Read Ireland Book News - Issue 71
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Home to Roost by Liz Kavanagh (Paperback; 6.99 IRP / 11.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
On the eve of the publication of her highly acclaimed first book, Country Living, the author found herself in a hospital bed, with a broken back. The months she spend recovering provided her with much time to reflect of past years and to bring together more of her good-humoured and down-to-earth accounts of the highs and lows of rural life. In this book the reader can journey through the year with the ever-popular Farmers' Journal columnist as she gets back on her feet, welcomes home her emigrant son, celebrates New Year, enjoys her garden, and delights in her grandchildren. The reader can sample again the wry wit and home-spun wisdom that have made Liz a favourite throughout the country, as she ruminates on everything from the familiar art of crow-plucking to a childhood outing with the wren-boys. This book features a cast of characters familiar to Liz's readers everywhere. And there's a surprise visitor here too, dropping into add her tuppence ha'pence worth …
Ireland's Master Storyteller: The Collected Stories of Eamon Kelly (Paperback; 9.99 IRP / 15.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
In 1975, actor and seanchai (traditional storyteller) Eamon Kelly joined forces with Abbey director Michael Colgan to stage a one-man storytelling show, In My Father's Time, at the Peacock Theatre in Dublin. Its success exceeded all expectations and every June for seven years a new storytelling show by Eamon Kelly opened at the same theatre. Kelly, who is as fine a writer as he is a seanchai, subsequently published six bestselling volumes of stories based on his shows. In this book his stories are collected for the first time: stories of the real Kerry and the magical past, the heartbreak of emigration, the stations, the priests, the courting and dancing, the war between the sexes. Here is an encapsulation of an era that has passed only very recently. Kelly mines a rich seam of humour and sadness out of the resilience of a people who were rich in hospitality and generosity, in imagination, culture and tradition.
Modern Irish Lives: Dictionary of 20th Century Biography edited by Louis McRedmond (Paperback; 9.99 IRP / 15.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book provides short biographies of over 1400 Irish men and women who have been notable in their chosen fields. It includes the living and the dead alike: the only criterion for entry that a person's main contribution has been made in the 20th century. It is an excellent reference book, completely up-to-date, edited with care and authority, an essential and reliable source of information on Irish persons and affairs in this century.
From Public Defiance to Guerrilla Warfare by Joost Augusteijn (Paperback; 17.50 IRP / 24.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
Subtitled: The Experience of Ordinary Volunteers in the Irish War of Independence 1916-1921, this book for the first time compares the way in which ordinary people in various parts of the country become involved with the IRA and what they did once they had joined. It thus provides an insight into the reasons why some young men became increasingly willing to use violence, and offers a new explanation for the dominance of south-western units in the War of Independence, on the basis of their actual experiences. It also reappraises the impact of the less well-known units in the North, East and West which have so far been widely ignored. This book uses only original sources (many previously unused) including police reports, internal IRA communications and many reminiscences as well as the large number of interviews with rank-and-file Volunteers carried out by the author.
The Mob: The History of Irish Gangsters in America by James Durney (Paperback; 7.99 IRP / 11.99 USD) [Add To Basket]
The Irish criminal gangs of America first surfaced in New York in the 1830s and from then until the present they have been a major force in organised crime. Irish gangsters dominated organised crime long before the Mafia appeared in the New World. The slums of America's big cities produced some of the most vicious hoodlums who have left their mark on that country's criminal history. Legs Diamond, Mad Dog Call, Bugs Moran and Cockeye Dunn were all products of the American dream turned sour. This is their story, beginning with the birth of organised crime through the turbulent Civil War, Prohibition and the founding of the present day Syndicate. It is a fascinating and rich account with dozens of characters and stories, a must for all studies of an Irish-American culture that is fast disappearing.
Clann na Poblachta by Eithne MacDermott (Paperback; 12.99 IRP / 19.99 USD) [Add To Basket]
Clann na Poblachta was a small, theoretically radical, republican party which challenged Fianna Fail for the office, power and ownership of the symbols of national identity in 1947 and 1948. Even though they did not succeed in their stated aim - to supplant Fianna Fail as the dominant republican party - their contribution to Irish political life was immense. Despite being seen as a one-election party, their very existence generated enormous excitement at a time when the political landscape seemed stupefyingly dull and impervious to change. Without the Clann, de Valera would not have lost office in 1948 and more importantly, a new form of government, coalition government, could not have been created. Their leader, Sean McBride and Dr. Noel Browne were to become two idealistic, innovatory and talented ministers in the first inter-party government. Ultimately, Clann na Poblachta would also cause the collapse of that government when the two ministers fell out with each other, indulging in a spectacular orgy of recrimination as they did so, and fatally injuring the party in the process.
Human Rights Have No Borders: Voice of Irish Poets edited by Kenneth Morgan and Almut Schlepper (Paperback; 9.99 IRP / 15.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book is an anthology of contemporary Irish poetry compiled by Amnesty International in Ireland to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It reflects the passionate commitment of Irish poets to human rights. With subjects as diverse and wide-ranging as children's rights, the ill-treatment of prisoners of conscience, the murder of Spanish playwright Lorca, the suppression of Chinese students in Tiananmen Square, the war in the former Yugoslavia and the Irish peace process, these poems speak for those whose voices are unheard, celebrating the courage and resilience of the human spirit that can never be crushed. Among those who contributed poems are: Sara Berkeley, Eavan Boland, Seamus Deane, Katie Donovan, Derek Mahon, Paul Meehan, John Montague, Paul Muldoon, Richard Murphy, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill and Cathal O Searcaigh. Seamus Heaney's 'From the Republic of Conscience,' written to mark the 25th anniversary of Amnesty International, is reproduced, as is Paul Durcan's 'Amnesty.' Many of the poems are accompanied by the poet's personal commentary, providing an additional insight into the work. It also contains an introductory note by Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and currently United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
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