Read Ireland Book Reviews, April 2004

Among Druids and High Kings
Bruce Arnold
Blasket Island Reflections
Edward Burke
Eoin Colfer
John Collis
S.J. Connolly
Farrel Corcoran
Harry Crone
Peter Cunningham
Gabriel Doherty
Mogue Doyle
Catherine Dunne
Padraic Fallon
Christopher Fitz-Simon
Steve Garner
Helen Goode
Seamus Helferty
Tom Inglis
William Kelly
Patricia Kennedy
Dermot Keogh
Benedict Kiely
Christine Kinealy
Alexei Kondratiev
Pat Liddy
Michael Longley
Emer McCourt
Donal McCracken
Hannah McGee
Antonia McManus
Peter McVerry
John Mooney
Joe Mulholland
Ciaran O’Boyle
Sean O’Reilly
Michael O’Toole
Raymond Refausse
Edward Rutherford
Ann Saddlemyer
Clive Scoular
Jeremy Stanley
Karen Steele
Colm Toibin

Snow Water by Michael Longley
Michael Longley is one of Ireland’s preeminent poets. The poems collected here find their gravity and centre in his adopted home in west Mayo, but range widely in their attention - from ancient Greece to Paris and Pisa, from Central Park to the trenches of the Somme. In these meditations on nature and mortality, there is a depth and delicacy, a state of lucid wonder, that allow for the easy companionship of love poem and elegy, hymns to marriage and friendship and lyric exploration of loss.

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The Legend of Spud Murphy by Eoin Colfer
From the author of the Artemis Fowl series comes this new children’s novel featuring Will and his brother Marty who are doomed to spend their holidays in the library. Doesn’t their mum know that the library is not fun? Worse, it is the home of the legendary librarian, Mrs. Murphy. If you put a foot wrong, she will use here dreaded gas-powered ‘Spud Gun’ - and you don’t want that. Just ask Ugly Frank how he got his nickname! But in Will and Marty, has ‘Spud’ Murphy met her match … (First Editions available at normal price)

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A Hymn of the Dawn by Padraic Fallon
This book tells of the life of the Irish poet Padraic Fallon (1905-1974), his wife Don and their six sons during an idyllic summer in the southeast of Ireland in the 1950s. At Prospect, a Georgian house with a small farm, the poet writes his poems, newspaper columns, radio plays, ‘ a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray at his elbow, pounding the keys of his typewriter as his eyes stare beyond the words.’ His sons, when not working on house or farm, exploit the solitude and the open space: fishing, soldiering, sailing, poaching, and finally embarking on an expedition in an old herring cot to discover the secrets of the inland waterways. The poet has written his own adventures. He collects ballads and sea shanties for his radio programme, meeting sailors and fisherman, jaunting along the coast in his old car. He takes to the open harbour in a tiny punt. His sons go with him on a fishing boat to visit a lighthouse. Brilliantly fusing fiction and fact, this book is an exquisitively realized evocation of childhood in Ireland in the 1950s.

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The Celts: Origins, Myths, Inventions by John Collis
We use the word ‘Celtic’ fast and loose - it evokes something mythical and romantic about our past - but what exactly does it mean? Furthermore, why do people believe that there were Celts in Britain and what relationship do they have to the ancient Celts? This fascinating book focuses on the legacy of mistaken interpretations still affects the way we understand the ancient sources and archaeological evidence.

