Read Ireland Book Reviews, May 1998

The Informer: The Real Story of One Man’s War Against Terrorism by Sean O’Callaghan
In 1988 IRA terrorist Sean O’Callaghan walked into a Tunbridge Wells police station and gave himself up. Two years later, in a Belfast courtroom, he pleaded guilty to all charges of which he was accused and received a sentence of 539 years. Since being a teenager he had been an active member of the IRA and had risen to be the head of their Southern Command. He was responsible for two murders and many terrorist attacks. He was a lynchpin of the organisation. But only eight years later, in 1996, he was released from prison by royal prerogative. For fourteen years he had been the most highly placed informer within the IRA and had fed the Irish police force with countless pieces of valuable information. He prevented the assassination of the Prince and Princess of Wales at a London theatre; he sabotaged operations, explained strategy and caused the arrests of many IRA members. He has done more than any individual to unlock the code of silence that governs the IRA’s members, and has in effect made it possible to fight the war against the terrorists. Under constant threat of IRA revenge, he now works ceaselessly for peace in Ireland. This book is Sean O’Callaghan’s life story. It is the story of a life lived under the constant threat of discovery and its fatal consequences.

Belmont Castle or, Suffering Sensibility by Theobald Wolfe Tone
Among the possessions seized from Theobald Wolfe Tone upon his arrest in 1798 were two copies of Belmont Castle, the epistolary novel he wrote and published with his friends Richard Jebb and John Radcliffe in 1790. Much more than a mere youthful literary squib, Belmont Castle is an elaborate roman-a-clef, satirising the lives of several prominent figures of the Anglo-Irish establishment and redressing a painful love affair from Tone’s past. Written in a style that mocks the popular sentimental fiction of the period, this novel gives the reader a xenophobic Lord Charlemont, a foppish Sir Thomas Goold, a social-climbing William ‘Index’ Ball and ‘Humanity’ Dick Martin as one of several villains in a frothy tale of love and intrigue, abductions and duels, dances and dandies, blushing belles and charging rams. In a tour de force of scholarly recovery, editor Marion Deane’s introduction and annotations guide us through a labyrinth of truth, half-truth and innuendo. Deane shows that Tone composed more than half of the novel, and that the love affairs at the centre of the plots are based on Tone’s own infatuation with Lady Elizabeth Vesey, and on Lady Vesey’s subsequent celebrated adultery and elopement with a Mr Petrie. This novel is at once an amusing mock-Gothic novel and a fascinating historical document, shedding new light on the lives of the great and the good of Anglo-Irish Dublin in the period of ‘Grattan’s parliament’, and on Tone himself in the years before he entered revolutionary politics.

Women and Politics in Contemporary Ireland: From the Margins to the Mainstream by Yvonne Galligan
As Ireland made the transition from a rural to a post-industrial society, from the 1970s onwards, women in Ireland developed a significant political voice. Long excluded from participation in the civic arena, they organised to make new, challenging and specific demands on government. The relationship between feminist representatives and political decision makers is at the core of this book, which shows how Irish women developed the effective political skills required to represent women’s interests to government. The author demonstrates that the political activity of the women’s movement in the Republic of Ireland contributed to the dismantling of a range of discriminatory policies against women, and she discusses the compromises made by both sides as the political system slowly moved to accommodate the feminist agenda. Thus, the dynamics of Irish politics are explored from a perspective that is different from, yet complementary to, the standard institutional approach to studies of the Irish political system. This book clearly marks the significant points in the creation of a more women-friendly society in Ireland from the 1970s to the present day. It is the story of women’s rights in contemporary Ireland.

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Ulster Loyalism and the British Media by Alan Parkinson
The growing body of research into Ulster’s ‘loyalism’ has tended to focus on its political nature, rather than the manner in which it has been presented in the British media. This is where this study differs from previous works. It examines not only the manifestations of such ‘loyalism’, but also considers the ‘messages’ disseminated by Unionist propagandists and their effects on British political policy. However, the book’s essence is in its analysis of media representations of Ulster’s Protestant community, including a case study investigation into the 1987 Enniskillen bombing. It also presents the results of the first survey of British public opinion regarding the unionist case. Utilising a wide variety of press reports and transcripts of television documentaries covering the last 30 years, this book provides unprecedented analysis of British media coverage of Ulster unionism and suggests that there is a direct correlation between the paucity of such coverage and ongoing unionist marginalization.

