Read Ireland Book News - Issue 89
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Rethinking Northern Ireland edited by David Miller (Paperback; 17.50 IRP / 25.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
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 (Paperback; 15.35 IRP / 22.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
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 (Paperback; 19.95 IRP / 29.95 USD) [Add To Basket]
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 (Paperback; 9.95 IRP / 15.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
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 (Paperback; 7.99 IRP / 11.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
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 (Paperback; 9.99 IRP / 15.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
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 (Paperback; 8.35 IRP / 12.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
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, farmidable 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.
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