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Read Ireland Book Reviews, July 2003
Home Rule: An Irish History
1800-2000 by Alvin Jackson
Decimated by famine and emigration and
divided by British rule, the people of Ireland sought unity in Home Rule.
Home Rule bound together the varieties of Irish nationalism. It has united
British and Irish politicians in the quest for an agreed settlement in
Ireland: it has linked Ulster Unionists and Irish Nationalists. The story
of Home Rule is central to the political experience of both modern Ireland
and Britain. In this book, the author examines the development of Home
Rule and devolution in Ireland from the nineteenth century to the present.
It traces some of the main themes in Irish peace-making from their late
Victorian roots to the beginnings of the millennium: it explores the origins
of the Good Friday Agreement, and many of the interconnections between
Irish political history and contemporary affairs. The book offers an incisive
reappraisal of different political leaders through the period. Drawing
on new archival material, the book illuminates a crucial aspect of Irish
and British history over a two-hundred-year span.
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Irish Regiments in the Great
Way by Timothy Bowman
This book provides the first comprehensive
study of discipline and moral in the British army during the Great War
by using a case study of the Irish regiments. It considers the wartime
experience of the Irish regular and Special Reserve battalions and the
10th (Irish), 16th (Irish) and 36th (Ulster) Divisions. In doing so, the
author demonstrates that breaches of discipline did occur in the Irish
regiments during the period but in most cases these were of a minor nature.
Controversially, he suggests that where executions did take place, they
were militarily necessary and served the purpose of restoring discipline
in failing units. The author also shows that there was very little support
for the emerging Sinn Fein movement with the Irish regiments.
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Rare Old Dublin: Heroes,
Hawkers & Hoors by Frank Hopkins
Pirates executed in St. Stephen’s Green;
Mother Bungy’s ‘sink of sin’ in what is now Temple Bar; the Viking Thingmote
in College Green, where human sacrifices took place; the South Dublin
Union, feared by the capital’s poorer citizens; hidden holy wells on the
city streets; these are just some of the aspects of Dublin’s past uncovered
by this surprising and entertaining book. Famous sons and daughters of
the city also make an appearance: Peg Woffington, the beautiful actress
who rose from the slums to enjoy stardom in Covent Garden; Jack Langan,
the bare-knuckle boxer of Ballybough; Sir Charles Cameron, the public
health specialist who devised a bounty scheme for captured houseflies
in 1911; and the Dolocher, the savage eighteenth-century beast in the
form of a pig who turned out to be a man. Rogues, charlatans, heroes and
harlots a-plenty stride through the pages of this book, bringing the colourful
historical Dublin to life.
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Under the Rose: A Confession
by Flavia Alaya
Flavia Alaya was twenty-two years old,
a sheltered young woman on a scholarship to Italy, when she met Father
Harry Browne. When their attraction grew too compelling to resist, they
forged a relationship that violated one of the most powerful taboos of
society, the Catholic Church and her family. Yet the relationship between
Father Browne and Flavia endured for over twenty years. By day they were
subsumed in community work on New York’s west side; by night they were
embroiled in a relationship carried out, even through the birth of their
three children, in absolute secrecy - sub rosa, ‘under the rose’. A richly
textured narrative, this book weaves the contradictions of a dedicated
public life and a consuming private passion. Shaped by history and the
power of place, this is a compelling homage to love and freedom, a lyrical
portrait of lives that were at once intimate and large, sacred and profane.
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William Francis Butler:
A Life 1838-1910 by Martin Ryan
Tipperary-born, Victorian adventurer William
Francis Butler is a man ripe for discovery at a time of changing definitions
of what it means to be Irish. This fascinating biography describes an
atypical Irishman, Bonapartist and O’Connellite in sympathy, who had a
dazzling career in the British Army. Butler’s life encompassed treks across
Canada’s prairies in the 1870s (when he founded the Mounties), Gladstone’s
1884-5 attempts to rescue Gordon from Khartoum; co-respondency in the
sensational 1886 London divorce case involving ‘sex-goddess’ Lady Colin
Campbell; command of the imperial forces in South Africa 1989-9; a political
career as 1904 Dublin Home Rule Party and 1905 Leeds Liberal Party candidate,
and 1908 election to Senator in the new National University of Ireland.
