Read Ireland Book Reviews, November 2001

Patrick Kavanagh: A Life by Antoinette Quinn
Seamus Heaney has coupled Patrick Kavanagh (1904-67) with W.B.Yeats as the two most important figures in twentieth-century Irish poetry. Patrick Kavanagh was born in County Monaghan, the son of a cobbler-cum-small farmer. He left school at thirteen but continued to educate himself, reading and writing poetry in his spare time. In 1929 he began contributing verses to the Irish Statesman and was soon publishing in Irish and English journals. His first collection, Ploughman and Other Poems, appeared in 1936 and was followed by the autobiography The Green Fool (still available in paperback) in 1938. In 1939 he moved to Dublin where he spent the rest of his life as a freelance writer. He first emerged as an important literary voice with his long poem, the Great Hunger, in 1942. Other collections and the novel Tarry Flynn (also still available in paperback) appeared in the following decades to growing critical acclaim. Kavanagh was also part of the social and literary Dublin for almost thirty years in the company of a gifted generation of writers, among them Flann O’Brien and Brendan Behan. His position in the history of Irish poetry is secure. This biography traces his life and work in a comprehensive and accessible manner, and is essential reading for all interested in Irish poetry.

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A Walk in Ireland: An Anthology of Walking Literature by collected and arranged by Michael Fewer
This book is an engaging selection of accounts of pedestrian travel throughout Ireland during the past 200 years. Through Michael Fewer’s selection of articles, excerpts, letters and journal entries, the reader experiences the beauty of the high moors and mountains, sees the conditions of the peasantry improve from poverty to wealth, marks the evolution of politics and society, and, most of all, enjoys the pleasures of exploring Ireland on foot. The interests of the contributors are many, from the antiquities of the countryside to drinking and singing, from botany to the delights of mountain climbing and from superstition and folklore to the quality of the inns. But common to all is an immediacy, an intensity of experience of both the countryside and the people, with which travelling on foot infuses their writing.

Being Irish edited by Paddy Logue
This book gathers together a diverse group of 100 people - each trying to identify and give expression to that special something that is (more or less) instantly recognisable as Irish; to detect and describe changes in it; and the record for the present and future generations the rich tapestry that is Irish identity today. The contributors come from the famous and not so famous, people at the centre of things and people on the margins, men and women, nationalists and unionists, those who live in Ireland and those who live abroad. The book aims to create a debate about the Irish identity, to acknowledge difference and encourage tolerance. Above all, it illuminates and entertains.

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Greatest Irish Americans of the 20th Century edited by Patricia Harty
Over 40 million people in the United States claim Irish heritage, yet it is almost impossible to say what it means to be Irish-American. There can be no doubt, however, that Irish America has written its own history, a history distinct, but not distance from the history of Ireland. As Irish America has also helped to shape Irish history, so to Irish Americans have had an enormous impact on the history of the United States. It seems redundant to say that the Irish have arrived, but they have. Chronicled here is the history of the twentieth-century from the Titantic to the moon, from the slums to the Oval office. If there is a common thread to all the stories in this book, it is that the shared yearning for a land that most have seen only in their mind’s eye.

Irish Volunteers in the Second World War by Richard Doherty
This book looks at the contributions of a range of Irish men and women to the Allied cause between 1939 and 1945. Many Irish soldiers served in the armoured regiments from the Desert to Germany itself, while a surprisingly large number were Gunners in the Royal Artillery with service throughout the globe and also on merchant ships. Those who served in the Merchant Navy and Ireland’s Mercantile Marine are remembered as are the many who become prisoners of war. Not all the Irish, however, supported the Allied. The book includes a chapter on Hitler’s Irish allies, including Edward Joyce (Lord Haw Haw), who was decorated by Hitler himself. Others fought with the resistance movements in occupied countries, and the stories of men such as Samuel Beckett and women such as Maureen O’Sullivan, dubbed ‘our Rebel’ by Queen Elizabeth - the present Queen Mother - are recalled. There are also stories of the many civilians who experienced total war. Irish civilians in Britain were decorated for their courage in the Blitz. One man won the George Cross - which also went to three Irish servicemen - and a number of men and women won the George Medal, including doctors, nurses, civil defence workers and several police officers, among them members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. This book is an important addition to the story of the Second World War and Irleand’s contribution to it.