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Forgotten Protest: Ireland and the Anglo-Boer War by Donal McCracken
This book is the extraordinary saga of how events in South Africa helped revitalize politics in Ireland in the heady days of Parnell and especially during the great Anglo-Boer war. During the Boer War (1899-1902), ‘Pro Boer-fever’ swept nationalist Ireland: riots in central Dublin created a no-go area for British troops; posters applauding Generals De Wet and Botha were plastered on walls and lamp-posts and the flags of the Transvaal Republic flew defiantly in many Irish villages. The great intellectuals of the day - Yeats, O’Casey, Moore, Lady Gregory - as well as socialist James Connolly and socialite Maud Gonne espoused the Boer cause, as did Arthur Griffith, recently returned from working in the Transvaal gold mines; all, however, were oblivious to the plight of the black population of South Africa. On the battlefield, the Dublin Fusiliers found themselves pitted against two hard-fighting Irish commandos. And behind the scenes the Boers poured thousands of pounds into Irish republican coffers, stirring up the most violent and most influential of the European pro-Boer movements. Dwarfed by 1916 and the War of Independence, the Irish support for another colonially beleaguered people was to become a forgotten protest, remembered only in folk ballads and in fireside stories. Its thrilling tale is resurrected here to mark the centenary of this extraordinary struggle.

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Docwra’s Derry: A Narrative of Events in North-west Ulster, 1600-1604 by William Kelly
It is widely accepted that no understanding of modern Irish history is complete without an awareness of the significance of events in the seventeenth century. This is true in particular of the Ulster Plantation. Sir Henry Docwra’s military expedition, which arrived in Lough Foyle in May 1600, at the height of the Nine Years War, was instrumental in paving the way for James I’s Plantation of Ulster that began only a few years later. The decisive intervention of Docwra’s small army brought to an end a conflict whose outcome was crucial in shaping the path of Irish history after 1600. It led also to Docwra bequeathing to us one of the most illuminating journals in what was to become, even by Irish standards, a war-torn country. His ‘Narration of the Services done by the Army Ymployed to Lough Foyle vnder the leadings of mee’ is not only a fascinating description of Docwra’s campaign in the north-west, it can also be claimed to be the best eyewitness account of a military campaign of the period. Docwra’s ‘Narration’ was first edited and transcribed by the great Irish scholar John O’Donovan in 1849. This edition not only includes O’Donovan’s comprehensive notes, including translations and descriptions of all the Irish place-names mentioned by Docwra, it also includes insights from more recent scholarship on the Nine Years War. It also includes an introduction, new maps, glossaries of terms, a bibliography, chronology and full index.

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Shipwrecks of Ireland by Edward Burke
The Irish coast has seen shipwrecks from Celtic times through to the present day. The Romans may have had a small bridgehead at Loughshinny and continental wars were fought offshore. The 1588 Spanish Armada came by and left its tribute of twenty-six ships on the remote west coast. Before 1800 ports like Dublin, Stangford, Waterford, Wexford and Kinsale were very significant. After the Industrial Revolution Liverpool, Glasgow and Cardiff came into prominence. Hazards around Ireland range from the rocky cliffs of the west coast coupled with a transatlantic landfall in fog or snow to the treacherous sandbanks of the east coast. The photographs in this book come from a variety of sources and are representative of all modern stages of shipping from sail, to steam and motor vessels.

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Directory of Irish Archives 4th edition edited by Seamus Helferty and Raymond Refausse
This new updated edition has entries for over 250 repositories and organizations - educational, religious, cultural and governmental - which hold records of historical significance. Full addresses, phone and fax numbers, website and email addresses are also included.

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Truth, Power and Lies: Irish Society and the Case of the Kerry Babies by Tom Inglis
Two dead babies were found in County Kerry with the space of two weeks in 1984. What followed is an extraordinary story that rocked Catholic Ireland. The Kerry babies case remains unresolved, with many unanswered questions. The author, in this detailed analysis of the case, shows how necessary it is to retell the story, because justice may not have been done. But he goes further, explaining how important the case is to understanding Ireland’s transition in the second half of the twentieth-century from a traditional, rural, conservative and Catholic society to the modern, urban, liberal and secular one that is emerging today. In particular, the case represents a watershed for the position of women in Irish society; many were motivated to protest for the first time. This thought-provoking and lively book will be invaluable reading for anyone interested in the development of modern Irish society.