The ‘98 Reader: An Anthology of Song, Prose and Poetry edited by Padraic O’Farrell
This wide-ranging gathering of prose, poetry and song mirrors both sides of the conflict of 1798, orange and green, imperial and republican, from the early idealism of the 1782 Dungannon Convention to the final snuffing out of resistance in Wicklow in 1803. Here are the legendary ballads and verse accounts of the rebellion, familiar and little known, ranging from those by anonymous balladeers to works by John Keegan Casey, P.J. McCall, Thomas Moore, Thomas Davis, Alice Milligan, William Drennan, William Rooney and Ethna Carbery. These are supplemented by prose accounts by Theobald Wolfe Tone, Charles Teeling, Robert Emmet, Jonah Barrington and Maria Edgeworth, and folk narratives from the archive of the Irish Folklore Department at University College, Dublin. This book is a delightful companion, recording and celebrating a pivotal moment in Ireland’s history.

Politics and Irish Life, 1913-1921: Provincial Experience of War and Revolution by David Fitzpatrick
Originally published in 1977, this book was the first to examine the political experience of unremarkable Irish people during the years of turmoil preceding independence. It discusses social constraints on the political behaviour of several groups: the ‘Crown forces’, Protestants, Home Rulers, Sinn Feiners, revolutionary administrators, guerrilla fighters, and organisers of labourers and farmers. The book is centred on County Clare, and draws upon personal recollections as well as numerous public and private archives. It documents the supremacy of local over national interests in shaping the Irish revolution, points out parallels between the old and new forms of nationalism, and demonstrates the impact of the Great War in changing the course of politics in Ireland as elsewhere. This book offers a unique survey of the social context in which the Irish revolution was forged.

In and Out of the Shadow by Liam Nolan
This book is a memorable and moving story of a young boy emerging from the shadow of tragedy, a triumphant autobiographical novel. It is the story of a boy growing up in the port of Cobh in the early 1940s. At the centre of his experience is the personal and communal trauma of a tragic accident in the harbour. The effect on his emotions is compounded by the toll of losses of shipping to U-boats, by constant reports of the progress of the war, and by the sight of explosions at sea off nearby Roche’s Point. He becomes obsessed with death, God, the sea and poverty. But all is not sorrow, and in this warmly human novel, there is a sparkling evocation of the joys of laughter, music, compassion, love and mischief.

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The New Irish Americans by Rat O’Hanlon
This book is an account of the resurgence of the Irish in the United States since 1980, describing: the history of Irish immigration to America; the latest wave of immigrants from Ireland and their huge influence on American life; how the new Irish have handled popular stereotypes; current issues such as Northern Ireland and the peace process; the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Great Famine; and the problems that lie ahead for the Irish in the United States, including new immigration laws and the future of the relationship between Irish-born and American-born ‘Irish’.

Annals of the Famine in Ireland by Asenath Nicholson edited by Maureen Murphy
In January 1847, during the height of the Famine in Ireland, Asenath Hatch Nicholson began her one-woman relief operation in Dublin, organising a soup-kitchen, visiting homes of the poor and distributing bread in the streets. In a uniquely personal campaign, this remarkable individual travelled the country, helping the starving from Dublin to the West, North and South, while ‘bringing the Bible to the Irish poor’. Compassionate and searing, this book is an extraordinary narrative by an eyewitness who partook of the lives of those she helped to feed and clothe. Her sketches and snapshots, vividly recapturing individuals and events during one of the most momentous periods of Irish history, are introduced and skilfully annotated by a contemporary scholar.