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Hanged for Ireland: A Documentary History by Tim Carey
Between November 1920 and June 1921, ten Irish men were hanged in Mountjoy Prison. Each of the ten were Volunteers in the struggle for Irish independence. Through the use of documentary evidence, this book traces the lives of these ten men, from their involvement in the republican movement to their court martial and execution. The author uses previously unpublished personal correspondence and photographs to tell their story. The result is an intimate and compassionate account of the lives and tragic fate of ten Irish patriots.

RTE 100 Bliain: eire San 20u hAois (RTE: 100 Years - Ireland in the 20th Century) edited by Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill
This is the Irish-language edition of a wonderful book that illuminates and amplifies history. The everyday experience of ordinary people, as well as those significant moments that shaped Irish history, are documented through the images and news stories crowding these pages. The kaleidoscopic images and accounts of events, both trivial and important, in this book, bear witness to the momentous changes that occurred in Irish life during the last century: a monarchy revolutionised into a republic; the rural sparseness of mid-century Ireland transformed into prosperity; the generations of emigrants replaced by the youngest population in Europe. RTE marked the millennium on television by constructing a daily diary of the 20th century. This book covers the exact events as broadcast and contains over 1000 images from the substantial reference library of still and moving film of the national broadcaster. The book contains a unique and stimulating record of Ireland’s progress through the 20th century.

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The Irish Times Book of the Year 2001 edited by Peter Murtagh
This book contains an outstanding selection of the top stories, features and comment from the columns of the Irish Times newspaper over the last twelve months.

Forty-Seven Roses: A Memoir by Peter Sheridan
When Peter Sheridan’s father died suddenly and unexpectedly, the loss devastated his close-knit family, who swiftly returned to Dublin to ease their mother’s grief and give their father a rousing send-off. But it soon became apparent that an awkward situation would have to be resolved. For over 47 years, Peter’s father had maintained a relationship - mainly on paper - with another woman, Doris. She first met him in the 1940s and determinedly kept up a correspondence that would span five decades, secretly hoping against hope that eventually Peter’s father would be hers. Doris would need to be told about the death of her old friend. The author has written a moving account of his parents’ relationship, from their first encounter over a poker game in a Dundalk canteen to their final, happy days together in retirement. But he also tackles the difficult subject of Doris, a shadowy partner in their marriage, and the thorn in the side of his mother. This book is a compelling memoir that deals with themes of everlasting love, family pride and the nature of obsession, and is a powerful follow-up to his highly-acclaimed Dublin memoir, ‘44’.

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Rathcormick: A Childhood Recalled by Homan Potterton
When Mamma and Papa unexpectedly inherit a 300-year-old farm, its bleak old house betrays no signs of being a home. Yet for Homan Potterton, the youngest of eight , this is exactly what it becomes: a perch from which to observe the mysterious adult world surrounding him, a place for holidays and homecomings, marriages and deaths. Set in 1950s rural Ireland, this memoir is the utterly engaging and highly amusing story of one Protestant family: the stern, imperious Papa and the placating, wily Mamma, their two daughters and six sons, plus a memorable cast of characters from the dashing Canon Medlicott to the preposterous office secretary Miss Pringle, and the clever and cunning mongrel terrier, Rusty. But no boyhood lasts forever, and an abrupt turn of events signals the end of the idyll the tale of a free-spirited awakening in a world of old-fashioned virtue and frugality, this book is an unforgettable memoir: funny, compelling and original.

Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government by Liam Clarke
and Kathryn Johnson Martin McGuinness, former Chief of Staff of the IRA and first Minister for Education in the Northern Ireland Assembly, is the lynchpin of the current ceasefire. McGuinness has been described as ‘excellent officer material’, ‘the second most powerful man in Britain after Rupert Murdooch’, ‘the personification of the armed struggle,’ and ‘IRA godfather of godfathers.’ Yet he is also a devout Catholic, a husband and father of four and a keen poet and fisherman. In his native Derry, he is equally revered and reviled. In this book, the authors uncover the truth about the enigmatic and intensely private individual who holds the Northern Ireland peace process in his hands. Following interviews with friends and family, IRA volunteers, police officers, IRA victims, civil servants and politicians, the book tells the remarkable story of how McGuinness steered the IRA through war to peace.