He also wrote fourteen books. His wife was a celebrated scene-painter,
and his friend, the flamboyant Dubliner Garnet Wolseley, became one of
the dominant figures of the British military hierarchy during the scramble
for Africa. This biography portrays a sympathetic, anti-jingoistic figure,
whose public ambitions were tempered by a concern for the underdog and
a late-developing, Parnellite sense of Irish nationalism.
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Reinventing Modern Dublin:
Streetscape, Iconography and the Politics of Identity by Yvonne Whelan
This book takes the reader from the contested
iconography of Dublin as it evolved in the years before Independence through
to the contemporary plans for the millennium spire on O’Connell Street.
It shows how a shift has taken place from an intensely political symbolic
landscape to one that is increasingly apolitical, in tune with the changing
nature of Irish politics, culture and society at the turn of the twenty-first
century. In her comprehensive discussion of how the streetscape has changed,
the author explores the capacity of the cultural landscape to underpin
and reinforce particular narratives of identity and reveals the ways in
which issues of street naming, building, designing and memoralising became
firmly grounded in space and bound up with the politics of representation.
Incorporating many pictures, maps and plans, the book is a highly readable
work of historical, cultural and urban geography, which will be a valuable
addition to the growing body of knowledge about Dublin’s historical geography
and Irish urbanism.
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A Just Society?: Ethics
and Values in Contemporary Ireland edited by John Scally
Once known as the land of saints and scholars,
Ireland today is better known as the land of scandals and tribunals. Politics,
banking, the Church, business, medicine, law and the Gardai have all suffered
from an erosion of public confidence in the wake of an astonishing proliferation
of scandals. Moreover, Ireland has undergone rapid social, economic and
political change over the last decade, which has had a profound impact
on our value system. For example, the decline in authority and influence
by the Catholic Church in recent years has forced people to seek other
sources for ethical and moral guidance. Ireland at the beginning of the
21st century is a fairly prosperous country, yet this creates dilemmas
of its own. Difficult decisions about the distribution of resources raise
awkward questions for society. How is the tension between the rights of
individuals and the overall good of society to be resolved? And whom do
we look to for guidance? The political elite? The Christian Church? The
medical and legal profession? Business leaders? All have had their credibility
seriously tainted by damaging scandals. This book consists of 24 essays
by highly regarded people on the current reality of ethics in Ireland.
The contributors provide a hard-hitting and incisive analysis of the ethics
and values - or lack of same - currently on view in Irish society. It
is a timely and important contribution to the debate on the quality of
life in contemporary Ireland.
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Ireland’s Holy Wars: The
Struggle for a Nation’s Soul 1500-2000 by Marcus Tanner
In this vivid and perceptive exploration
of the enduring conflict in Ireland and the people who sustain it. The
author contends that the roots of ‘the troubles’ are inescapably religious.
Through detailed research into the Irish past and a deep personal knowledge
of Ireland, today, he shows that Ireland’s persistent conflict can only
be understood in the context of five centuries of failed attempts by the
English to impose Protestantism on the Irish state. This is a compelling
and important book, well written and formidably-researched.
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The Kick: A Life Among Writers
by Richard Murphy
Drawing of five decades of private notebooks,
Richard Murphy has created a unique memoir of his life and times. He writes
about delicate personal issues as he chronicles the making and unmasking
of a writer. He includes amusing and moving accounts of his meetings and
friendships with many prominent writers and actors from the literary milieux
of London, Dublin and New York, including C.S. Lewis, Harold Nicoloson,
J.R. Ackerley, Patrick Kavanagh, W.H. Auden, Theodore Roethke, Robert
Lowell, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Robert Shaw, Peter O’Toole, John McGahern,
Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
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With Fife and Drum: Music,
Memories and Customs of an Irish Tradition by Gary Hastings
The rattle of the Lambeg drum, with its
distinctive rhythms, is a sound unique to Ulster. Primarily associated
with the Orange Order, it was also played to a lesser extent by the Ancient
Order of Hibernians. These huge drums - about 3ft in diameter, 2.5 feet
in breadth and weighing up to 40lbs - can achieve an ear-splitting volume
of 120 decibels. Elaborately ornamented, and boasting names like ‘The
Cock of the North’, ‘The Pride of South Antrim’, and ‘The Ballymakesh
Ship’, they were traditionally played to the accompaniment of a fife.