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The Spire and other Essays in Modern Irish Culture by Bruce Arnold
Bruce Arnold has become one of the leading journalists and critics in Ireland over the last forty years. In that time, he has witnessed, written about and, at times, participated in, most of the major developments in Irish politics, society and culture. This book collects the best of his recent essays and articles on Irish culture. The book is divided into three sections, with the first section covering broad cultural issues along with essays on leading Irish personalities and some personal reflections on living in and writing about Ireland. The second section focuses on literature, and the third section covers art. Taken together, this collection of writings provides a fascinating look at Ireland’s rich cultural heritage.

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Maud Gonne’s Irish Nationalist Writings 1895-1946 edited by Karen Steele
Maud Gonne is too often seen as a beautiful adjunct to famous men: as the muse and unrequited love of W.B. Yeats, the estranged wife of nationalist hero John MacBride, and the mother of human rights activist Sean MacBride. She was, however, an important revolutionary figure in her own right. This collection of the political writings of Maud Gonne sets out to broaden our understanding of female activism during the foundation of the Irish state and to appreciate the intellectual work of someone whose political engagement has been neglected. The book examines the major campaigns of Gonne’s political career: amnesty, children and the poor, the cause of Ireland, transnational solidarity, the literary revival and the failure of the Irish state. In addition to providing a chronology of her life and an introductory essay on her evolving career as an activist journalist, the editor explains the major political issues and provides background on the newspapers that published Gonne’s work. The humanity of Maud Gonne’s insights will surprise many. This book is a passionate account of Irish wrongs and a fitting testament to a life dedicated to political freedom and social justice.

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Changing Landscapes of Dublin by Pat Liddy
This book, based on the author/artist’s exhibition held in Dublin’s magnificently restored City Hall in September 2003, charts the various eras of Dublin’s evolution. A series of pictomaps, paintings and drawings lead the reader through the centuries in transition, through times of expansion and booms as well as periods of stagnation and depression. This beautifully produced books is signed by Pat Liddy, is limited to 2000 copies, and is certain to become a collectors’ item!

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Black Operations: The Secret War Against the Real IRA by John Mooney and Michael O’Toole
This book is the definitive account of the Real IRA. The authors have written a chronicle of the secret army using the experiences of the bombers, their families, the victims, the security services and others who worked to stop the violence. The book reads with an urgency and a moral commitment that belongs to the finest fiction. It tells the story from three different perspectives: that of the Read IRA Army Council, that of the security services, and that of the republican victims. Few people will put this book down without understanding the new underground army, its bloody campaign and those who control it.

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Racism in the Irish Experience by Steve Garner
Ireland’s unique position as the only state in the European Union to have been colonised, coupled with the ambivalent experiences of Irish people within the British Empire, means that issues of ‘race’ in Ireland are overlaid by complex social and historical forces. This book is a unique analysis of the racialisation of Irish identities. The author examines key phases in the historical development of an Irish ‘racial’ consciousness, including 16th century colonisation and 19th century immigration to America and Great Britain. He then examines the legacy of this relationship, both in terms of the new migration into Ireland and relations with indigenous minorities - travellers and Irish Jews. The author explores the problematic links between nationalist ideologies and racism. He assesses the economic, social, and political factors framing the experience of minorities in contemporary Ireland and places these in a broader European context.

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Time to Listen: Confronting Child Sexual Abuse by Catholic Clergy in Ireland by Helen Goode, Hannah McGee and Ciaran O’Boyle
The Catholic Church in recent years has been rocked by a series of scandals involving child sexual abuse by members of the clergy. For many, the Church’s response to this abuse has been seriously inadequate and there is some question whether the Church can ever regain the trust and affection it enjoyed in years past. This book is the result of the first major assessment internationally by an independent research agency of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Carried out by highly respected researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, the study provides a multifaceted picture of the impact of clerical abuse on the extended Church community. It looks at the historical views of the Church and others on sexual abuse and the challenges of combining Canon Law with the responsibility of the State in dealing with abuse. The researchers interviewed adults who were abused by clergy as children, clergy members who were convicted of abuse (some of whom are still in prison), family members of those abused and abusers, colleagues of abusers, and bishops and delegates with a special responsibility for management of complaints of abuse in dioceses. In addition, a major telephone survey was carried out with members of the general public to ascertain their views on Church management of clerical abuse.

