Read Ireland Book Reviews, May 1999

Rethinking Northern Ireland edited by David Miller
This book provides a coherent and critical alternative account of the Northern Ireland conflict. Most writing on Northern Ireland is informed by British propaganda, unionist ideology or the currently popular ‘ethnic conflict’ paradigm which allows analysts to wallow in a fascination with tribal loyalty. This book sets the record straight by re-embedding the conflict in Ireland in the history of and literature on imperialism and colonialism. Written by Irish, Scottish and English women and men, it includes material on neglected topics such as the role of Britain, gender, culture and sectarianism. It presents a formidable challenge to the shibboleths of contemporary debate on Northern Ireland. Its key features include a comprehensive alternative to current commentary on Northern Ireland and chapters which focus on settler-colonialism, Ulster unionism, Irish nationalism, British strategy and policy, economics, political spaces, racism and sectarianism, gender, culture and representation and the role of academics in the conflict.

Defenders or Criminals?: Loyalist Prisoners and Criminalisation by Colin Crawford
Based on in-depth interviews with loyalist and republican prisoners, as well as with prison officers and ‘ordinary’ criminals, this book is an indictment of British criminalisation policy in Northern Ireland from 1976 to 1981, the year of the hunger strikes. Revealing the brutal and brutalising H-Block regime in disturbing detail, the evidence is all the more damning in coming mainly from loyalist prisoners and from prison officers. Under the compound system of human containment that preceded criminalisation a degree of solidarity existed between loyalist and republican prisoner. The author, who worked as a prison welfare officer at Long Kesh from 1974 to 1979, argues strongly that the introduction of criminalisation destroyed the tentative co-operation that we beginning to develop. Two decades of anguish later, when the political influence of paramilitary prisoners is widely recognised as crucial to the peace process, this important book provides insights into how activists in conflict can become advocates for peace.

The Irish Health System in the 21st Century edited by Austin Leahy and Miriam Wiley
The Irish health services are facing into a time of unprecedented change in the 21st century. Changing sectoral demands, emerging technologies, new diseases and innovative research, the development of a patient-centred quality culture and an increasing need for integration of the roles of doctor and administrator all pose challenges for the health services. This book seeks to address these issues by reflecting on current structures and trends. The 20 contributors, all respected professionals from a range of backgrounds across the health services, provide in-depth analysis of this complex area at a dynamic period in our history. This book will be essential reading for health care professionals, administrators, policy-makers, and anyone with an interest in the provision of health services in Ireland.

Women and Poverty in Ireland by Brian Nolan and Dorothy Watson
This book examines the increasing risk of poverty among female-headed households; the interaction of low pay and household poverty and the incidence of ‘hidden’ deprivation experienced by women within households. The study draws extensively on the 1994 Living in Ireland Survey, a national survey of over 4000 households undertaken to explore the extent of poverty in Ireland. The study establishes that women experience a greater risk of poverty than men; female-headed households are at greater risk than those headed by men or couples; and it identifies groups of women who are particularly vulnerable to poverty. This book advances our knowledge and understanding of factors that contribute to the increased risk of poverty for Irish women. It should inform anti-poverty strategies and policies and is particularly relevant in the context of the Irish government’s National Anti-Poverty Strategy.

Freedom of Angels: Surviving Goldenbridge Orphange by Bernadette Fahy
At age 7, Bernadette Fahy was delivered with her three brothers to their new home in Goldenbridge. She was to stay there until she was 16. Goldenbridge has come to represent some of the worst aspects of child-rearing practices in Ireland and the 1950s and 1960s. Seen as the offspring of people who had strayed from social respectability and religious standards, these children were made to pay for the ‘sins’ of their parents. Bernadette tells of the pain, fear, hunger, hard labour and isolation experiences in the orphanage. This book is a story of triumph over the harshest of circumstances.