In search of stories, facts and myths of the North’s 200-year old fife
and drum traditions, the author interviewed instrument makers, drummers
and fifers. He learnt how the mighty drums were constructed and discovered
the customer surrounding the drumming matches and processions. He also
collected over seventy airs and tunes, the musical notation of which are
included in this book along with a CD of musicians’ reminiscences and
the traditional music of the fife and drum.
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A Touchstone for the Tradition:
The Willie Clancy Summer School by Tony Kearns and Barry Taylor
Since 1973 Miltown Malbay has become,
for one week in early July, the traditional music capital of the world.
The crowded main street echoes with a plethora of languages and dialects,
the bars are full to bursting point, and the sounds of hornpipes, jigs
and reels full the summer air. This book is an evocation in pictures and
words of this remarkable community of Irish music enthusiasts. The text
explores, describes and assesses the musical rise of Miltown Malbay; the
origins of the Willie Clancy Summer School and its development over thirty
years; the teaching of traditional music and dance, and the contribution
of the School to traditional music.
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One Green Hill: Journeys
Through Irish Songs by John McLaughlin
Irish songs are the touchstones of tradition.
Often fiercely partisan, they provide passionate expressions of history
and politics. They keep alive the stories of battles, heroes and events,
influencing generations of Irish people, often far from Ireland’s shores.
Like many people, the author of this book was learning the songs of the
unionist and nationalist traditions, years before understanding their
full significance. He was singing My Lagan Love long before he had any
idea where the river Lagan was. What exactly are the origins of the words
and music of these songs? How faithful are they to the historical events
which inspired them and how do we separate the real story from the myths
and propaganda? How do we find the places to which they refer? The author
answers these questions by investigating twenty-one of Ireland’s finest
songs, telling us about the great song writers and covering may of the
most important events in the long, complex and much disputed story of
the country. In so doing, he provides a song, history and travel book
all in one. This book is a rewarding voyage of discovery through Irish
music, history and landscapes. Featured Songs: Outlaw Rapparee, Derry’s
Walls, The Green Grassy Slopes of the Boyne, The Bard of Armagh, The Boys
of Mullaghbawn, Boolavogue, Kelly the Boy from Killanne, Henry Joy, General
Monro, Roddy McCorley, The Man from God Knows Where, The West’s Awake,
Dolly’s Brae, Skibbereen, The Bold Fenian Men, The Hackler from Grouse
Hall, My Lagan Love, James Connolly, The Scarriff Martyrs, The Drumboe
Martyrs, and Sean South of Garryowen.
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Irish Session Tunes: The
Orange Book selected by Brid Cranitch
This book contains 86 Irish tunes suitable
for most instruments; the CD contains all the tunes in sets with fiddle
and keyboard.
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Irish Session Tunes: The
Blue Book selected by Brid Cranitch
This book contains 101 Irish tunes suitable
for most instruments; the CD contains all the tunes in sets with fiddle
and keyboard.
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Irish Session Tunes: The
Green Book selected by Geraldine Cotter
This book contains 100 tunes collected
by Geraldine Cotter. She is from Ennis, Co. Clare, an area well known
for its rich musical tradition. Her music has been learned first hand
from well-respected musicians of an older generation. She is carrying
on this tradition in the time-honoured way, by presenting the tunes as
she learnt them. The music is written in a simple form, without ornamentation,
thus making it accessible to musicians of all levels. The tunes in this
collection include jigs, reels, hornpipes, set dances, slow airs and miscellaneous
pieces.