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The Meaning Is In The Shadows by Peter McVerry
This book is a collection of writings spanning the career of the well-known Irish social campaigner. In 1974, as a newly ordained Jesuit priest, Fr. McVerry chose to live and work in the inner city with a small group from his order. He began working with young people from severely disadvantaged families and communities. Many had dropped out of school, were involved in crime and on a straight road to prison. To a young priest from a middle-class background, the experience was a complete culture shock. It challenged his attitudes, revealed his own prejudices, opened his eyes to what is happening in Ireland’s very divided society and called into question his understanding of God. A ministry intended to last a few years became a life-long commitment. This book contains his reflections of these experiences.

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RTE and the Globalisation of Irish Television by Farrel Corcoran
As the national publicly owned and funded broadcaster, RTE can lay claim to being the biggest cinema, school, sports stadium, market square, performance stage, town crier and concert hall in Ireland. It sets the agenda for the national conversation that drives modern Ireland. For about 40 years, RTE’s radio and television channels have played an enormous role in shaping Irish social and cultural life. This book is a study of the structural transformations now taking place in Irish broadcasting. The book focuses on the television sector generally, but primarily on RTE, as it adjusts to a number of radical changes in the global field of forces whose impact began to accelerate in the mid-1990s.

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Maeve de Markievicz: Daughter of Constance by Clive Scoular
Maeve was the only child of Constancs and Casimir Markievicz. Her childhood was largely spent, not with her parents, but with her maternal grandmother at the Gore-Booth family home at Lissadell, County Sligo. Maeve’s relationship with Constance was an erratic one and, although not actually abandoned by her mother, she soon learned that she would have to fend for herself. She trained as a landscape gardener in England, where she spent most of her adult life. In her last years, she reverted to family type and became an artist. She returned to Ireland and painted scenes of the county Sligo she remembered as a child. This is the first biography of the only child of one of Ireland’s foremost women.

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Wait Till I Tell You: An Ulster Boyhood by Harry Crone
This book is an evocative and captivating account of a boyhood in Ulster from 1904 to 1914. The author captures in words and pictures a world gone by. It is a must for all interested in social history and Irish memoirs.

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De Valera’s Ireland by Gabriel Doherty and Dermot Keogh
The years of influence of de Valera are central to this interpretation of post-independent Ireland. De Valera has been made to should personal responsibility for many of the defects in Irish society in that period. The essays in this book seek to re-examine and re-evaluate that change. Contributors: Owen Dudley Edwards, Sean Farragher, Dermot Keogh, Tom Garvin, Ged Martin, Caitriona Clear, Brian P. Kennedy, John McGahern, Brian Walker, Gearoid O Crualaoich, Gearoid O Tuathaigh and Garret FitzGerald.

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Why Not?: Building a Better Ireland edited by Joe Mulholland
What has happened to Irish society? Sexual abuse and physical abuse has been laid bare. In spite of unprecedented prosperity and affluence, violence stalks the streets. In every part of the country drugs and alcohol are a threat to the social fabric. Politicians and clergy are held in lost esteem. Does it have to be that way? What can be done to build a better Ireland? Some of the country’s leading figures give their views on and analysis of contemporary Ireland and what is needed to create a more civilized society. Contributors: Brian Cowen, Mary Harney, Jim Power, David Begg, Sister Margo Delaney, Phil Hogan, Maureen Gaffney, John Monaghan, Vincent Sharkey, Michele Clarke, Dr. Joe Barry, Tony Geoghegan, Kay O’Hanlon, Most Rev. Willie Walsh, Martin McGuinness, Olwyn Enright, Derek West, Mark Hennessy, John Deasy, John Gormley, Niamh Brennan, Pat Harvey, Mary Coughlan, Sean Gallagher, Deirdre Carroll, John Dolan, Nuala O’Loan, Joe Costello and Michael McDowell.