Lost Soul?: The Catholic Church Today by Daniel O’Leary
This book makes an honest, tentative effort to explore and deepen the conversation about the undeniable crisis in which the Catholic Church now finds itself. It is not for the faint-hearted. Without pulling punches, it encourages us to read the signs of the times, to face the real questions truthfully, but to ask them compassionately. In everyday language, the plea is made for a radical shift in our understanding of the church, of religion, and of spirituality. The conversation takes us beyond denominations, doctrines, and religion, finding its starting point in the reasons for creation itself, as revealed in the incarnation. Two main transformations are called for: if the hoped-for Jubilee Springtime is to happen. It is only when the current leadership recovers its mystical heart, its divine belief in the goodness of all creation, that it can transcend its suspicion of the world. It will then present its human face to all and begin to trust its people, empowering their leadership qualities , their imagination and their creative gifts. This grace-filled shift cannot happen unless the original, dynamic and fearless passion of Jesus for the equality of all his Father’s creation once again floods the hearts of his frightened, faithful followers. And these two miracles will make all the difference. The imbalance will be adjusted. A new dynamic will happen. The greening and resurgence of our ailing church will be recognised in the new Advent of Christianity. Full of exciting visions and vistas, this book draws the reader into areas of hope and healing at the beginning of the new millennium.

Bowen’s Court and Seven Winters by Elizabeth Bowen
In Seven Winters, a short personal memoir, Elizabeth Bowen recalls with endearing candour her family and her Dublin childhood as seen through the eyes of a child who could not read until she was seven and who fed her imagination only on sights and sounds. Bowen’s Court describes the history of one Anglo-Irish family in County Cork from the Cromwellian settlement until 1959, when the author, the last of the Bowens, was forced to sell the house she loved. With the masterly skill that is also the hallmark of her novels she reviews ten generations of Bowens as representatives of a class the Protestant gentry and their particular achievements and failures. Their life was one of fanatical commitment to property, lawsuits over land, formidable matriarchs, violent conflicts between fathers and sons, hunting, drinking and breeding, self-destructive and self-sustaining fantasies. Interspersed with the family story is the whole turbulent history of Ireland relations between Catholics and Protestants, the Great Famine, the Act of Union, the Troubles. Written in wartime London, Bowen’s own Anglo-Irishness emerges with intriguing ambivalence; her love of tradition, her commitment to rootedness, to proper social behaviour, to acquisitions, and her fears for a world where these are no longer valid.

The Music Lesson by Katharine Weber
“She’s beautiful. Surely, there is nothing more interesting to look at in all the world, nothing, than the human face. Her gaze catches me, pins me down, pulls me in.” A passion for Dutch paintings of the seventeenth century is one of the few pleasures available to Patricia Dolan, a lonely 41-year-old research librarian at the Frick Collection in New York. Patricia’s policeman father raised her to believe deeply in the cause of a united Ireland but her Irishness has always, until now, simply existed as heritage and identity. Then Michael O’Driscoll, an unknown cousin from County Cork, seeks her out. He is young, beguiling, seductive and an active member of an IRA splinter group. Patricia is intensely attracted to him and they begin an affair. As she feels herself coming alive again after the numbing loss of her daughter three years before, it becomes apparent that Mickey has been sent in order to enlist her in a political plot to steal a precious painting for ransom from the Queen of England. In the grip of her obsessions with both Mickey and the tiny Vermeer that she has helped to steal, Patricia keeps a detailed journal while living in solitude with the painting in a remote cottage on the rough coast of West Cork. As Patricia ponders her connections to Irish wildness and Dutch serenity, she discovers a growing awareness of her own moral sensibility and an understanding of what she must do to preserve the things she values most. This novel is an exquisitely controlled novel full of suspense and atmosphere. At once startling and contemplative, it is a gripping and moving literary thriller by a fine and promising young writer.