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The Spirit of Rural Ireland by Christopher Somerville
The author of this book has conducted a passionate love affair with Ireland for many years. Here he writes lyrically and with characteristic humour, about the landscape of a country that he has walked and explored from end to end - the rugged mountainous west of Connemara and Mayo, the music pubs of County Clare, the limestone hills of the Burren, the vast peat bogs of the Midlands, the ceilidh houses and small farms of the North, the holy wells and standing stones that are still visited for cures and inspirations. Above all, Somerville celebrates the people of north and south Ireland: their humour that varies from gentle to black, their tremendous unstinting hospitality, the hard times they have suffered and are still undergoing, and the enduring relationship they have with the land, the weather, the seasons and the other rhythms of rural life. The evocative text is enhanced throughout by Chris Coe’s breathtaking array of characteristic and atmospheric images that bring to life the rich appeal of this enchanting country.

The Men Who Built Britain: A History of the Irish Navvy by Ultan Cowley
The term ‘navvy’ originated with the building of the 18th-century canals, the ‘inland navigation system’ in Britain. The diggers became known as ‘Navigators’, later shortened to ‘navvies’. The construction methods pioneered by the canal-builders were adapted by the railway engineers of the 19th century, and the elite excavators on these projects continued to be known as ‘Navvies’. By the middle of the 20th century, men who worked on hydroelectric schemes, motorways and other civil engineering works still retained the name. But it had become synonymous with Irish migrant labourers, ‘the heavy diggers’, who by this time dominated the groundworks aspects of British construction. This book examines how the Irish attained that dominance and the price they paid for it. High earnings were often offset by rough conditions, alienation and ill-health, while potential savings went towards maintaining generations of dependents back home in rural Ireland. It does so against the well-documented contexts of Irish emigration, and British civil engineering, over 250 years. This book is a proud and fitting tribute to the endeavors of countless Irish emigrants who ‘built Britain’!

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Singing Stone Whispering Wind: Voices of Connemara by Raymonde Standun and Bill Long
When Raymonde Standun set about photographing the local people of the South Connemara Gaeltacht, she quickly sensed that here were stories to be told that lay far beyond the reach of her camera. This unique place, these unique people, were for her a nucleus of Irish culture: its language, music and dance. Yet these people, like their ways, were old, and many were passing away. Collected here are fifty-one interviews she conducted, stories at once singular and closely intertwined with shared themes. Martin Flaherty on the Black and Tans; Julia Greaney on Fair Day at Spiddal; Cait Nic an Iomaire on making her own wedding dress; Festy Conlon on his father’s first fife. Set against Standun’s stunning images are stories of poitin for two bob, the baker’s island-delivery boat and the trials of line-fishing, alongside darker tales, still vibrant in the collective memory, of landlord brutality, famine and emigration. Edited by Bill Long, who also introduces the volume, here are the extraordinary voices of the ordinary people of Connemara.

Flora Hibernica: The Wild Flowers, Plants and Trees of Ireland by Jonathan Pilcher and Valerie Hall
From the air Ireland is green, but on the ground there are many shades of green and much that is visually exciting. What are the plant types that make up these ‘40 shades’ of green? And where do they grow? This book presents the plants of the Irish landscape and the reason why they are part of the landscape. Combining modern and ancient Irish botanical studies, it describes the special landscape and plant combinations of this damp, diverse island. After an overview of the past and present, the factors which shaped Ireland’s flora over the last 10,000 years are presented as background to today’s landscape. The book then describes, chapter by chapter, the plants associated with specific habitats, such as seashore, woodlands and boglands, and is beautifully illustrated throughout.