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Blasket Island Reflections
The Great Blasket Island was the unexpected source of a unique literary flowering in the late 1920s and 1930s when a number of islanders produced autobiographies describing their precarious existence. The immediate success of these books in the Irish language was followed by international acclaim when translated into English and other languages. Even as their books were bring written, the difficult and dangerous life they described was heading towards the final evacuation of the dwindling island community in 1953. RTE Radio’s Blasket Island Reflections documentary series brings a modern perspective to the writings of the most celebrated island authors, their books and the history of the island and its evacuation.

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The Abbey Theatre: Ireland’s National Theatre the First 100 Years by Christopher Fitz-Simon
Dublin’s Abbey Theatre opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Over the course of the ensuing century, it survived fire, riot and perpetual artistic disagreement to become one of the greatest theatres in the Western world, presenting over 740 new plays by some of the greatest Irish writers of the modern age, including W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge, Sean O’Casey and Brian Friel. In this book, the author celebrates the Abbey Theatre’s centenary by offering a witty chronological survey of the company’s distinguished and colourful history. Beautifully illustrated with cartoons, sketches and production photographs from the Abbey archives and elsewhere, the book provides an unparalleled overview of the great actors, directors and playwrights of 20th century Irish theatre, as well as detailing the company’s long and illustrious relationship with other European and American theatres and playwrights. It also contains a complete list of plays produced at the Abbey Theatre since 1904 and features a preface by the Abbey Theatre’s current artistic director, Ben Barnes. With 179 illustrations, 19 in colour.

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Dublin Foundation by Edward Rutherford
This great Irish epic reveals the story of the people of Ireland through the focal point of the island’s capital city. The epic begins in pre-Christian Ireland during the reign of the fierce and powerful High Kings of Tara, with the tale of two lovers, the princely Conall and the ravishing Deirdre, whose travails echo the ancient Celtic legends of Cuchulainn. From the stirring beginnings, the author takes the reader on a graphically realised journey through the centuries. Through the interlocking stories of a powerfully imagined cast of characters - druids and chieftains, monks and smugglers, merchants and mercenaries, noblewomen, rebels and cowards - the reader sees Ireland through the lens of its greatest city. The author vividly and movingly portrays the passions and struggles that shaped the major events in Irish history. The mission of St. Patrick; the coming of the Vikings, who founded the port of Dublin; the glories of the great nearby monastery of Glendalough, and the making of treasures like the Book of Kells; the extraordinary career of Brian Boru; the trickery of King Henry II which gave England its first foothold in medieval Ireland: all these set the stage for the great conflict between the English kings and the princes of Ireland and the disastrous Irish invasion of England which incurrred the wrath of King Henry VIII. The book, the first in a two-part Dublin epic, draws to a close in the Reformation, at a major turning point in Irish history, with the ceremonial burning of Ireland’s most holy relics.

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The Swing of Things by Sean O’Reilly
Noel Boyle needs a new life and he has come to Dublin to find it. He dreams of transformation and renewal. But as he struggles to overcome his loneliness and to keep despair at bay his attempts at change seem futile and almost comic. One thing offers the possibility of salvation: a woman. Boyle starts a relationship with Eleanor, who is beguiling yet remote, playful yet serious in her suggestion that he return to England with her. Can he take the chance or will it be the excessive street-poet Fada who, by tempting hum back into the violence of his past, will determine his future? All the while the face of a young woman pulled from the Liffey haunts his mind and awakens an ancient rage in his gut … Ablaze with stories of lives lived and lost, this novel is a darkly beautiful meditation on the idea of escape and what it is that keeps us tethered to the world. (First Edition Available)