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Irish Session Tunes: The
Red Book selected by Matt Cranitch
This collection contains a varied selection
of tunes, some of which are popular and widely played, others not so well
known. The different dance rhythms - double jigs, slides, slip jigs, polkas,
reels, hornpipes and set dances - are included, in addition to some airs.
The number of tunes in each category represents, approximately, the relative
popularity of the various types of tune, with the reel undoubtedly being
the most popular.
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Irish Songs selected by
Siobhan O’Brien
This book is a collection of over 40 of
Ireland’s finest traditional folk songs, arranged for voice and piano.
The songs and ballads in this book, by turns humorous and touching, tragic
and poignant, reflect the essence of a country famous for its romantics
and storytellers.
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Carolan: The Life Times
and Music of an Irish Harper by Donal O’Sullivan
Originally published in 1958, this classic
study of Turlough O Carolan became a musical and historical beacon for
all those interested in Ireland’s past and present. It is an indispensable
tool for Irish musicians, who through this remarkable volume of research
can go beyond the music itself, and engross themselves in the colourful
world of this unique travelling musician in a still largely feudal Ireland
of the 17th and 18th centuries. This new edition contains all of the original
sections on ‘The Life of Carolan’ , with all 213 tunes, the annotations
to the tunes, ‘The Remarkable Memoirs of Arthur O’Neill’, and complete
indexes. Of major importance is the inclusion of an Appendix that contains
recently discovered O’Carolan compositions, as well as much other previously
unpublished material.
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1798: A Bicentenary Perspective
edited by Thomas Bartlett et. al
To commemorate the bicentenary of the
1798 rebellion, a five-day conference was held in Belfast and Dublin on
19-23 May 1998. The even assembled scholars from Ireland and abroad, all
of whom were trying to understand the cataclysmic events that brought
eighteenth-century Ireland to such a violent close. The present volume
brings together thirty-three of the papers delivered on that occasion.
Together they provide a definitive survey of all aspects of the great
rebellion at home and abroad, then and thereafter. The editors have also
included a series of extended commentaries on the papers, on the issues
they addressed, and on the related literature that has appeared in the
recent wave of publication on Ireland in the 1790s and on the revolutionary
decade in the wider European and Atlantic world. These commentaries introduce
the eight sections into which the thirty-three papers are grouped. The
authors of the papers are: Thomas Bartlett, Allan Blackstock, Maurice
J. Bric, Liam Chambers, David Dickson, Marianne Elliott, Daniel Gahan,
Tony Gaynor, Luke Gibbons, Hugh Gough, Tommy Graham, James Kelly, Daire
Keogh, Peter Linebaugh, James Livesey, Ian R. McBride, Trevor McCavery,
Brian MacDonald, Elaine McFarland, Breandan Mac Suibhne, David W. Miller,
Harman Murtagh, Ruan O’Donnell, Kevin O’Neill, W.N. Osborough, James Quinn,
N.A.M. Rodger, Geraldine Sheridan, Brendan Simms, Breandan O Buachalla,
Kevin Whelan, David Wilson, James Wilson and C.J. Woods.
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Rebel Daughters: Ireland
in Conflict 1798 by Janet Todd
In May 1798, the Early of Kingston was
tried before the Irish House of Lords for the murder of his cousin, Colonel
Henry Fitzgerald. The Earl had been enraged by Henry’s seduction of his
teenage daughter, Mary, and by their elopement. The family was now at
war in love and politics, for the Earl’s other daughter, Margaret, had
become a member of the republican United Irishmen fighting against British
rule. The Early of Kingston’s trial came at a crucial moment in the conflict
and would turn out to be the last great pageant in the independent Irish
House of Lords. 1708 would see the fate of Ireland and the role of the
Anglo-Irish aristocracy change forever. In the Irish Rebellion, 20,000
people would die, more than in the French Terror. In this book, the author
tells the extraordinary story of the Earl of Kingston’s family who loved
through and played a major part in one of the most traumatic periods in
Ireland’s history.