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There is a Time by Johnny Duhan
This book is the vivid inside story of one man’s journey into song. It begins in Limerick with his mother’s breakdown, an event that ended his childhood. A close uncle takes him to the carnival and shows him that the law of gravity can be turned on its head. Then his uncle is jailed for drunken disorder and petty theft, and the world grows heavy again. Adolescent tension is channelled into pop music and angry games with friends at Dino’s Caf=E9. At fourteen he sets out for Dublin and a Rolling Stones concert, and winds up in a doss house, but he is set on a wavering path to the bright lights. A band is formed, a friend lost, an steady job thrown back in his father’s teeth. On the road like a 1960s Don Quixote - ‘my lance a guitar, my horsepower a transit van’ - he goes in search of fame and the girl. Still in his teens, he becomes one of the original Irish pop stars, fronting a band of innocents called Granny’s Intentions. But his journey turns out to be a bug-infested, drug-ingested odyssey leading to betrayal and a cul-de-sac. Later her reincarnates himself as a songsmith. Best known for his works recorded by Christy Moore, Mary Black, Dolores Keane, Mary Coughlan and the Irish Tenors, this book maps out the songwriter’s journey in life. By turns sadly moving, richly humorous, and deeply reflective, this book is an outstanding story of an exceptional songwriter.

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Gardening the Soul: A Spiritual Daybook Through the Seasons by Sister Stanislaus Kennedy
This book is an exquisite daybook of spiritual lessons gleaned from the wisdom of nature to comfort and inspire. Sister Stanislaus Kennedy was lucky enough to be reared on a farm in Dingle, Co. Kerry, one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland. It was there that she learnt to appreciate the earth, its stillness and its energy, its beauty and its bounty. In this powerful and evocative book, she looks to the earth that is so precious to our existence for inspiration throughout the year. The book offers a daily thought to keep us going as we face the challenges of life. These words are enriched by the author’s judicious choice of references from thinkers of every creed and belief, emulating her inclusive approach to cultivating a healthy spirit.

Images of Dublin: A Time Remembered by Bill Doyle
Children at play on the cobbled streets of Smithfield; lovers embracing in St. Stephen’s Green; horse-drawn milk carts on their early-morning deliveries; a night-watchman’s lonely vigil; abandoned tram tracks; the bustling vitality of Moore Street traders; a woman polishing her doorstep; an elderly busker playing a tin whistle in Merchant’s Arch - these are just some of the remarkable images of a city and its citizens as seen through the lens of master photographer Bill Doyle. In 150 photographs that span half a century, Doyle captures and brings back to life the spirit of a time and place - a pre-boom Dublin still haunted by the ghosts of history. From the narrow alleyways and backstreets of the Liberties and the north inner city to the leafy environs of the south side, these beautiful, dramatic pictures constitute a singular photographic achievement. Also contains an introductory essay by Benedict Kiely.

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At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O’Neill
Set in Dublin and its surrounds, this novel follows the year to Easter 1916, the time of Ireland’s brave but fractured uprising against British rule. At its core it tells the love of two boys, Jim, a na=EFve and reticent scholar, the younger son of foolish, aspirant shopkeeper Mr. Mack, and Doyler, the dark rough diamond son of Mr Mack’s old army pal. Doyler might once have made a scholar like Jim, might once have had prospects like Jim: but his folks hadn’t the beans, they sent him down the country. Now he has returned, schoolboy no more, but hauler of the parish midden cart, with socialism and revolution and wilful blasphemy stuffed under his cocksure cap. And yet the future is rosy, Jim’s father is sure. His elder son is away fighting the Hun for God and the British Army and he has such plans for Jim and their corner shop empire. But Mr Mack cannot see that the landscape is changing, nor dies he realise the depth of Jim’s burgeoning friendship with Doyler. Out at the Forth Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the scandalous nude, the two boys meet day after day. There they make a pact that Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year hence, Easter 1916, they will jump from the Forty Foot and swim the bay to the distant beacon of the Muglins rock, there to raise the Green and claim that island for their country, and for themselves. As Ireland sets forth towards her uncertain glory there unfolds a love story of the utmost tenderness, carrying the reader through the turbulence of the times like a full-blown sail. Ten years in the writing, this novel reveals an artist whose mastery is not simply of his craft but of his realm and the people who live and breathe in it. This is the most ‘talked-about’ novel in Ireland this year.