Irish Country Style: A Celebration of Ireland’s Enduring Charms by Bill Laws
This book provides a timely reminder of the traditional features of Irish style whether it is the vernacular designs of the homes in the provinces, or the distinctive characteristics of country furniture. And it gives an insight into the inspirational way in which these features fit into a contemporary setting. The Irish are justly proud of their distinctive heritage, their language, music and culture, but different people have different ideas about what constitutes Irish style. It’s seen in the domestic crafts, such as Carrickmacross lace and Belleek porcelain, Aran knitwear and Waterford glass. It’s evident in the sharp, bright stone walls of Connemara or the distressed distemper of country cottages; it’s apparent in the friendly street market and the village grocery story, with its proprietor’s name picked out in gold paint above the shop and its goods still measured out on the old brass scales. The common thread running through these scenes and through the 150 evocative and inspiring photographs in this book is the elemental Irishness of it all. From the shape of a shamrock to the design of a wickerwork pear basket, there is no mistaking the Irish touch.

Literary Ireland photography by Tom Kelly and text by Peter Somerville-Large
This book provides a highly entertaining visual journey through the scenery of Ireland’s many great literary traditions. Throughout time, the lives and works of Irish writers have been greatly influenced by the ever-shifting light and shadow of the Irish landscape. With his atmospheric, magical photography, Tom Kelly captures this spectacle of colour and mood in what simply is his best work to date. Peter Somerville-Large provides a lively accompaniment of literary background and anecdote to the images. The book follows Ireland’s famous writers from the dawn of time to the present to their homes, workplaces and settings of their writings, studying the influence of the landscape on their lives and visions. Arranged thematically to cover the different regions and historical traditions of Ireland’s literature, photographs and text evoke the landscape of many famous writers the Dublin of Joyce and Behan, the Sligo of Yeats, the island of O’Flaherty and Synge. The sense of place found in modern writers such as John B. Keane, Seamus Heaney, Edna O’Brien and Brian Friel is also explored. Alongside are brief interludes from the writers’ own works to further amplify the beauty of the landscape.

Irish Voices: 50 Years of Irish Life 1916-1966 by Peter Somerville-Large
In 1916, Eamon de Valera arrived on the Irish scene and as a result, or so we are told, the fairies left. Such combining of fact and folklore is the essence of the author’s fascinating history of fifty years of life in Ireland. This book does not shrink from describing the tragedies and poverty of those years, while brimming with cultural, domestic and political detail, unsullied by either proselytism or sentimentality. Throughout, the reader can hear the voices of the Irish: comments on the frequent crises in the country by contemporary writers, both famous and obscure, are seamlessly woven into the text, as are direct personal memories of those who lived through the events described. Not least of these is the author himself, whose descriptions of clambering out of bed at school during the Emergency to watch ‘Jerry’ bombing Dublin, or cycling from Wicklow to the family’s own island in Kerry with a cat in the basket behind the saddle, gave a personal depth to the history. The author has a talent for observation, and his interest in the people he writes about is palpable. This book is not just a history, but a history of life and a joy to read. It is illustrated with colour photographs.

Irish Moments by Bernd Weisbrod
German photographer Bernd Weisbrod first travelled to Ireland - with backpack and tent in 1970. Captivated by the island’s landscape and its people, he was equally fascinated by the gradual changes taking place in the highly traditional Irish society. He has since returned frequently to capture images both typical and unique with his camera. This book offers an appreciative look at Ireland in quiet black-and-white photographs. The pictures do not represent a preconceived image but allow us to discover many new aspects of this fascinating country.

Irish Blessing: A Photographic Celebration collected with an introduction by Ashley Shannon
The legendary warmth and hospitality of the Irish come alive in this collection of traditional blessings, classic verse and beautiful images from the Emerald Isle. This book captures the spirit and spirituality of the Land of Welcomes in the words of its saints, the verse of its poets and songwriters, and the good wishes of its people for the health and bounty of the land, a happy home, and a pleasant journey that have been handed down from generation to generation. With more than 50 stunning photographs from throughout Ireland, this book is a timeless tribute to the beauty of the land and the character of its people.