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The Irish Famine: An Illustrated
History by Helen Litton
In this book, the author succinctly deals
with the Great Famine with clarity and compassion. Using quotes from first-hand
accounts, and information from numerous studies and sources, both sides
of the tragedy are exposed. In the book, the reader meets the people involved
- British politicians such as Peel, Quaker relief workers, local communities,
clergy and landlords - who sometimes gave up in despair as the situation
escalated. This book offers a compassionate and full understanding of
Ireland’s past and the catastrophic event that shaped so much of its future.
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1949: A Novel of the Irish
Free State by Morgan Llywelyn
The masterly epic ‘The Irish Century’
continues in this wonderful novel, a sequel to ‘1916’ and ‘1921’. The
struggle of the Irish people for independence is one of the compelling
historical dramas of the twentieth century. Morgan Llywelyn has chosen
it as a subject of her major work, a meticulously researched, multi-novel
chronicle that began with ‘1916’, continued with ‘1921’, and is brought
up to the mid-century in this novel. Her new novel tells the story of
Ursula Halloran, a fiercely independent young woman who comes of age in
the 1920s. She experiences the tumult of the times in a way that brings
those days vividly alive. The tragedy of the Irish civil war gives way
in the 1920s to a repressive Catholic state led by Eamon de Valera. Married
women cannot hold jobs, divorce is illegal, and the IRA has become a band
of outlaws still devoted to and fighting for a Republic that never lived.
The Great Depression stalks the world, and war is always on the horizon,
whether in Northern Ireland, Spain, or elsewhere on the European continent.
Ursula, the adopted daughter of a revolutionary, Ned Halloran, remains
an idealist believing in Ireland. She works for the fledgling Irish radio
service and then for the League of Nations, while her personal life is
torn between two men: an Irish civil servant and an English pilot. One
is too much a gentleman, and the other too much a scoundrel. Defying Church
and State, Ursula bears a child out of wedlock, though she must leave
the country to do so, and nearly loses her life in the opening days of
World War II. Eventually she returns to an Ireland that is steadfastly
determined to remain neutral during the war, an Ireland shaken by the
great deal between de Valera and Winston Churchill. As always with Ireland,
politics and passion go hand in hand. This novel is a story of one strong
woman who lives through the progress of Ireland from a broken land to
the beginnings of a modern independent state.
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Phoenix Irish Short Stories
2003 edited by David Marcus
With short stories set as far afield as
North Africa, Florida, and a small village in Siberia, the annual Phoenix
anthology of Irish short stories continues to reflect the wide landscape
of contemporary Irish fiction, showcasing some of the best new voice to
emerge as well as long-established favourites. This anthology contains
stories by: Frank O’Connor, Mary J. Byrne, Jackie Blackman, Coilin O hAidha,
Paul Grimes, Claire Keegan, Dermot Somers, Sean Coffey, Gerard Donovan,
Lorcan Byrne, Mary Morrissy, Eilis ni Dhuibhne, Niall McCardle, Blanaid
McKinney and Julia O’Faolain.
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Bad Men by John Connolly
In 1693, the settlers on the small Maine
island of Sanctuary were betrayed to their enemies and slaughtered. Since
then, the island has known 300 hundred years of peace until now. There
are men descending on the island. Their purpose is to hunt down and kill
the wife of their leader and retrieve the money that she stole from him.
All that stands in their way are a young rookie officer, Sharon Macy,
and the island’s strange, troubled policeman, the giant known as Melanchold
Joe Dupree. But Dupree is no ordinary policeman. He is the guardian of
the island’s secrets, the repository of its memories. He knows that Sanctuary
has been steeped in blood once; it will tolerate the shedding of innocent
blood no longer. Now a band of killers is set to desecrate Sanctuary and
unleash the fury of its ghosts upon themselves and all who stand before
them. This is the most recent book by Dubliner John Connolly, Ireland’s
answer to Stephen King, and the author of the ‘Charlie Parker’ series
of horror-mystery novels that have been international bestsellers.