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The Fisher Child by Philip Casey
Growing up in Irish families in London, Dan and Kate first met unenthusiastically as children in the 1970s. Now, years later, they are on holiday in Italy, married, in love, parents to a boy and girl. And when Kate discovers she is pregnant again, it seems they will be closer than ever. But when Meg is born, their lives are changed utterly. Trust is replaced with suspicion and anger. Dan flees to Ireland and to his father, seeking to understand what has happened to his family and to himself. It is clear, however, that his bewilderment has much older roots. The reader is taken back to 1798 where Dan’s ancestor, Hugh Byrne, is fighting on Vinegar Hill in the Rebellion. Troubled by the violence done to his family, and the violence in himself, Hugh goes into exile in the tropics, where he gradually overcomes his prejudice and remorse and begins a family with a young local woman, Ama. This novel demonstrates, with acute sensitivity, the threads of the past in every family. At time touching, it is an agonising exploration of the constantly shifting nature of love.

Francesca’s Party by Patricia Scanlan
After years of being the perfect wife and mother, Francesca Kirwan’s life is changed irrevocably one dismal autumn morning when her husband Mark forgets his mobile phone. In the space of ten minutes her comfortable, safe, uneventful existence is completely shattered. With her life turned upside down and an extremely uncertain future ahead of her, she has two choices sink or swim. Francesca decides to get a life! Easier said than done. First she must deal with razor-sharp, international banker, Nikki Langan. Superbabe is ten years younger and two stone lighter than Francesca. Sculpted, toned and dressed to kill, Nikki wants it all and she doesn’t intend to let anyone, least of all Francesca, stand in her way. But youth and beauty aren’t everything as Nikki soon finds out, and Francesca proves to be a far tougher adversary than the glamorous career girl had anticipated. Meanwhile, after a decidedly shaky start, Francesca’s life takes a decidedly upward turn. New job, new friends, new lifestyle, and dishy journalist Ralph Cassin showing more than a professional interest, much to Mark’s immense displeasure.

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The Fall of Light by Niall Williams
The men of the Foley family have always been proud and fearless, fashioned by the harsh, cold elements of their country, and by years of fighting tooth and nail for survival. Their story begins in Ireland, in the difficult years of the mid-nineteenth century. The family have lost their home and suffered another loss which proves even more vital - beautiful Emer Foley, wife of Francis, mother to Tomas, Finbar, Finan and the youngest boy, Teige. With nothing to told them they move on, setting out across Ireland to its western short, searching for the untenanted land that is to be their next Eden. But Francis Foley is a bitter man, and his flinty soul can only bring destruction. Inevitably the five Foleys are scattered, each to his own road and his own future. In the novel, the author leads the reader along on their great journeys, through the bittersweet heart of rural Ireland and far beyond its shores to Europe, America and Africa. He guides his characters through fire and water, earth and sky, magic and reality, loss and consolation, until finally they come to terms with their own freedom and dreams. Niall Williams previous novels, Four Letters of Love and As It Is In Heaven, were published to wide critical acclaim and became international bestsellers.

Banks of Green Willows by Kevin Myers
Nothing in life prepares you for life, for loss, confusion, accidents, and the consequences of other people’s deeds pursuing you. How could she have known? Dublin airport, 1972. Gina, nineteen, too young to be wise, but old enough for love, sex and the repercussions of both, is being borne by the currents of history and habit away from the man she loves. Half Irish, half Bosnian, Stefan is being swept by those same currents towards a different destiny. At home in America, Gina opts for safety in marriage to Warren, who takes her son as his own. But her friendship with the noisy, unpredictable Bracken family soon calls her back to her beloved Ireland. Moving down the decades between the decades the cheerful bedlam of the Bracken family in Ireland, the routine of life in small town Louisiana and the start horrors of war in Bosnia, this novel is about the inescapable consequences of 20th century history on commonplace lives.

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The Valparaiso Voyage by Dermot Bolger
Raised in a small Irish town by his widowed father, Brendan Brogan finds himself dispossessed at the age of eight when his father re-marries. He can only watch as his stepmother’s son, Cormac, usurps his own bedroom, his toys and his place in the social order of the town. Brendan grows up and into an uneasy manhood, scarred by the humiliations of his childhood. Years later, as a compulsive gambler with his marriage falling apart, fate - and Cormac’s suicide - allows him to take the ultimate gamble to financially secure his wife and son’s future by faking his own death and assuming Cormac’s identity. A fast, tightly-knit literary thriller from one of Ireland’s master storytellers, this book is a skilful examination of a rapidly changing Ireland, and exploration of the relationship between fathers and sons, and a compelling portrait of a man caught between two worlds, striving to break free.