The Celts: Life, Myth and Art by Juliette Wood
This book is a richly illustrated introduction to this extraordinary civilization. It presents an art of immense complexity, ranging from exquisite gold jewellery to decorated weapons of war, from manuscript illumination to the spectacular intricacy of knotwork and other patterning. The broad repertoire of Celtic motifs and symbols solar spirals, the salmon of knowledge, the horned god and the endless knot, among others is presented with full interpretive commentary. Themes such as nature’s deities, the Tree of Life, magic and the Otherworld, the mysteries of the Druids, the veneration of heroes and warriors, and the mystic ceremonies and sacrifices of Beltaine, Samhain and other seasonal festivities are explored in fascinating detail.

Irish Records: Sources for Family and Local History by James Ryan
For the period of greatest interest to family history researchers, the late 18th and early-to-mid 19th centuries, Irish family records are sparse. During this period, most of the Irish population (and particularly those who emigrated) lived as small tenant farmers or laborers; these activities required few written records. Even such events and births and deaths and marriages were not generally recorded by the state until after 1864 and, for the majority of people, were not recorded by their church until after 1800. In light of this dearth of records, every source of information can be invaluable. This book is designed to facilitate Irish family history research by providing a comprehensive listing of the record sources available for each county in Ireland. Indeed, there are records which can answer vital questions about Irish ancestors: Where did they live? Who were their relatives? What were their occupations? Such sources as civil registers, censuses, land records, and church records are available to those who know where they can be found. In this revised edition, the author has included many new sources. In particular, the sections for each county on ‘Census and Census Substitutes,’ ‘Miscellaneous Sources,’ and ‘Research Services’ have been expanded. The details of Presbyterian, Church of Ireland, and Catholic records have also been extensively amended. This new edition also lists all of the heritage centers which provide search services, and it specifically indicates which parish registers, gravestone inscriptions, and other sources have been indexed by each. The growth of these centers is the most important development in Irish family history research in the last 10 years, and this book shows how this new resource can be used to greatest effect. This book is your guide to locating Irish family records in Ireland. Arranged by county, it describes civil, ecclesiastical, and printed primary and secondary sources for each county. It also provides important details about the heritage and genealogy centers which now exist in most Irish counties these have indexed many important record sources and provide valuable research services. This book is a direct route to your Irish ancestry.

Black 47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy and Memory by Cormac Ó Gráda
In this book, economic historian and one of the leading authorities on the Great Irish Famine examines the most lethal natural disaster to strike Europe in the 19th century. Between the mid-18th and early-19th centuries, the food source that we still call the Irish potato had allowed the fastest population growth in the whole of Western Europe. As vividly described in Ó Gráda ‘s new work, the advent of the blight transformed the potato from an emblem of utility to a symbol of death by starvation. The Irish famine peaked in Black ‘47, but it brought misery and increased mortality to Ireland for several years. Central to British and Irish history, European demography, the world of history of famines, and the story of American immigration, the Great Irish Famine is presented here from a variety of new perspectives. Moving away from the traditional narrative historical approach to the catastrophe, Ó Gráda concentrates instead on fresh insights available through interdisciplinary and comparative methods. He highlights several economic and demographic features of the famine previously neglected in the literature, such as the part played by traders and markets, by medical science and by migration. Other topics include how the Irish climate exacerbated the failure of the crops in 1845-1847, and the controversial issue of Britain’s failure to provide adequate relief to the dying Irish. Ó Gráda also examines the impact of urban Dublin of what was mainly a rural disaster and offers a critical analysis of the famine as represented in folk memory and tradition. The broad scope of this book is matched by its remarkable range of sources, published and archival.

