule of law in the Belfast Agreement;
the Belfast Agreement and the destruction of the Royal Ulster Constabulary;
and the legitimisation of Sinn Fein/IRA terrorism by business and church
leaders.” The book claims to demolish any claims of Irish nationalism
and outlines a basis for devolved government in Northern Ireland grounded
on the merits of unionism rather than on the appeasement of terrorism.
Crannogs: Lake-dwellings
of Early Ireland by Aidan O’Sullivan
People lived on crannogs - artificial
lake islands built of stone and wood, with a surrounding palisade - over
a period of a thousand years, from the Early Medieval to the end of the
Early Modern period, and they represent an astonishing record of tradition
and continuity in the landscape. Wooden buckets, textiles, leather shoes,
bone combs and many other fragile materials that are not normally found
by archaeologists have been excavated at crannogs, all wonderfully preserved
by the waterlogged conditions, making these sites particularly rich sources
of archaeological information. This book illustrates the archaeology of
Irish crannogs using photographs of sites and artefacts, reconstruction
drawings, antiquarian etchings and computer-based maps and models. It
touches on such aspects as the construction and appearance of crannogs,
their sitting in the landscape and the nature of the houses, pathways,
fences, entrances and boats that they have produced.
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To Ireland, I by
Paul Muldoon
This book contains Muldoon’s Clarendon
Lectures in English 1998. It is a display of scholarship, wit and intrigue,
in an idiosyncratic wander through the alphabet of Irish literature. From
a mischievous beginning in Amerigan - ‘the first poet of Ireland’ - Muldoon
forges link after link between the disparate and the unlikely, until modernists
and medievalists appear as congenial neighbours on the half-lit, literary
streets of Ireland. From Beckett and Bowen, through MacNeice, Swift and
Yeats - and ever-guided Joyce - this book tiptoes through the long grass
of Irish writing, pirouetting at borders, diverting streams, into a landscape
of pure Muldoon: of brilliant connections and irreverent asides, of improbably
byways and unconventional leaps - but always a landscape of luminous engagement
and genuine revelation. Muldoon’s Ireland, shrouded in the feth fiada
or ‘magical mist’ of Gaelic literature, emerges as a strange estate, half-in,
half-out of what he calls ‘the fairy realm.’ A provocative A to Z, with
a particular emphasis on the continuity of the tradition, this book is
an extremely enjoyable jaunt through Irish literature from one of the
most important poets of his generation.
Silver Lining: Travels
Around Northern Ireland by Martin Fletcher
In this enchanting and highly original
book, the author presents a portrait of Northern Ireland utterly at odds
with its dire international image. He paints a compelling picture of a
place caught in a time warp since the 1960s, of a land of mountains, lakes
and rivers where customs, traditions and old-world charm survive, of an
incredibly resourceful province that has given the world not just bombs
and bullets but the Titanic, the tyre and the tractor, a dozen American
presidents, two prime ministers of New Zealand and a Hindu god. He meets
an intelligent, fun-loving, God-fearing people who may do terrible things
to each other but could not be more welcoming to outsiders. He describes
a land of awful beauty, a battleground of good and evil, a province populated
by saints and sinners that has yet to be rendered bland by the forces
of modernity. The author travels from Belfast to the furthermost corners
of Northern Ireland, from grim housing estates to romantic castles, from
mountaintops to abandoned islands. He encounters poachers, pilgrims, and
poteen-makers. He goes cock-fighting in the ‘bandit country’ of South
Armagh, eel fishing on Lough Neagh and road-bowling on country lanes.
He finds dispensers of ‘cures’ in Fermanagh and guinea-hunters in Country
Antrim. Inevitably, too, he meets terrorists and their victims.
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1000 Years of Poetry:
A Millennial Anthology edited by Sean McMahon
This collection brings together Ireland’s
poetic and imaginative heritage from the last thousand years. Arranged
thematically, and ranging from the 13th century to the present day, it
includes poems in English, Latin and Irish. Whether well-loved or obscure,
all of the poems included here are ‘solid gold, tempered by the centuries.’
This diverse collection reminds the read of once-loved words now half-forgotten
and suggests new entries for our own ‘personal anthology.’
Celebrated Letters
of John B. Keane
In this collection of some of the finest
letters of one of Ireland’s most popular writers, novelist, playwright
and literary man extraordinaire turns the letter as means of communication
into a comic, sometimes surreal artform. This book includes the complete
previously-published volumes: Letters of a Successful TD, Letters of an
Irish Parish Priest, Letters of a Love-Hungry Farmer, Letters of a Matchmaker
and Letters of an Irish Minister of State which were originally published
in the late 60s and 70s. The letters are hilariously Irish, shrewdly accurate
and richly creative: a gem!
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Words Alone: The
Teaching and Usage of English in Contemporary Ireland edited by Denis
Bates et.al
This book provides an honest and informed
commentary on how English is taught and used in our schools, on why we
follow the curricula that we do, and on which are the most likely directions
for change and reform. Two key chapters are provided on recent reform
in the teaching of English in England and Wales. Declan Kiberd provides
an overview of the situation in Ireland. Contributions come from English
teachers in all three levels of education in Ireland, from those involved
in relevant research, from those concerned with literacy, and from those
providing education support within the school system. The Department of
Education and Science and the Inspectorate are also represented. The range
and quality of its contributions will make this volume an enduring source
of guidance for anyone concerned with the teaching and usage of English
in Ireland.
Lough Derg: St. Patrick’s
Purgatory by Joseph McGuinness
St. Patrick’s Purgatory, Lough Derg, is
a unique pilgrimage site in a small lake in county Donegal - once considered
to be at the end of the earth and therefore on the threshold of the other
world. Tradition has it that the first abbot of the monastery of Lough
Derg was St. Davog, a disciple of St. Patrick. The tradition of pilgrimage
certainly dates back to the early days of Christianity - and possibly
even further. Some aspects of the pilgrimage - fasting, vigil, bare feet
- make the fact that it is still popular in the twenty-first century all
the more surprising. In this book the author outlines the history of Lough
Derg. He looks in some detail at The Vigil, The Journey to the Island,
The Station Prayers and The Spirit of the Pilgrimage. A final chapter
reflects on the relevance of the pilgrimage for the new millennium.
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Prelude to Restoration
in Ireland: The End of the Commonwealth, 1659-1660 by Aidan Clarke
This study fills a major gap in the mainstream
narrative of Irish history by reconstructing political developments in
the year before the restoration of Charles II. It is the first treatment
of the complex Irish dimension of the king’s return. The issue of the
monarchy did not stand alone in Ireland. Entangled with it was the question
of how the restoration of the old regime would affect a Protestant colonial
community which had changed in character and fortune as a result of the
Cromwellian conquest, the immigration that had accompanied it, and the
massive transfer of land that followed. As the return of Charles became
increasingly probably, Cromwellian and pre-Cromwellian settlers were united
in their determination to ensure that the restoration of Charles did not
deprive them of their gains. This account discloses how the leaders of
the Protestant establishment protected its interests by managing the transition
back to monarchy.
Beloved Stranger
by Clare Boylan
This is a terse and truthful novel about
the accretions of old age. Dick and Lily have been married for fifty years,
a marriage which Lily likens to an old tune you take for granted, but
find yourself whistling when you’re happy. Until the night she wakes to
find her husband brandishing a shotgun, convinced there is an intruder
under the bed - an incident which marks the start of Dick’s terrifying
plunge into real insanity.
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