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The Taoiseach by Peter Cunningham
In Ireland, in the second half of the twentieth century, a corrupt circle of politicians and shadowy business figures control the levers of power. Lucrative property deals involving the sale of government assets are secretly financed by Middle Eastern oil dollars in exchange for Irish passports. Planning corruption is practiced as a matter of course. Political donations are rewarded with access to offshore bank accounts as the ordinary people of Ireland are forced to tighten their belts. As the heart of this web of deceit and intrigue is the Taoiseach, the Irish prime minister, Harry Messenger. A survivor of the political turmoil of the late 1960s, Messenger has now seized control and nothing is allowed stand in the way of his hold on power or his voracious lifestyle. This novel is a powerful story and a topnotch political thriller that shows modern Ireland as never before.

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A Moth at the Glass by Mogue Doyle
In Springmount, County Wexford, Will is watching Kate Kelly while she finishes her chores. As darkness gathers, and Kate moves from the milking shed of her smallholding into her house, the ghosts of Will’s past do likewise. A moth at the glass, he watches them through the window and, as the strains of St. Anne’s Reel fill the kitchen, Kate and her brother Philly begin to dance on the newly laid floor, while old Mrs. Kelly watches from beside the fire. Desperate to understand how the terrible tragedy in his past can haunt his present, Will looks back to the 1920s: a halcyon time in which romance and mad expectation beckoned. It was also a period of great change and tension, wherein the traditional order was giving way to a new political awareness and the ties of family and friends no longer held so much sway. As much a meditation on time past as it is a love story of two young people who are meant to be together, this is a lyrical and emotive novel that recreates a time just after the Irish Civil War, when mountain lads roamed country lanes, loaded pistols in their pockets, and when innocence and romance were corrupted by a physical passion that ran all too deep. (First Edition Available)

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Elvis, Jesus and Me by Emer McCourt
Ger wants to be a boy but Jesus isn’t having any of it, which begs the question: if God can send a man to the moon why can’t He turn her into a boy? And if He can’t, does He even exist and who cares anyway when Elvis can sing ‘Jail House Rock’ as sweetly as any virgin and help Ger to forget her worries about whether she’ll burn in hell for kidnapping an alter boy or for showing her knickers to the world … Ger and her younger brother Seany - two different peas in one freshly plucked pod - ask and answer, watch and wait, move and shake their way through tool sheds, wakes, dangerous weapons, chippolatas, the Holy Trinity and the O’Rowe sisters’ guide to life and love, in a world where conversations with Neil Armstrong colour their young lives with wisdom that can only come from the stars … Endearing and bitingly bittersweet, this novel marks the wonderful debut by an extraordinary new young Irish writer. (First edition available)

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The Captain with the Whiskers by Benedict Kiely
In Bingen House, guarded by shale-white Ulster mountains, and on the edge of the Atlantic, lived Captain Conway Chesney: a small, neat, efficient and diabolical domestic tyrant. Owen Rodgers, son of the local doctor, a kind father and a man of music, came one day to look at the sheepdog trials on the wide green before Bingen House. There in the early morning he peered down from a stable loft into the farmyard and discovered the evil secret of Bingen. Thereafter the house and its owner possessed him like a perverted love, and his story became the story of the Conway Chesneys. This novel is an extraordinary study of a psychopath and of the terrible consequences of his life and death. Originally published in 1960, it is one of the most compelling novels the Irish writer has ever written. This new edition includes and Afterword by the novelist and playwright Thomas Kilroy.