Ironing the Land: The Coming of the Railway to Ireland by Kevin O’Connor
This book tells the thrilling story of the railways of Ireland. The railway was the greatest advance in human mobility in all history. This book recalls the heroic early days of Ireland’s railway system, how it opened up the entire countryside. It brought the city to the country; newspapers and books; processed food; day-trippers and tourists. It brought the country to the city: people eager for work and the bright lights; ambitions young men with new horizons; emigrants. There were mainline systems operating radially from Dublin to Belfast, Cork, Derry, Galway, Limerick, Sligo, Waterford and Wexford. In the late 19th century, a great network of narrow gauge lines was built in the West of Ireland. They were not economic but they were the stuff of romance: the West Clare, the Cavan & Leitrim, the Londonderry & Lough Swilly. The 20th century first brought decline; then consolidation; and finally renewal. As we approach the millennium, the Irish railways are in good order. This book tells their inspiring story in words and over 100 black-and-white photographs.

Before the Revolution: Nationalism, Social Change and Ireland’s Catholic Elite, 1879-1922 by Senia Paseta
This book is a persuasive new study charting the emergence of a ‘Catholic elite’ in pre-Home Rule Ireland. It explores the developing influences of Catholic intellectuals both men and women in Irish politics during the era before the First World War and the Easter Rising, using the prism of the Irish university question and the development of secondary schools. By profiling a cross-section of representative groups and associations, the author challenges the accepted view that Gaelicist rhetoric and ‘advanced’ nationalist politics predominated among politically-minded students. She also sceptically examines the assumption, much cherished at the time, that employment opportunities for such graduates were limited by the structural bias of the government, or the influence of intransigent Protestants. This study also chronicles the development of self-consciously Catholic organisations in response to the pervasive idea that the professions actively discriminated against majority religion. By concentrating on the emergence of such organisations, and the exposure of rifts within Irish society by educational and social, no less that political, developments around the turn of the century, this work presents a new perspective on the age of the cultural revival and the radicalisation of Irish nationalism.

A Dream of Liberty: Constance Markievicz’s Vision of Ireland by Sari Oikarinen
Constance Markievicz was one of the main leaders of the Irish revolution which gave Ireland the political geography of the Irish Free State and the region of Northern Ireland. She was born among the privileged Anglo-Irish but dedicated her life to ending British government in Ireland. Many people from her class were at this same time interested in cherishing the Irish language and culture but only few combined armed rebellion against British government with these nationalistic cultural goals. And even fewer fought to improve the status of workers and women, in the way that Markievicz did. Her role in the Easter Rising of 1916 was an exceptional one for a women to be elected to the House of Commons and in the first Dail Eireann she held a cabinet post as Minister for Labour. In this book the author analyses the political career of this remarkable woman from her earliest awakening to nationalism to her espousal of republicanism and socialism within the context of Irish intellectual and political history. In Markievicz’s view, the freedom of an individual could only be achieved through the gaining of national freedom and only national freedom could offer the possibility of living a ‘true Irish life’: the life of a useful, independent citizen.

The Pleasing Hours by Cynthia O’Connor
In 1746 the young Lord Charlemont, with his tutor, Edward Murphy, set out from Dublin on his Grand Tour. In 1749 he chartered a ship and crew to sail to Constantinople, the Greek Islands, Egypt, Asia Minor and Greece. A voyage undertaken in the spirit of adventure resulted in the discovery of the lost city of Helicarnassus and the Friezes from the Mausoleum at Bodrum. Based in Rome from 1750, Charlemont formed connections with the most eminent men of his day. With an established reputation as a connoisseur and patron of the arts, Charlemont returned to Ireland in 1754. A patriot and a statesman, he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords and supported an independent Irish Parliament. He was elected Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Volunteers and presided over the Dungannon Convention in 1782. He helped found the Royal Irish Academy and was elected its first president in 1785.

A Walk Through Rebel Dublin 1916 by Mick O’Farrell
This book is a comprehensively illustrated guide to the Rising of Easter Week 1916 based on the significant locations of the rebellion. Dealing separately with thirty buildings and sites throughout the city including the General Post Office, Liberty Hall, Trinity College, the Four Courts and Dublin Castle the author provides a brief, fascinating history of the events and personalities that dominated these locations during Easter Week. A contemporary photograph of each location is juxtaposed with a photograph of the building or streetscape as it looks today. While some dramatic changes have taken place in the architecture of Dublin over the course of the 20th century, there is much that has remained unaltered, as these images will testify. This book can be read and enjoyed without visiting the locations featured, but the reader is encouraged to walk the streets of Dublin, book in hand, to get a vivid sense of some of the most dramatic episodes in Ireland’s history.

