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John de Courcy Ireland, rev. of Michael Moss and John R. Hume, 125 Years of Harland and Wolff, Belfast (Blackstaff), cover. W. J. McCormack, ‘A Bold Initiative’, rev. of Eighteenth-Century Ireland: Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 1 1986, ed. Andrew Carpenter, in Books Ireland, Feb. 1987, pp.3-4; journal incls. Seamus Deane on ‘Swift and the Anglo-Irish Intellect’, Louis Cullen, ‘Catholics under the Penal Laws’; Gerard O’Brien, on Henry Grattan’s self-bestowed honours (concludes that the speech of 16 April 1782 was doctored after the event); Frank L. Harrison, ‘Music, Poetry and Polity in the Age of Swift’ [with 7 scores]; Nicholas Robinson on the Irish treatment of the Regency Crisis, 1788-89; Charles Benson, describing the method of cataloguing 18th c. book in the TCD Old Library, initiated by Mary Pollard; Ian Campbell Ross, critiquing the New History of Ireland, Vol. IV and noting missing lines. Also Review Patrick Fagan, The Second City: Portrait of Dublin 1700-1760 (Branar); Charles Peake, Jonathan Swift and the Art of Raillery […] together with Notes on Irish Writings associated with Swift (Colin Smythe), on which he makes facetious remarks about the presentation of the address and opening times of the Library on the dust-jacket, adding: ‘Monaco is just the place to discuss Swift’s saeve [sic] indignatio, of course, and the spare pages of the pamphlet just the place to tuck about twenty eight very brief “notes on Irish writers associated with Swift”’; the notes incl. an account of Mary Davys, 1674-1732, John Boyle. T. J. Walsh, Monte Carlo Opera 1910-1951 (Boethius Press); Ciarán Carson, Irish Traditional Music (Appletree), et. a., rev. by John Allen. ONI brought Verdi’s Falstaff to MC on 1987; MC Opera built by Charles Garnier, 00 seats, 1879; 1 vol. of the history of Opera by Tom Walsh to 1909; continued in this vol. to 1951; Walsh started his own Wexford Festival in 1951, the year of the retirement of Raoul Gunsbourg after 60 yrs from 1890; Margaret Sheridan sang two performances of Madame Butterfly in Monaco in 1924; John O’Sullivan, sang six roles in Monaco, 1921-23. Quotes Carson: ‘The inexperienced punter will be relieved to hear that there is at least one cast-iron, unambiguous way of registering approval: that is, to buy the musicians drink.’ (p.5.) Mary Leadbeater, Annals of Ballitore 1766-1824, ed. John McKenna, ill. Mary Cunningham (Stephen Scroop Press), prev. printed 1862, covering 60 years; quotes, ‘On Whit-Sunday a child was born to Pat Mitchell; a labourer. It is said that the child born on that day is fared to kill or be killed. To avert this doom a little grave was made, the infant laid therein, with clay lightly sprinkled on it and sods supported by twigs covering the whole. Thus the child was buried, and at its resurrection deemed to be freed from the malediction.’; also a story of a blacksmith’s widow who continues business with a journeyman after her husband’s death, ‘but prudent as well as industrious she considered the danger of slanderous tongues, and therefore gave her daughter - a girl of sixteen to her assistant with board and lodging for a year as a dowry!’ (Leadbeater); Leo Daly, reviewing, translates place-name has Ford mount of the bleaching green’. (p.7.) Michael McKeown, The Greening of a Nationalist (Murlough Press); Frank Curran, Derry: Countdown to Disaster (Gill & Macmillan). Author was northern corr. for Hibernia and edited Fortnight 1977-78; Field Day Pamphlets on Emergency Legislation: Eanna Molloy, Dynasties of Coercion [No. 10]; Michael Farrell, The Apparatus of Repression [No. 11]; Patrick J. McCrory, Lay and the Constitution: Present Discontents [No. 12]. Farrell ends: ‘In the name of democracy and freedom successive governments have encroached on the freedoms that go to make up a healthy and functioning democracy. And they have taken powers that could enable them to encroach further. Such powers, once taken, are rarely [given] back’ [here taken]. Roy Johnston, review of Kieran Kennedy, ed., Ireland in Transition [Thomas Davis Lectures 1985] (Mercier); contribs. incl. T. K. Whitaker (overview 1958-85), Dermot McAleese (world economy), J. J. Sexton (employment & emig.), Kieran Kennedy (Unfinished industrial rev.), Gearoid O Tuathaigh (Reg. econ. development), Robert O’Connor (Agriculture); Brendan Walsh (growth of govt.), Peter Cassels (living standards), et al. Quotes Whitaker: ‘[T]he lack of organisational capacity which causes us to pay 100s of millions of pounds in unemployment relief in a country still poorly provided with basic amenities but rich in dilapidation […]’ (p.9); Joe Lee: ‘What we have is centralisation without cohesion … if the centralisers hold the locals to be unfit for self-government, the performance of the centralised government has scarcely sufficed to silence the sceptics who hold the Irish to be unfit for self-government’, and further;: we are unique .. in having abandoned our national language, reputedly to sell the cow … other small states, who lacked the imagination to take so apparently progressive a step as jettisoning their obscure languages, have sold the cow distinctly more successfully than ourselves … we bartered the language, but we could not even get a proper mess of