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Another Sky by Colm O’Gaora
It is he 1960s and trainloads of holidaymakers
spill out into the rain-washed sunshine of Portnew. Michael and Catherine
spend their days sprawled on the railway embankment observing the new
arrivals, or hanging around their father’s busy workshop. Lulled by the
clatter and familiarity of everyday life in this seaside town, it seems
that their carefree world will never change. But as the decade draws to
a close, violence spreads from the cities to tear Portnew apart, reaching
right into the heart of their family. Many years later, inspired by his
growing love for a beautiful but enigmatic woman, Michael is forced into
a confrontation with his past. As the sunlit memories tumble out so too
do the darker shadows that have tainted his adult life. In this novel,
the author paints a picture of a childhood pulled apart and then steadily,
delicately, pieced back together. The themes of love, loyalty, family
and violence weave in and out of this tender and delightful novel.
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The Land Where Stories
End by David Foster
This book is a unique and stimulating
post-modern fable that tellingly explores male sexuality, myth, alchemy
and the hermetic tradition. Its captivating narrative swings between rough
comedy and sparkling vision. Set in Ireland at a time when the Fairyland
of the pagan Celt was being supplanted by the Heaven of the Saints, and
when the oak-worshipping druids converted, en masse, to Christianity,
it follows a woodcutter on his quest. The King has locked his daughter
in a round tower and has offered a reward for finding the key: the princess’s
hand in marriage and the future throne of the kingdom. But what use is
a new wife for a man who already has one, as well as twelve children?
And without his axe, of which he has been dispossessed, how will he defend
himself against the witches and ogres who inhabit the forest, let alone
all the other rogues, villains, thieves and liars in the kindgom?
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Annie Dunne by Sebastian
Barry
Annie Dunne and her cousin Sarah live
and work on a small farm in a remote and beautiful part of Wicklow in
the late 1950s Ireland. All about them the old green roads are being tarred,
cars are being purchased, a way of life is about to disappear. Then, when
Annie’s nephew and his wife are set to go to London to find work, their
two small children, a little boy and his older sister, are brought down
to spend the summer with their grand-aunt, and a summer of adventure,
pain, delight and ultimately epiphany unfolds in this poignant and exquisitely
told story of innocence, loss and reconciliation.
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Through the Ivory Gate
by Patrick Devaney
Trinity student Charles Stanihurst, the
son of a Dublin merchant and a Roscommon chambermaid, flees his native
city after assaulting an English officer and heads for the West of Ireland,
where he encounters a culture virtually unknown within the Pale. Beyond
the Shannon much of the old Gaelic way of life is still intact, though
under growing threat from the political power and land greed of the ‘foreigners’.
Charles is forced to confront divisions between his Anglo-Irish and Gaelic
loyalties, while seeking his spiritual father, Bishop William Bedell,
who is translating the Old Testament into Irish. Set in post-Flight of
the Earls, pre-Cromwellian Ireland of 1641, this novel tells the gripping
story of a struggle between two opposing cultures that set the scene for
the rebellion sealing the fate of Gaelic Ireland.
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The Very Man by Chris Binchy
After Rory has returned to Dublin to bury
his mother, he decides that New York, with the flash job, fast money and
high-tech apartment, is just not for him anymore and it’s time to be home
again. But where is home, and who is Rory now? His friends try to persuade
him that he’s the same guy they said goodbye to when they finished university,
but Rory knows different. Out to screw everyone and everything in Dublin,
Rory’s life spirals out of control. But having hit the bottom, he finds
a saviour in the most unlikely of guises. This novel is a carefully nuanced
story of a man who feels he has nothing to lose but discovers that his
life is unravelling before him. It is, also, a brilliant portrait of contemporary
Dublin. (And yes, he is related to the famous Maeve)
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The Lost Soul’s Reunion
by Suzanne Power
On a hill overlooking the grey sea, in
a house filled with the past, a woman gathers her ghosts for one night
to hear their story retold. This is Sive Moriarty’s tale, beginning with
her grandmother’s ill-fated marriage. It encompasses three generations
and moves from the bustle of the Sixties London to the magisterial landscape
of coastal Ireland, painting a picture of a family fractured by hatred,
then brought together again through love.