The Rising by Bairbre Toibin
This debut novel is both a classic love story and a vivid dramatisation of the struggle for Irish independence. Set between the death of Parnell in 1891 and the 1916 Rising, it follows the fortunes of a young Irish couple, Michael Carty, a small tenant-farmer who sets out for Enniscorthy after the death of his Fenian father, and Margaret Dempsey, daughter of a prosperous merchant family in the town. What follows is an account of their unlikely love and life together: a domestic story overshadowed by momentous events of Irish history, which ultimately threaten Michael’s life and his family’s welfare. Displaying a decided gift for dialogue, and a quietly assured prose style of extraordinary clarity, the author gives the reader a compelling story of personal innocence and political idealism, history as it happens to the rank and file.

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Mohammed Maguire by Colin Bateman
Ten-year-old Mohammed Maguire is one of the only survivors when the US Marines destroy a terrorist training camp in the Libyan desert, killing both his parents. He is brought back to Ireland, land of his mother’s birth, where he is treated as a public relations commodity by all sides of an argument he doesn’t understand, but which he can see with the clear eyes of a child. This novel is a dark and wickedly funny fable, with its irreverent humour and wild imagination.

The Year of Her Life by Liz Ryan
Lauren Kilroy and Saiv Lovett have been best friends since one was a college dropout while the other headed the class. A decade later, Lauren is a high-flying advertising executive while Saiv is a shy philosophy professor, and still, each is the first person the other turns to for help. And now, Lauren needs her friend. Her hectic life includes parties every night, an apartment in trendy Temple Bar - and being the mistress of a high-profile judge who has giver her what could be a fatal disease. Faced with the illness but refusing to confront it, Lauren contacts Saiv and talks her into flying off to Italy, where a new world opens up for them both. While Lauren begins rethinking her busy, superficial, money-mad life and make the most of every moment, Saiv finds her own life changing along with Lauren’s. This book is a moving portrait of female friendships.

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The Irish College at Lisbon, 1590-1834 by Patricia O’Connell
The Irish College at Lisbon was set up in 1590, under a board of Portuguese noblemen in conjunction with exiled Irish Jesuits, to provide a seminary for secular priests in the Portuguese capital during Penal times. The book relates the main events in the colourful story of the institution and its survival through war, earthquake and even suppression (in 1759 under the government of the Marques de Pombal, chief minister to King Jose) for over 200 years. The former college building still stands in a beautiful corner of old Lisbon and now functions as a municipal courthouse.

Last Before America: Irish and American Writing edited by Fran Brearton and Eamonn Hughes
This elegant literary collection celebrates the influence of Michael Allen on both writers and critics during his teaching career at Queen’s University, Belfast. Taking as their starting point literary and cultural interweavings and relationships between Ireland and America, the distinguished contributors examine ideas of exile and return, loss and compensation, and presence and absence. The collection contains new poems by Ciaran Carson, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Medbh McGuckian and Paul Muldoon. It also includes a reminiscence from Bernard Mac Laverty and fiction from William Wiser. Essays from, among others, Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, Richard Kirkland, Edna Longley and Peter McDonald offer critical accounts of contemporary Irish poetry and fiction as well as appraisals of American literary and cultural contexts. Themes include censorship in the Irish Free State, Ulster Protestantism and culture, Romantic legacies in poetry, cultural cosmopolitanism in Ireland and America, and reflections on the practice of literary criticism itself.

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Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories edited by William Trevor
Ireland has long been a nation of storytellers. What began as a lively form of entertainment has grown into an unrivalled literary genre. Although Ireland mourned the loss of the ‘seanchai’, the old hearthside story-teller, the Irish art of story-telling is by no means lost. This varied anthology traces the development of the Irish short story from the early folk-tales of the oral tradition through Oliver Goldsmith, Maria Edgeworth, James Joyce and Liam O’Flaherty, and on to the stars of the modern generation, such as Bernard Mac Laverty and Desmond Hogan.