pottage for it .. our unusual feat of losing on the cultural swings and losing on the economic roundabouts … we have failed to develop a serious tradition of native social thought … we have imitated much and learned little […]’ (p.10) Davis attended the Cork Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1843 and showed interest in developments toward photo-reproduction in newspapers as noted by Roy Johnston in Crane Bag; Also Connell Fanning, Renewing the Economy (Cork UP); Derry Kelleher, The Perversion of Science and Technology in Ireland (Justice Books). Michael Mullen, Hungry Land (Bantam Press); John James, Talleyman (Gollancz); James Carroll, Supply of Heroes (Hodder & Stoughton). Frank Delaney, former pres. of the National Book League. Steve MacDonogh writes of is experiences with One-Girls War (Books Ireland, Feb. 1987, p.13): recounts receiving call from House of Commons informing him that Sir Michael Havers, Att.-Gen. had announced in the House that ‘legal action was under consideration’; speaks of having sought legal advice ‘of the highest calibre’ prior to publication, and concurrent difficulties in circulation of Keane’s The Bodran Makers; engaged Senior Counsel Hugh O’Flaherty; High Court ruling in favour of the book’s publication, 2 Dec.; reprinted 8,000; High court in London upheld injunction, constraining distribution, 18 Dec. BI prints photo of Michael Hartnett with Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, trans. of his poems for Raven, to be followed by biilingual edition; pic. incls. Dermot Bolger, Mary Carlton and an ‘unknown fan’ [child]. Recipients of AE Memorial award to 1987 are Patrick Kavanagh, Valentine Iremonger, Richard Murphy, Padraig Fiacc, John McGahern, Brendan Kennelly, Seamus Deane, and Dermot Bolger. Brendan Kennelly, Cromwell, 3rd printing (Beaver) following dramatised version by Theatre Unlimited. Sara Berkeley shortlisted for Sunday Tribune Arts Award with Penn (Raven). Graph, first issue, with contribs. from John Banville, Nuala ni Dhomhnaill, Sebastian Barry, Dermot Bolger and Italo Calvino. Irish Writers’ Union launch, present were Sebastian Barry, Philip Casey, John F. Deane, Eilis Dillon, Michael Hartnett, Benedict Kiely, Sydney Bernard Smith, and Francis Stuart (guest of honour); Chairman Jack Harte seeking affiliation to ICTU; Etudes Irlandaises incls. Garret Fitzgerald, ‘L’évolution de la politique extérieure de ;’Irlande 1922-1986’, and Tony O’Reilly, ‘What America can do for Ireland’; French trans. of poems of Desmond Egan by Patrick Rafroidi. Caleb Threlkeld, Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum [1726], pre. Boethius Press. Anne Chambers, Eleanor Countess of Desmond (Wolfhound); the Countess was a player in the Desmond Rebellion and was placed in the Tower by Elizabeth. Mary MacSwiney subject biography, Soul of Fire [q.auth.]. Jonathan Williams, ‘Freelancers and Book Publishing’ [Directory], p.17-19. Note that Jeremy Addis writes in Books Ireland, Feb. 1987: ‘it is remarkable that Ireland contains no such animal as a literary agent, at least as far as we know. The ast time we heard of anythig of the sort was when a Dutch gentleman took a handsome advertisement in our columns to announce his intentions an dwas never heard of again, least of all by our credit deparment.’ (p.159). Letter from Bríghid uí Éigeartaigh responds to ‘Fair Comment’ in previous Books Ireland issue, recounting the details of a vituperative exchange in print between Eoghan O Tuairisc and Rita Kelly arising from a double review of Breandán Ó hEithir’s Lig Sinn I gCathú by them in Feasta (July 1976), the latter being based on a published extract of the novel which appeared in Flós Fomhair, a collection from Oireachtais prize winners in 1975 and including the denigratory assertion that the author of the work lacked ‘paisean an fhile’. Ó hEithir’s response to Kelly and Ó Tuairisc jointly in the following issue of Feasta included the following sentence: ‘Ach is fear an tionscal seo a fhágáil foai na heolaithe, na “típeanna” a bhfuil an paisean ag ithe an cheatrú anuas díobh … the multipseudonymous watters off, the ultrauxorious watters of. hitherandthithering watters of. here’smyheadandmyarse - is coming watters of. Shite.’ Ó Tuairisc and Kelly replied separately next month (Feasta, Meán Fohmair 1979), she accusing him of attempting to ruin her reputation as a critic with his ‘fauluisce faoi thalamh [underground piss]’; the issue also includes Ó Tuairisc’s ‘Annáls Wrecktra na Hairyone leis na Ceithre Bhastard curtha in eagar ag Eoghan Ó Tuarisc. Uí Éigeartaigh remarks that Kelly was ‘unable to see the funny side of the whole episode’ as being ‘more vulnerable than Eoghan Ó Tuairisc’. Jermey Addis [as addressee] responds in an editorial subscript that Kelly did in fact see the ‘funny - or at least ironic - side of the episode’, and recounts that, after the novel was printed in English and ‘deflated’, she found herself sitting with her critic, who said: ‘Ah, sure, what was it all about; wasn’t it a terrible book anyway?’. Addis concludes that ‘she was not so much bitter as sad at the attitudinising that goes with so much literary criticism’ and adds: ‘She did not name her critic.’ Books Received: [Copied to Datasets 19/02/02 BS]
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