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The Master by Colm Toibin
In this brilliant and profoundly moving novel, the author tells the story of Henry James, an American-born genius of the modern novel who became a connoisseur of exile, living among artists and aristocrats in Paris, Rome, Venice and London. In January 1895 James anticipates the opening of his first play in London. He has never been so vulnerable, nor felt so deeply unsuited to the public gaze. When the production fails, he returns, chastened, to his writing desk. The result is a string of masterpieces, but they are produced at a high personal cost. The author captures the exquisite anguish of a man whose artistic gifts made his career a triumph but whose private life was haunted by loneliness and longing, and whose sexual identity remained unresolved. Henry James circulated in the grand parlours and palazzos of Europe, he was lauded and admired, yet his attempts at intimacy inevitably failed him and those he tried to love. The Master is Colm Toibin’s most accomplished and powerful novel to date. It is a portrait of a man who was elusive to both friends and family even as he remained astonishingly vibrant and alive in his art - a searching exploration of the hazards of putting the life of the mind before affairs of the heart. (First Edition Available)

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Another Kind of Life by Catherine Dunne
Hannah, May and Eleanor are sisters. Their early life in Dublin, with the middle-class parents, has prepared them for a comfortable future of marriage, children and servants. Further north, Mary and Cecilia are also sisters. They are struggling to make a living in the linen mills of Belfast, amid rising political tensions. The lives of all the sisters are destined to unfold in ways that none of them could ever have imagined. This novel is the intricately crafted tale of how their lives entwine, against the backdrop of the rapidly changing Ireland of the late nineteenth century. In the novel the author returns to the themes of family ties, love and loyalty, which she has delineated so finely in her earlier work. But this time, she opens out her canvas to tell a much wider story. Perceptive, absorbing and beautifully told, the novel is an unforgettable portrait of a family, and of Ireland, which stays with the reader long after the last page.

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Among Druids and High Kings
This book tells the fascinating story of the coming of Christianity to the Irish and many other compelling tales of the daily lives of the men and women of Ireland from Celtic to Christian times. From contemporary accounts by travellers, church officials, and jurists as well as from the legends and histories for which the Irish are so justly famous come the stories of kings and thieves, farmers and monks, scholars and saints. Among them are the mighty Brian Boru, who defeated Irishmen and Vikings alike to become King of All Ireland; Saint Brigit, the daughter of a druid, who put her eyes out rather than marry; and Dermot Mac Murrough, who, by asking for the assistance of Henry II in regaining his kingdom, opened the door to England’s future involvement in Ireland’s affairs. The accompanying photographs of breathtaking landscapes, beautifully carved stone monuments, colourful illuminated manuscripts, and the meticulously crafted metalwork said to be ‘the work of angels’ bring the Irish people and their land vividly to life.

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The Irish Hedge School and Its Books, 1695-1831 by Antonia McManus
For over 136 years, the hedge schoolmasters were the dominant educators in Ireland. For most of that time, they worked underground, due to the strictures of the Penal Laws. Impoverished parents valued this education so highly that they bartered flitches of bacon and miscawns of butter for it. Being independent of church and state, the schools incurred the wrath of both on occasions. The state regarded their reading books as objectionable. In fact, they were an eclectic mix of romantic chapbooks and the best literature of the 18th century, purchased by parents as cheap piracies of expensive English originals. The beginning of the end for the masters came when their erstwhile allies, the Catholic hierarchy, concerned with the official view of them as incompetent, at a time when the church was seeking state aid for Catholic education. But the masters remained deep in the affections of the Irish people as they fulfilled a multiplicity of roles such as local scribe, historian, poet, defender of religion, Bible Society teacher, land surveyor, lawyer, parish clerk, revolutionary and political activist.

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Becoming George: The Life of Mrs. W.B. Yeats by Ann Saddlemyer
An extraordinarily talented woman, George Yeats was more than wife and manager of the famous poet. A champion of occult intelligence, she was friend and critic to writers such as Ezra Pound, Frank O’Connor, and Richard Ellmann. For the first time, this intelligent and creative woman takes centre stage in this lovingly detailed biography. Drawing on memoirs and a wealth of previously unknown and unpublished sources, the author reveals the story of a fascinating and remarkable Irish woman.