Tears on My Pillow: The Adventures of an Irish Schoolboy by Louis Byrne
This is the follow-on to the author’s immensely popular and successful autobiography, Dare You Ripple My Pond. The author continues telling his stories of trauma and tragedy, humour and fantasy. A native of Limerick, this book transports the reader back in time to the 1930s and 40s. The author’s love of his native city and his devotion to his mother shines through every story. He guides the reader through labyrinths known only to himself and his faithful dog. When alone and crippled by painful chilblains, he escapes to Tir-na-nOg and is comforted by the Goddess Myosotis. He tells of the slaughter-man that trusted him and nearly died as a consequence. Of his mother, that he and his dog nearly drove insane. Of the fisherman that nearly lost his life in the river, all due to the author and his dog. This is a delightful book of true stories as they happened.

Focus on Ireland edited by Jeffrey L. Kallen.
Irish English is both the oldest overseas variety of English and, thanks to its co-existence with Irish Gaelic, one of the longest-documented examples of a contact-influenced language variety. The dual aspects of substratal influence and dialectal conservatism, together with the spread of this variety in the Irish diaspora and its use in literature, provide the main impetus for research into Irish English. This volume brings together 12 original papers, which use a variety of methods to examine these aspects of English in Ireland. Following a historical introduction that looks critically at received views of language diffusion in Ireland, three papers directly address the role of the Irish-language substrate in Irish English. Detailed studies also describe non-standard syntax in Belfast, systems of dental and alveolar phonemic contrast, contemporary sound change in Galway, Irish English prosody, dialect wordlists, and the uses of Irish English, notably Ulster Scots, in contemporary literature. The North American perspective investigates the role of Irish English in Newfoundland, and examines a corpus of 18th-century documents, which reflects the language brought to the United States in the early development of American English

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The Oxford Book of Ireland edited by Patricia Craig
Ireland is a country that arouses strong opinions: everyone has a view on its character, its foibles, its charm and its waywardness. It has inspired some of the best poetry and nurtured some of the best writers in the world, and in this book poets, novelists, artists, dramtists, historians, philosophers, peasants and aristrocrats are brought together to celebrate and commemorate the nation and its people. Irish history lives more in the present than that of other countries, and there are constant reminders in these pages of past triumphs and tragedies, and their continuing impact on the national psyche. Conquest, famine, emigration, the decline of the language, the struggle for identity and independence are all charted here with a raw and passionate immediately. Interwoven with episodes of national turbulence are lyrical sections on the Irish countryside, on the cities and the suburbs, the climate and the folk culture: high jinks and conviviality alongside reminiscence are dispuation. The anthology opens with a section entitled: The Character of Ireland. Other chapters are: Dublin of the Old Statues; A Brighter Life; Hoary with History; Dirty Streets and Proud People; In My Childhood Trees Were Green; An Ulster Twilight; Bitter Memories; A Nation of Lunaticks!; The Irish Question; The Fields Beyond the House; Brown Rain Falling Heavily; The Thick and Bloody Fight; The Amazing Power of Emblems; The Famished Land; Farewell to Barn and Stack and Tree; Ancestral Houses; Western Landscape; Puritan Land/ Sean-nos/Old Style; The Stereophonic Nightmare; and the The War Against the Past. The editor’s skilful selection transforms a kaleidoscope of images into a picture of real substance and character; immensely rich and varied, full of unexpected as well as familiar voices from the Irish scene; this book captures the essence of a complex and fascinating land.

1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion by Morgan Llywelyn
The Easter Rising of 1916 was a major turning point in Irish history. Inspired by poets and schoolteachers, fuelled by a desperate desire for freedom, and played out in the historic streets of Dublin against a background of World War I, the novel is a story of tremendous power and unique poignancy. Ned Halloran has lost both his parents, and almost his own life, to the sinking of the Titanic, and has lost his sister to America. Determined to keep what little he has, he returns to Ireland and enrols at Saint Enda’s school in Dublin. Saint Enda’s headmaster is the renowned scholar and poet, Patrick Pearse who is soon to gain greater and undying fame as a rebel and patriot. Ned becomes totally involved with the growing revolution =85 and the sacrifices it will demand. Meanwhile, in America, his sister feels her own urge toward freedom, both for her native Ireland and herself. Kathleen too becomes involved in the larger struggle, as America’s role in the Irish fight for freedom escalates. Politics, conspiracy, and betrayal become part of a New World she never expected. The novel examines the Irish fight for freedom, which parallels in so many ways America’s own bid for independence. For the first time, it gives us a look at the heroic women who were willing to fight and die beside their men for the sake of the future. Above all, this novel is the story of the valiant patriots who, for a few unforgettable days, held out against the might of empire to realise an impossible dream. It is a vivid and compelling portrait of the birth of modern Ireland. Morgan Llywelyn is the author of a succession of books that chronicle the legendary and historical figures of Ireland’s past, from the pre-Christian era to this most recent novel. Great imagination and copious research and historical detail in her books bring alive to the modern reader the legends of Cuchulain and Finn Mac Cool, and the days of Brian Boru, Grace O’Malley, High O’Neill, and many others.