In the Service of Peace: Memories of Lebanan edited by Brendan O’Shea
This book contains the story of what Irish soldiers said and did in Lebanon for 23 years. Every memory recounted is steeped in the history of the region and the savage, multidimensional war which raged there for a quarter of a century. In this collection of memories, the men and women of Irishbatt speak for themselves, expressing the joy, sorrow, frustration and pain they experienced while wearing the blue beret and working in the service of peace.

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Spring, Summer and Fall: The Rise and Fall of the Labour Party 1986-1999 by Ray Kavanagh
In 1986 Ray Kavanagh gave up his job as a schoolteacher to become General Secretary of the Irish Labour Party. In doing so he took on the onerous task of building up a demoralised membership while having to deal with a divided and hostile Parliamentary Party as well as a number of internal dissidents. Now back in teaching, Kavanagh pulls no punches in this frank and informative account of the rise and fall of the party from 1986 to 1999 under the leadership of Dick Spring. He recalls the taming of Labour left, the mergers with the DSP and Democratic Left, the successful presidential campaign of 1990 and the ousting of the militant faction. Tales of Spring’s autocratic style of leadership, personality clashes, tensions within the party, and interesting revelations about how the party conducted business make for a lively and informative portrait of a political party in transition.

Fear of the Collar: My Terrifying Childhood in Artane by Patrick Touher
The Artane Boys’ band was a familiar sight on the field of Croke Park at every All-Ireland Final. But behind this striking image lies a story of hardship, continuous labour, never-ending hunger, cruelty and sexual assault. Sent to Artane at seven years of age, the author of this book was soon to learn the tough ways of the regime of education and training, prayer and punishment, strict discipline and fearful nights. No allowances were made for emotion, sentiment or boyhood worries. Anything that disturbed the routine was a source of punishment. Artane demanded obedience, absolute submission. Originally published in 1991, this new updated edition is the inside story of the memories etched forever on the soul of one of Artane’s boys.

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The Limbo Vigil by Gareth O’Callaghan
This book is a thriller which follows the life of David Freeman, a man who has found peace and a new life in Martha’s Vineyard. Ten years ago he was forced to leave Ireland, driven out by his violent wife and a town that conspired against him. Now, barely twenty-four hours after a devastating phone call informs him that his daughter Molly as attempted suicide, he boards a plane bound for home. This time he cannot run away. If he is to save his daughter he must expose the truth =85 a truth that is evil and many lead to his own destruction.

Shame the Devil by Mary McCarthy
Amy Kennedy, partially dressed, lies on top of a creased duvet. Her eyes are half- open. A year after her mother’s death, her depression threatens to engulf her. Her mother’s cruel and violent tones still rage in her head. ‘No tears, no tears now or I’ll give you something to cry about.’ She is alone. A letter arrives. It is addressed to her mother. Vague childhood memories are stirred. Desperate to emerge from the blackness, the contents of the letter fire Amy to embark on a dangerous journey, that she hope will uncover the awful secret that destroyed her mother’s life and ruined her childhood.

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A Living Word compiled by Jacqui Corcoran
Each morning on traffic-jammed car radios, through earphones on commuter trains, in the hurry of the early-morning home, RTE’s ‘A Living Word’ is a source of sustenance for countless people assailed by a relentless, information-jammed, fast-paced routine. The basis for A Living Word is simplicity itself: a short meditation or observation, spiritual or secular, which makes people pause and reflect at the start of a new day. This collection compiled from the radio programme, reflects the wide range of its appeal.

In the Vine Country by Somerville and Ross
This classic book, first published in 1893, remains an irresistible gem. By the esteemed authors of ‘Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.’, in this book they tour the Medoc country, where they discover the pleasures of the harvest - a glass of mout, freshly trodden by the peasants and garlic kisses from their hostess. Then to a grand chateau, where they establish themselves as ‘Les Anglais pour rire’ by their sorry attempts to speak French. Mistresses of ironic wit and precise observation, this is Somerville and Ross at their most genial and open.

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