Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 177
Company: A Chosen Life by John Montague
Hardback; 21.00 IEP / 25.00 USD / 18.00 UK / 26.70 EURO; Duckworth, 190 pages with b/w photo insert [Add To Basket]This book is the first volume of John Montague's memoir. It gives an evocative account of a phenomenally vibrant era in poetry and letters. Separated from his own family at the age of four in the 1930s, John Montague threw himself into the literary life of 1950s Dublin and Paris as into the arms of a surrogate family. Basking in the freedom of the bohemian world, the ghosts of the great poetic figures who populate this book include Samuel Beckett, a friend and neighbour in Paris for a decade, and in Dublin, the 'inspired lunatic' Brendan Behan, and Mrs. Yeats.
Making Ireland British 1580-1650 by Nicholas Canny
Hardback; 85.00 IEP / 100.00 USD / 60.00 UK / 107.00 EURO; Oxford University press, 625 pages [Add To Basket]This book is the first comprehensive study of the settlements implanted by Ireland by English and Scottish people during the years 1580-1650. The arguments advanced by successive political figures in favour of a plantation policy for Ireland are examined, as are the responses which this policy elicited from the several segments of the population of Ireland. Attention is also given to practical considerations that have had a bearing on colonization schemes in all places and at all times: staking a claim to resources, recruiting suitable settles, and fashioning a new society and economy. The book opens with an analysis of the writings of Edmund Spenser, the most articulate sixteenth-century zealot for plantation. The author contends that the policies of all subsequent sponsors of plantations, ranging from King James VI and I, the Strafford, to Oliver Cromwell, were measured against his Spenserian yardstick. The book culminates in its Irish, British, and Continental European contexts, and it shows how this eruption steeled Cromwell to engage in one last attempt to make Ireland British.
Atlas of Irish Place Names by Patrick J. O'Connor
Hardback; 30.00 IEP / 35.00 USD / 25.00 UK / 38.20 EURO; Oireacht na Mumhan Books, 183 pages [Add To Basket]This atlas provides a guide to accessing the place names of Ireland. The townland pattern and the townland names form in the most intimate and defiant terms the basis of the identity of modern Ireland. It is how natives and newcomers alike know, or get to know, the country. The names, as ever, carry charge, cadence and meaning. And the name elements, when mapped, chart the nature of the land, or our precursor's ideas of it, what they wanted from it and could actually achieve with it. At best we may encounter in the aggregates of mapped items a 'geophony', a showing forth of the earth. At the least we will elicit the distributional evidence, activate culture clues over time and space, and suggest the parameters of regionalism. Altogether over 50,000 symbols take the representational form of a paper landscape in this book.
Selected Poems of John Montague
Paperback; 12.60 IEP / 15.00 USD / 10.00 UK / 16.00 EURO; Penguin [Add To Basket]John Montague has published twelve major volumes of verse, including 'The Rought Field' (1972), 'The Great Cloak' (1978), and 'The Dead Kingdom' (1984). In 1998 he became the inaugural appointee of the prestigious Ireland Chair of Poetry. This new selection, based on his 'Collected Poems' (1995) and more recent work, has been personally chosen by the poet.
The Dublin Metropolitan Police by Jim Herlihy
Hardback; 45.00 IEP / 52.50 USD / 40.00 UK / 57.15 EURO; Irish Academic Press, 269 pages [Add To Basket]This book is a complete alphabetical list of the officers and men of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, 1836-1925.
Evil Empire: John Gilligan, his Gang and the Execution of Journalist Veronica Guerin by Paul Williams
Paperback; 8.99 IEP / 11.00 USD / 7.50 UK / 11.50 EURO; Merlin Publishing, 351 pages [Add To Basket]Ruthless godfather John Gilligan controlled a colossal drugs empire and a mob of gangland's most dangerous criminals. Violence and the threat of murder kept terrified witnesses silent and other gangsters in fear. Gilligan thought himself untouchable and above the law - until his gang crossed the line by executing crime reporter Veronica Guerin. This book tells the chilling inside story of Gilligan's rise to power, his savage gang and the truth about the horrifying murder that shocked the Irish nation and indeed the world. Revealed for the first time, too, is the intense behind-the-scenes drama of the dedicated police squad who waged an unprecedented four-year war to smash 'Factory' John's evil empire.
Out of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners Long Kesh 1972-2000 by Laurence McKeown
Paperback; 15.50 IEP / 18.50 USD / 14.00 UK / 19.75 EURO; Beyond the Pale Publications, 262 pages [Add To Basket]The author of this book was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 1977. In 1981, he joined the Hunger Strike led by Bobby Sands and refused food for 70 days until he fell into a coma. He went on to spend a total of sixteen years in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. During that time he was at the centre of protest and struggle against the British government's attempts to criminalise republicanism and destroy commitment to the republican ideal. In this book he records the experiences of himself and twenty-four other leading republicans. The prisoners span the period from the early 1970s until the closing of the H-Blocks at Long Kesh in 2000, following the provisions for the release of political prisoners which formed part of the historic Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
Beyond the Mist: What Irish Mythology Can Teach Us About Ourselves by Peter O'Connor
Paperback; 11.20 IEP / 14.00 USD / 9.50 UK / 14.40 EURO; Orion, 246 pages [Add To Basket]In this book, the author shows how ancient mythology can be used to understand the universal themes and conflicts that have beset human beings throughout time. From gods and goddesses such as Dagda and Morrigan, to the Fenian and Ulster Cycles and the heroic stories of Cu Chulainn, the author explores the world of Irish mythology and its relevance today. Full of fascinating insights, this book introduces the reader to all the richness and magic of Irish mythology, and shows how it can be mined for the wisdom it provides for contemporary life.
Living Energies new edition by Callum Coats
Paperback; 19.99 IEP / 24.00 USD / 17.50 UK / 25.40 EURO; Gateway, 312 pages [Add To Basket]This book is subtitled: An Exposition of Concepts Related to the Theories of Viktor Schauberger. Why are so many species of plant and animal life disappearing? How it is that Earth is losing more fresh water than it is producing? What are the effects of chlorination and fluoridation of water? This answers to these and many more pressing environmental questions are to be found in this remarkable book - the first in-depth examination of the life and work of the brilliant forester, scientist, and pioneering inventor, Viktor Schauberger. Schauberger's insights into Nature pivoted on the essential characteristics of water as a living and pulsating substance that energises all of life, both organic and inorganic. He was passionate about forestry and warned how deforestation would deplete the world of water and soil fertility, causing deserts and climate chaos. With his ground-breaking concepts on energy, biomagnetism and the true function of trees, he showed how a world that exploited its resources rather than cherishing them was doomed to destroy itself.
The Celts: Life, Myth and Art by Juliette Wood
Paperback; 18.20 IEP / 22.00 USD / 15.99 UK / 23.20 EURO; 144 pages, full colour throughout, Duncan Baird Publishers [Add To Basket]This book showcases the art of the Celts in all its glory, from exquisite gold jewelry to spectacular decorated weapons of war. It presents a superb pictorial record of the Celts, with specially commissioned artworks and over 100 magnificent full colour photographs. It illustrates the full splendour of Celtic manuscript illumination and the astonishing intricacy of knotwork and other patterning. It reveals, with full commentary, the broad repertoire of Celtic symbols and motifs - from solar spirals to the salmon of prophecy. It provides a fascinating and authoritative text to accompany the rich treasury of images.
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