Ernie O’Malley: IRA Intellectual by Richard English
Ernie O’Malley (1897-1957) was one of the most talented and colourful of modern Irish republicans. An important IRA leader in the 1916-1923 Irish Revolution, this bookish gunman subsequently became a distinguished intellectual, and the author of two classic autobiographical accounts of the revolutionary period: “On Another Man’s Wound” and “The Singing Flame”, both of which are still in print. His post-revolutionary life was as turbulent as his IRA years. Travelling extensively in Europe and America, he mixed with a wide range of artistic and literary figures, and devoted himself to a variety of writing projects. In his IRA career he had mixed with revolutionaries such as Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera; in his post-IRA years his friends included Samuel Beckett, Louis MacNeice, John Wayne and John Ford. Based on previously unseen archival sources, this exciting new biography illuminated many persistent themes of Irish history, ranging from the origins and culture of militant republicanism and the complexities of Anglo-Irish relations to the development of intellectual and artistic life in 20th century Ireland. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the background to modern Irish politics, and the past and present role of the Irish Republican Army.

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Talk of the Town by Ardal O’Hanlon
This gripping first novel by one of Ireland’s award-winning stand-up comedians is a wonderfully observed tale of a 19 year-old’s frustrations and dreams. Laced with hilarious smalltown insights, it is a powerful portrait of how one man’s insecurities and fear build to a shocking climax. The tale is about Patrick Scully, who is special. At least he was a child tall for his age, talented at school and on the football field. In awe of his father, all he ever wanted was to follow him into the police force. But now his father is dead, school’s over and Scully is stuck in a dead-end job in Dublin while his friens study useless degree courses. Unable to articulate his bitterness and mounting rage, the only way to turn is in. To make matters worse, everyone thinks his childhood buddy Balls O’Reilly is great crack. In fact, even Scully’s girlfriend Francesca seems to be paying more attention to Balls than Scully. In a desperate attempt to numb the isolation, Scully returns to his hometown to the weekend and creates a whirlwind of drinking and fighting until he nears oblicion. However, he only gets as far as the hospital where he almost drowns in a flood of memories. Dublin Slums, 1800-1925: A Study in Urban Geography by Jacinta Prunty (Paperback; 22.50 IRP / 33.75 USD) In this thoroughly original book, based on source materials ranging from public inquiries and property valuations to the records created by women charity workers, such as Mary Aylward, the slum geography of Dublin city is meticulously recreated. The overlapping areas of contagious disease, slum housing and the support of the very poorest, the beggars and constermongers who daily thronged the city streets, form the three main areas of analysis. These issues are explored on scales ranging from citywide to the local street or court, while the final case study examines the dynamic nature of slum creation and efforts at relief and reform in the particular context of the north city parishes of St Mary’s and St Michael’s.

Lighthouses of Ireland by Kevin McCarthy with illustrations by William Trotter
For Ireland, lighthouses are important not only to mariners, but to the livelihood of the entire island. Eighty navigational aids under the authority of the Commissioner of Irish Lights dot the 2000 miles of Irish coastline. Each is addressed in this book, and thirty of the most interesting ones are featured with detailed histories and full-colour paintings. From the sinking of the Lusitania to the burial of a shipwrecked elephant, the author outlines the significance of Irish lights to the maritime history of Ireland and the world while painting a vivid picture of the life led by the keepers and inhabitants of the rocks, islands, and shores of Ireland.