In Sligo Long Ago: Aspects of Town and Country Over Two Centuries by John C. McTernan
This volume highlights the events and personalities of bygone days. The collection of 50 essays is a microcosm of the history of Sligo over the past two centuries, and includes many topics omitted from the country histories of O’Rorke and Wood-Martin, such as: Land Tenure before and after the Famine; Brewing and Distilling; From Stagecoach to Railway; Turkish Baths; Remembering ‘98; Mills and Milling; Illicit Distillation; Rise and Fall of John Martin; Last Public Hanging; Fairs and Markets; Liberals, Radicals & Reformers; Inns & Taverns of Other Days; Inside the Masonic Hall; Last Occupants of Coolmeen.

Tara Road by Maeve Binchy
Tara Road is set in contemporary Dublin and on the Northeast coast of the United States. It is the interlocking story of two women, Ria Lynch and Marilyn Vine, who have never met. Their lives have almost nothing in common. Ria lives in a big ramshackle house in Tara Road, Dublin, which is filled day and night with the family and friends on whom she depends. Marilyn lives in a college town in Connecticut, New England, absorbed in her career, an independent and private woman who is very much her own person. Two more unlikely friends would be hard to find. Yet a chance phone call brings them together and they decide to exchange homes for the summer. Ria goes to America in the hope that the change will give her space and courage to sort out the huge crisis in her life that is threatening to destroy her. Marilyn goes to Ireland to recover in peace and quiet from the tragedy that she keeps secret from the world, little realising that Tara Road will prove to be the least quiet place on earth. They borrow each other’s houses, and during the course of that magical summer they find themselves borrowing something of each other’s lives and suffering grows into a story of discovery, unexpected friendships and new hope. By the time Ria and Marilyn eventually meet, they find that they have altered the course of each other’s lives forever.

Wayward Angel by Elaine Crowley
Growing up in a village outside Dublin, Angel is aware of the way men have started to look at her. But she’s not interested in Danny with his lame leg. Nor is she taken with Tommy Maguire in his soldier’s uniform, for all his good looks. The boy she loves is Johnny Quinn but Johnny is training to be a boxer, and he doesn’t even seem to have noticed her. When Angel’s pursuit of Johnny ends in disaster and disgrace, and she goes to Dublin, she thinks that her life cannot become much worse. But Fortune has only just begun to turn her wheel, and Angel soon finds that she has a lot further to fall before she discovers lasting happiness. Writing in prose that is as visual as it is evocative, Elaine Crowley conjures early 20th century Dublin with such intimacy that the reader feels as if walking its streets.

Too Little, Too Late by Colette Caddle
Stephenie West is fed up! She has a job in a successful restaurant that she loves but a boss she hates. The only answer seems to be to leave. Amazingly, an opportunity arises to buy him out and she jumps at it. So when her boyfriend Sean lands a job with a software company in Phoenix, Arizona and wants her to go with him, Stephanie is clear about where her loyalties lie But ghosts from the past have influenced her decision. Can she come to terms with them? And if she does, will it be too little, too late?

Light in the Head by Brian Langan
Luke is born the possessor of heart-stalling magic. He has no words. His is a new language: the dazzling colours and patterns of his imagination made visible. As his bewildered, love-struck parents gradually come to terms with his powers, Luke learns to harness and use his gift. To the media he is literally a godsend. But reporter Jimmy McGinnity and the world of mundane greed are not the only threats to Luke and his unique powers. As he grows, darker forces lurk outside the circle of light his magic creates.