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I Have Not Forgotten Thee
by Wlliam P. Sexton
A young Irishman from the hills of Connemara
in County Galway enlists in the Irish Brigade to fight Communists in war-torn
Spain. He is wounded and is nursed back to health by a beautiful and fiery
Spanish nurse who is not what she seems to be. She becomes his one and
only love. A German Military Advisor befriends him and brings him back
to Germany. Later, World War II breaks out and he joins the German paratroopers
and fights alongside them until he is captured and sent to a prisoner
of war camp. He later returns to Ireland to become a priest. He is not
able, however, to forget his Spanish love and sets out to find her again.
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Poison Arrow by Morag Prunty
Christian is blond-haired, blue-eyed,
and not just your average good-looking boy either - in fact, he’s an angel.
Quite literally. And when he’s sent from the heavenly offices above to
sort out the love lives of the citizens of Gorrib, a small town in the
west of Ireland, he thinks he’s got an easy billet -okay, so he’s not
sure how he’s going to drink all the cups of tea when he can’t ingest,
and maybe it’s not as glamorous as Paris, but still, the job should be
a doddle. Highly original and very funny, this is an endearing novel of
love, life and all that it carries, from the best-selling author of ‘Disco
Daddy’ and ‘Dancing with Mules’.
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The Crock of Gold by James
Stephens
When a crock of gold belonging to the
leprechauns of Gort na Cloca disappears, strange things begin to happen.
Brigid and Seumas, the children of the Philosopher, and the Thin Woman
of Inis Magrath are kidnapped; and even more unusual, the ancient god
Pan is seen playing in the fields Attempting to find his children, the
Philosophy undertakes a journey to seek the help of the mighty and mysterious
god Angus Og. The journey abounds in fantastic adventures and weird sights,
culminating in a great gathering of the clans and fairy creatures. There,
Angus and a merry multitude of gods bring happiness once again to the
folk of the enchanted countryside. This delightful and unique fantasy
established the reputation of the noted Irish poet and novelist. Brimming
with good humour, whimsy, and charm - along with a few serious observations
that in no way detract from the story’s magical qualities - this novel
is a wise and beautiful fairy tale for all readers. It is a classic of
modern Irish fiction that will enchant devotees of Celtic lore and fable
lovers of all ages.
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Selected Poems of James
Clarence Mangan edited by Jacques Chuto et. al.
James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849), the
greatest Irish poet before Yeats, was for a long time both famous and
unknown. While legends about him prospered after his death, his works
remained largely unread. Only recently have his poems been collected by
an international team of scholars and published in a 4-volume set. It
is from this set that the present selection has been made. It contains
upwards of 230 annotated poems, and it will provide the reader with a
complete overview of Mangan’s many-faceted genius.
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Martial Art by Brendan
Kennelly
This mischievous poet is alive and kicking.
He is a satirist trying to define generosity, happiness and love, with
scurrilous candour and piercing clarity, in brief punchy poems. But no
matter how savage his attacks, he is always playful and compassionate.
He is a sharp, visionary writer who knows the world about him and is in
touch with the world within himself, at once bewildered, attentive, bitingly
articulate. This is a book that packs a punch
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The Dublin Review Number
11 Summer 2003 edited by Brendan Barrington
This issue contains: Our Chosen Colour
is Blue: Yeats and the Blueshirts by Roy Foster; Reunion by Molly McCloskey;
Bouts of Danger, Bouts of Poetry by Edna Longley; Scapegoat by Hugo Hamilton;
Riffing: When Matisse met Ellington by George O’Brien; Paradise Revisited
by John Montague; Pears by Aine Ni Mhaonaigh; Knife by Sydney Lea; The
Irish, America, and outer space by Christina Hunt Mahony.
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