Dictionary of Irish Biograhy 3rd edition edited by Henry Boylan
This book is the only one-volume A-Z which summarises the lives and achievements of Ireland’s most distinguished people from A.D. 400 to the present day. This new edition sees a substantial expansion of the number of entries. In addition, the dictionary is illustrated for the first time. The list of subjects is as broad as irish life itself and includes St. Columba, Jonathan Swift, Lady Jane Wilde (and her son Oscar), Sir Edward Carson, Arthur Guinness and Kate O’Brien. There are offbeat entries: Francis Beaufort, the hydrographer after whom the Beaufort scale for measuring wind velocity is named; Patrick Bronte, clergyman father of the novelists; and marie-Louise O’Morphi, mistress of Louis XV of France and the subject of one of Boucher’s most erotic nudes. Among the new entrants mainly those who have died since the appearance of the previous edition in 1988 are Samuel Beckett, Ray McAnally and Eileen O’Casey.

Irish Georgian by Herbert Ypma
During the late 18th century Ireland experienced a genuine renaissance. With the wealth of the British empire steadily increasing and the wars the scarred 17th century Ireland behind them, the landed gentry of Ireland spearheaded the founding of a considerable Irish industry, dedicated to beauty in architecture, design and decoration. Dublin, with its trend-setting Georgian architecture, blossomed into what became known as the Empire’s second city, and in all disciplines of style, Ireland set extraordinary standards and achieved many world firsts. The first public building in the neo-Palladian style was in Dublin; copper-plate-printed fabric, marvellously decorated, was invented in Ireland; silver and cut crystal from Irish workshops were exported all over the world; and the Dublin Group of engravers became renowned world-wide for raising the printing technique of the mezzotint to dazzling new heights. The unaffected simplicity and symmetry of the classical revival pervade the architecture of the ear, from grand country manors, genteel townhouses and graceful villas, to simple rural cottages. This book features the inspirational houses great and small that have been renovated. Once shunned as representative of English Protestant oppression, Ireland’s magnificent Georgian legacy has enjoyed a reappraisal and a great revival of interest in recent times. With its seductive aura of dignified restraint and faded grandeur, Irish Georgian style elicits an instinctive approval today. The book contains 142 wonderful colour photographs by Barbara and Rene Stoeltie.

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Ireland Blue Guide 1998 by Brian Lalor
The 8th edition of this guide details hundreds of sites of historic interest and where to find them. It contains informative descriptions of architectural styles including dramatically sited castles and hill forts, Bronze Age wedge-tombs, Iron Age or early Christian Ogham stones, intricately carved High Crosses, beehive huts, Round Towers and medieval churches and castles. It provides an up-to-date look at the contemporary Irish cultural scene. Explore the wealth of art galleries and museums or sample some traditional Irish music. The author’s choice of bookshops, cafes, bars and restaurants are all listed. It also provides practical information on where to stay: hotels, B&B’s, country houses and hostels to suit all tastes and budgets. Travel information, including ferry sailings to England, and river cruises. A comprehensive guide for the traveller.

Milestones in Irish History edited by Liam De Paor
This book spans the whole range of Irish history from the megalithic era to the late 20th century. Contributors include the leading experts in their fields. Chapters include: The Building of the Boyne Tombs by Frank Mitchell; The Coming of Christianity by Liam de Paor; Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf by Donnchadh O Carrain; The Norman Invasion by Michael Richter; The Flight of the Earls by Margaret Mac Curtain; The Plantations of Ulster by Aidan Clarke; The Act of Union by James McGuire; The Death of the Irish Language by Richard B. Walsh; Catholic Emancipation by Kevin B. Nolan; The Land War by Joseph Lee; The Founding of the Gaelic League by Donal McCartney; Partition by Ronan Fanning; and The European Economic Community by John A. Murphy. Succinct and readable, this book is an essential guide to the understanding of key epochs and events in Irish history.