Miss Harrie Elliott by Marian O’Neill
It’s 1937. It feels like a black-and-white movie. Two young girls. Mary, or Em as she now calls herself: just up from the country, shy and rather plain, all at sea in the big city. Harrie: sparkling, worldly wise, full of fun and very beautiful. Em is entranced, and Harrie is generous. Generous with her friendship, her clothes, her lipstick, her confidences Soon they are meeting at the bandstand for daring lunches, waiting up for each other coming home from dates, and sharing a world of private jokes. Gradually, and very painfully, this apparently sweet and innocent friendship develops into something approaching horror, as Em’s obsession with Harrie tears a perfect world apart. Written with great elegance and delicacy.

Mary, Mary by Julie Parsons
This book is a gripping psychological thriller set in contemporary Dublin. A phone call late on a hot Dublin evening. An anxious mother, enquiring about her daughter. It she’d said she wasn’t coming home If she’d rung Then, a week later, the full dreadful story beginning to unfold. The policeman, McLoughlin, watching as the green cover is pulled back from the mortuary slab. The young woman’s battered and mutilated body exposed. And for Margaret, the dull, aching realisation that his is not can never be allowed to be the end. Margaret is a psychiatrist, recently returned to Dublin after many years abroad. To a city where she once loved and shone. She came back to nurse her dying mother and now her daughter Mary is dead

The House by the Shore by Mary Joyce
Carrigrua: the scene of Caroline Tremain’s troubled Irish childhood thirty years ago. A Georgian mansion on the shore of Lough Derg, where the motherless girl grew up in an atmosphere of half-forgotten memories and half-hidden secrets. Sent back to England under an unexplained cloud, Caroline has been haunted by Carrigrua all her life. Now, returning as an adult, she is determined to resolve a lifetime of suppressed questions. But when she stumbles into a sealed bedroom, Caroline is faced with even more disturbing truths. Written in a wonderfully rich, evocative style, the characters are strongly and vividly drawn and the mystery intriguing in this hugely readable romantic thriller.

The Catastrophist by Ronan Bennett
This is a novel of love and desire and the blinding effect, set in the Congo at a turning point for Africa. Expatriates loll about their pools in a colonial paradise soon to erupt into chaos; huge crowds are drawn to the charismatic independence leader, Patrice Lumumba and his rivals; one man sees the cracks appearing around him and struggles to hold on to his lover, his sanity, and ultimately his life. Gillespie, the outsider, is in Leopoldville for the beautiful Italian, Iries. He is desperate for her love; she is obsessed with the unfolding drama. In a world slipping out of control, gripped by disgust, fear and incomprehension, events threaten to overwhelm him as does his friendship with the amiable American, Stipe, with his canny driver, Auguste, and through everything Iries, always Iries. As the mess of corruption and injustice gives way to brutality and murder, Gillespie is finally forced to confront what is happening before his eyes. In subtle, haunting prose, the author captures the complex ricochet between the personal and the political, cruelty, lust and the erotic. This is a courageous novel; it achieves a refined sensibility which leaves the reader emotionally driven.

The Truth About the Irish by Terry Eagleton
This book separates the myths from the reality with a blend of caustic commentary, jokes that will make you laugh out loud, and answers to questions you were too polite to ask. From Alcohol to X-rated, from Celtic Tiger to Irish Wake, the author paints an entertaining but nevertheless accurate picture of a new Ireland that may have lost the leprechaun but appears to have found the pot of gold.

Step Together: Ireland’s Emergency Army 1939-46 by Donal McCarron
Ireland adopted a neutrality policy during the Second World War which was locally known as ‘The Emergency’. At the outbreak of the war, Irish defence forces were in a poor state; hence the creation of the Emergency Army. This fully illustrated oral history is an anecdotal and often funny account of the time. Based on the author’s interviews with the men who served in ‘The Emergency’, giving immediate eyewitness accounts of recruitment, training and serving in the army. It includes the national ‘Call to Arms’, basic training, the equipment; ‘Shoots’ by Coast Artillery and in the Glen of Imaal; flying the planes; social events; the ‘down’ side; ;major manoeuvres’ and parades and finally ‘Stand-down’. Illustrated with rarely seen black-and-white photographs, and some unique colour photographs taken at the time.