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The Oxford Companion to Irish History edited by S.J. Connolly
In a field bedevilled by controversy, this book offers a comprehensive and balanced point of reference to all aspects of this fascinating and complex island. Written by a team of 96 renowned experts in the field of Irish studies, the Companion’s 1800 A-Z entries explore Irish history from earliest times to the dawn of the new millennium. Breaking away from the purely chronological approach, entries focus on the enduring themes of Irish history, such as nationalism, unionism, and Catholicism, as well as on the changing fabric of everyday life, in areas such as dress, music, sport, and diet. Traditional topics such as the rebellion of 1798 and the Irish Civil War sit alongside up-to-date discussion on the latest research in areas such as women’s history, popular culture, literary history, prehistoric Ireland, and early historic Ireland. Designed to meet the needs of all readers, from scholars and students to anyone with an interest in Ireland, using both concise definitions and in-depth analytical essays, the book offer interpretations of issues and events that continue to affect the Irish identity today.

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A New History of Ireland by Christine Kinealy
Irish history has been dominated by a succession of settlers, traders, invaders, soldiers and colonisers. From the arrival of Patrick in the fifth century - arguably the most important settler ever - to Ireland as it is today, the author incorporates some of the most recent scholarship to explore the key developments and personalities that have helped to shape this country over 1500 years. From the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the twelfth century - which began Ireland’s complex and tortuous relationship with England - to Cromwell’s invasion, the Plantation of Ulster, the Great Famine and Nationalism, the author challenges the dominant interpretation of events. She focuses on diversity: the lack of unity among the settlers; the varying response of the native peoples; the important contribution of women in shaping the development of Ireland; and, more recently, the divisions between and within nationalist and unionist groups. Ireland’s external relationships with America and other countries are also examined as is it position at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Economically, politically and culturally, Ireland is again playing a leading role in Europe. This book provides a concise, lucid and nuanced approach to Ireland’s complex and fascinating history.

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Ireland’s Forgotten 10th by Jeremy Stanley
This book is the story of the Irishmen, all volunteers, who formed a unit in the British Army in the Great War of 1914-1918, in response to an appeal from Lord Kitchener. 12,000 recruits came from all four provinces of Ireland and from both sides of the political and religious divide. There have been Irish regiments in the British Army since the 17th Century, but these men formed the first essentially Irish division ever to take the field. From their formation and training in 1914, this account follows the fortunes of the 10th (Irish) Division through service overseas in Gallipoli, Macedonia, and Palestine, and ends with the effective disbandment of the division in Palestine in 1918. Each phase of the campaign is preceded by a brief appraisal of the tactical situation at the time. These men fought with the utmost heroism and dedication, but for a cause that, after the Partition of Ireland, became politically incorrect. Since that time, their achievements have been ignored and their history neglected, and this book sets out to right that wrong.

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Celtic Rituals: A Guide to Ancient Celtic Spirituality by Alexei Kondratiev
In the rat race of our lives and loss of connection with the world of nature, certain aspects of Celtic tradition can help renew links with the living reality of the Earth. This beautifully written book is devoted to suggesting guidelines for the establishment and running of Celtic ritual circles. It outlines possible rules for membership and suggests formulas of words for rituals and visualization sequences. Many are closely connected with the passage of time, especially the seasons with their solstices and equinoxes, as well as other feast days. The author emphasizes the need to become conversant with Celtic culture and mythology and at leas one surviving Celtic language, avoiding the undemanding vagueness of much contemporary ‘druidism’. This book unveils the Celtic rituals as something fresh and powerful, relating human existence to the eternal cycle of nature, and offers hope that humanity will recognise the divine beauty of the planet.

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Motherhood in Ireland edited by Patricia Kennedy
The body of work collected here presents the essence of motherhood in Ireland in all its various forms, in relation to both the experiences and the institution of motherhood. The first two sections of the book concentrate on creation, in the physiological sense (childbirth, infant feeding, infertility, and maternal mortality) and in the literary sense (treatment/symbolism of motherhood in Irish literature, both in English and in Gaelic, and in the visual arts). The third section presents the ‘context’ in which motherhood unfolds.

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