Diaries of Ireland: An Anthology, 1590-1987 edited by Melosina Lenox-Conyngham
Here is Ireland’s past distilled poignant personal narratives and privileged moments, human behaviour recorded in its infinite variety, voices overheard: chamber music. In these pages, Elizabethan adventurers, fops, soldiers, widows, landlords, republicans, poets, hedge-school masters and literary lesbians seem to dance through 400 years of Irish history. National events the siege of Limerick, the battle of the Boyne, Wexford in 1798, the Famine, literary revival, 1916 Rising and Civil War commingle with details of individual lives procreation and recreation, courtship, food, clothing, religion, privation, death. This book is an intimate history of everyday life on this island, a feast for the mind and imagination.

Rebellion in Wicklow: General Joseph Holt’s Personal Account of 1798 edited by Peter O’Shaughnessy
Published for the first time is the account, in his own words, of one of the most active of all the United Irish military leaders. It focuses almost entirely on County Wicklow and is full of local reference and colour. Joseph Holt was around 40 years old at the time of the 1798 rebellion. A comfortably-off tenant farmer, he threw his lot in with the rebels more out of a sense of grievance than for idealistic reasons. He came to the fore after the main Wexford battles, as captain, colonel and general, and successfully operated as a guerrilla leader from the shelter of the Wicklow mountains. He held out long after the main rebellion had ended, before surrendering to the authorities in November 1798. He was deported, but eventually returned to Ireland. A sanitised version of his memoirs was published in 1838: this book is the full and accurate transcript of the Irish part of his memoirs. It is fascinating reading!

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Our Lady of Sligo by Sebastian Barry
Award-winning playwright’s newest play is a compelling story inspired by his own family history. In Jervis Street Hospital in Dublin, circa 1953, Mai O’Hara lies, attended by the young nursing Sister, and visited by the uneasy figures of her husband Jack, daughter Joanie and her dead father. Fuelled by alcohol, passion and despair it is the story of her flamboyant but destructive relationship with Jack, and the lost country of her childhood and unfulfilled expectations in the wake of Irish independence and self-rule. The play was first produced at the Royal National Theatre in London in a co-production with Out of Joint, directed by Max Stafford-Clark, in April 1998.

Veronica Guerin: Life and Death of a Crime Reporter by Emily O’Reilly
At 1pm on 26 June 1996, the Sunday Independent’s crime reporter Veronica Guerin was shot dead by a motorcycle pillion passenger as she waited at traffic lights on the outskirts of Dublin the victim of her own crusading expose of leading criminals. Her death profoundly shocked the country. Both the President and the Taoiseach attended her funeral; tributes were paid to her in the Dail, and members of the public placed hundreds of bouquets of flowers in her memory. Within a month the government had introduced new anti-crime measures and two of the leading murder suspects had fled the country. While Guerin was hailed as a heroine, the finest journalist of her generation, the Sunday Independent was busy denying culpability in her death, and its officials vigorously refuted accusations that the paper’s cult of personality and cynical controversialism put its writers in danger. This book exposes the frightening moral bankruptcy of the media in Ireland and the devastating consequences of this for the individual and for Irish society.

Jews in Twentieth-Ceutury Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust by Dermot Keogh
This book analyses the relationship between the Irish state and the Jewish community in the 1930s and throws new light on the rise of anti-Semitism and on Nazi propaganda activity in the pre-war years. The anti-Semitism of the Irish envoy in Berlin, Charles Bewley, is evaluated in the context of the country’s restrictive refugee policy. Particular emphasis is placed on the friendship between the Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera and Chief Rabbi of the Irish Free State, Isaac Herzog, which endured through the war years. The author assesses Ireland’s humanitarian record during the Holocaust and its aftermath and examines the place of the Holocaust in the memory of Irish people, and finally traces the history of the Irish Jewish community from the 1950s to the 1990s.