Brits Speak Out: British Soldiers Impressions of the Northern Ireland Conflict compiled by John Lindsay
Thousands of young British men spent long periods of their youth walking the streets of Belfast and Derry and the country lanes of Fermanagh, Tyrone and South Armagh armed with lethal weapons. Occasionally there were welcomed, more often, they were spat at, pelted with missiles, shot at or ignored. They were in Northern Ireland to ‘keep the peace’, to ‘assist the civil powers’ and to ‘fight terrorism’. On their return to Britain there were no street parties or victory parades to welcome them home. How did it feel to be a British soldier in Northern Ireland? How did the Army prepare them for their tours of duty? What did they see as their role? How did they feel about the land and the people that they patrolled? How did they feel about those who sought their removal by violent means? In this book, 14 British soldiers relate their own personal accounts of their time in Northern Ireland. Their stories reflect life lived close to the edge, the development of the conflict and the effect of fear and trauma on the human condition. These stories are riveting, depressing, frightening, horrifying and occasionally transcendent and uplifting which makes for fascinating reading.

The Jesuits in Dublin by E.E. O’Donnell
In this book the author traces the development of the Society of Jesus in Dublin through the establishment of its various houses. The book catalogues the buildings in which the members lived and established their missions religious, charitable and educational. Entwined with the story of the Jesuit houses is the broader history of the city of Dublin itself, where the Society has had a presence for the past 400 years. Combining extracts from his own Annals of Dublin and the photographs by Father Frank Browne, the author brings to life the sometimes turbulent history of Dublin, recreating a world in which the Jesuits not only survived but continue to flourish.

Consplawkus: A Writer’s Life by Criostoir O’Flynn
The term ‘Conplawkus’, as explained by the author, was a favourite term of praise used by his beloved Granny Connolly, as is ‘Consplawkus to you, me boy, you’re a chip off the ould block!’ Only later did Criostoir understand that it came from the Irish phrase ‘gan spleachas’, meaning literally ‘without dependence’. O’Flynn was to discover that in the Ireland of the 50s and the so-called ‘swinging 60s,’ there was very little scope for artistic independence if you also happened to be a teacher whose school manager, the local parish priest, might regard you as a danger of the morals of his flock. After seeing a production of one of O’Flynn’s plays, his revered manager threw Christian charity to the winds and invoked the power of the crozier of Cashel to dismiss the author from his teaching post in Pallasgrean, County Limerick with the result that he was forced to emigrate to England in order to support his young family. His views may have been unorthodox enough to fall foul of the hierarchy but he held to his religious and patriotic beliefs through all the vicissitudes of those years and looks back on them now with wry amusement rather than anger.

One Sad Ungathered Rose: Schizophrenia a Mother’s Story by Susan Poole
This book is the story of Susan Poole and her schizophrenic daughter, Margaret, and spans the years 1961-1996. It describes a mother’s anguish as she struggles to recognise, to understand and to cope with her child’s torment. She watched Margaret slip from ‘behaviour problems’ to severe psychoses, to homelessness. As her bright, beautiful daughter joined to scrap-heap of the homeless, she fought a sense of guilt, anger at society, the inadequacy of professional help and, finally, recognition that she could not restore Margaret to normality.

Lives Less Ordinary: 32 Irish Portraits by Judy Kravis and Peter Morgan
The people who talk about their lives in this book represent a creative, dissident Ireland. They are water-diviners, weavers, artists, writers, teachers, farmers, wood-cutters, gardeners, travellers and monks. Some continue ways of life that have existed for generations; others have chosen to live and work in ways that are experimental, exploratory, and always singular. The choices they have made prompt us to reflect on our own choices. These 32 portraits in word and image provide an alternative view of the possibilities of life in Ireland, and a bracing antidote to the banalities of the consumer society.