Andrew Bryson’s Ordeal: An Epilogue to the 1798 Rebellion edited by Michael Durey
Andrew Bryson was the son of a Prebysterian leaseholder and prominent United Irishman in County Down. Though rapidly promoted to ‘colonel’, he does not seem to have participated in the county’s few skirmishes during the rising of 1798. After a few months in hiding, he was punished not by execution or transportation, but by cumpulsory enlistment in the regular army. In a l= ong and reflective letter to his sister, written in 1801 after his escape to New York, Bryson provided a vivid chronicle of his enforced travels through Ireland and beyond. The chaotic state of the Irish jails, and the casual cruelty often displayed by jailers and yeomanry, is described in sometimes painful detail. Sustained by his idealism and native wit, Bryson survived the long march from Belfast to Waterford and even the more rigorous voyage to Martinique. The letter ends with an absorbing account of sadism, sickness and the Irish expatriate solidarity in that exotic Caribbean setting. The edited reconstructs the fraternal and intellectual bonds which supported Ulster’s United Irishmen, even after their dispersal across the globe. The publication of this forgotten manuscript is a major contribution to the bicentennial commemoration of Ireland’s bloodiest rebellion.

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Gender and Sexuality in Modern Ireland edited by Anthony Bradley and Maryann Gialanella Valiulis
This collection of stimulating essays focuses on issues of gender and sexuality in Irish history, biography, language, literature and drama. While the contributors employ a variety of methodological and critical perspectives, they share the conviction that the gendering of Ireland not only of the nation, but also of the actual Irish men and women is a construction of culture and ideology and not simply one of nature. Table of Contents: Queering the Irish Renaissance: The Masculinities of Moore, Martyn, and Yeats by Adrian Frazier; Cathleen ni Houlihan Writed Back: Maud Gonne and Irish National Theater by Antoinette Quinn; Nationalism, Pacifism, Internationalism: Louie Bennett, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, and the Problems of ‘Defining Feminism’ by Margaret Ward; The Fionnuala Factor: Irish Sibling Emigration at the Turn of the Century by Maureen Murphy; ‘Oh, Kathleen Ni Houlihan, Your Way’s a Thorny Way!’: The Condition of Women in 20th Century Ireland by Mary E. Daly; The posthumous Life of Roger Casement by Lucy McDiarmid; Gender, Sexuality, and Englishness in Modern Irish Drama and Film by Elizabeth Butler Cullingford; ‘Our Bodies’ Eyes and Writing Hands’: Secrecy and Sensuality in Ni Chuilleanain’s Baroque Art by Dillon Johnston; ‘The More with Which We are Connected’: The Muse of the Minus in the Poetry of McGuckian and Kinsella; Godly Burden: The Catholic Sisterhoods in 20th Century Ireland by Margaret MacCurtain; The Changing Face of Cathleen ni Houlihan: Women and Politics in Ireland, 1960-1966 by Catherine B. Shannon; ‘Hello Divorce, Goodbye Daddy’: Women, Gender, and the Divorce Debate by Carol Coulter; Language, Stories, Healing by Angela Bourke

It Means Michief by Kate Thompson
Young Dublin actress Deirdre has just landed her first big role and desperately wants to shine - and to impress David, the director she has fallen madly in love with. But while Deirdre loves David, David loves leading lady Eva. Meanwhile, Sebastian and Rory wait in thewings =85 A funny, entertaining and sexy backstage tale set in Dublin’s theatre world, the romantic adventures of a young woman who during one long hot summer discovers the difference between infatuation, lust and love.

The Road to Vinegar Hill: A 1798 Love Story by Harry McHugh
Forced to fly from his school in France to escape the horrors and dangers of the French Revolution, Conal O’Carran sets out to return to his native Duncarran in the north of Ireland. In his naivety he looks forward to reclaiming the family lands he has not seen since infancy. But when he arrives at Duncarran he finds that English colonists have appropriated the estates and the O’Carran castle lies in ruins. At the same time, Nuala Grogan leaves her Academy for the Daughters of Gentlemen in Dublin, expecting to embark on a life of luxury, gaiety and excitement. But her father is deeply in debt, he too at the mercy of Sir Julius Besant, the English owner of Duncarran. Circumstances bring Conal and Nuala together but they face a dramatic and heart-rending struggle to shape their own destinies in the face of events beyond their control. The exciting incidents of the novel unfold against the backdrop of a fascinating and tragic period of Irish history.

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