Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 201
Reinventing Ireland: Culture, Society and the Global Economy edited by Peadar Kirby, Luke Gibbons and Michael Cronin
Paperback; 28.50 Euro / 25.00 USD / 22.50 UK; Pluto Press, 232 pages [Add To Basket]
Since the 1980s, the Irish economy has experienced a period of unprecedented growth that has earned it the title of the 'Celtic Tiger'. This success has been interpreted by academic commentators as marking a social and cultural transformation, what some have called the reinvention of Ireland. The essays in this book challenge the largely positive interpretation of Ireland's changing social order. The authors identify the ways in which culture and society have been made subservient to the needs of the market in this neo-liberal Ireland. They draw on subversive strands in Irish history and offer a broader and more robust understanding of culture as a site of resistance to the dominant social order and as a political means to fashion an alternative future.
A Viceroy's Vindication?: Sir Henry Sidney's Memoir of Service in Ireland, 1556-78 edited by Ciaran Brady
Paperback; 12.00 Euro / 11.00 USD / 10.00 UK; Cork UP, 136 pages [Add To Basket]
Three times Viceroy, Sir Henry Sidney was a key figure in the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland. His account of his public career in Ireland, written in the winter of 1582-3, is one of the earliest political memoirs in literature. It is unique among early memoirs in its size, richness or detail and apparent fidelity to the factual record. Composed in plain prose and consciously shorn of decoration and classical allusion, this narrative presents an individual with attitudes and preoccupations at odds with those of the zealous advocate of military conquest and religious oppression so often portrayed by historians. By exploring its emphases, omissions and deviations from the recorded sequence of events, the editor's introduction reveals a surprisingly complex set of Elizabethan perceptions and prejudices about Ireland.
British Intelligence in Ireland, 1920-21: The Final Reports edited by Peter Hart
Paperback; 12.00 Euro / 11.00 USD / 10.00 UK; Cork UP, 136 pages [Add To Basket]
The Irish revolution of 1920-1921 ended in a military and political stalemate, resolved only through the mutual compromise incorporated in the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Historians have long accepted that the one conflict in which there was a clear winner was that of Intelligence, where British ineptitude was painfully exposed by the organizational genius of Michael Collins. This judgement is challenged by the recent release of two confidential self-assessments prepared for the army and the police in 1922. Though documenting many setbacks and inefficiencies, the police report indicates a marked improvement in operations superintended by that 'wicked little white snake', Sir Ormonde de l'Epee Winter. His report, though self-serving and flawed, provides a uniquely detailed and personal account of Intelligence from the inside. The editor's introduction assesses the purpose, reliability and significance of these reports. Their publication is a significant contribution to the study of Irish history.
Ireland Standing Firm and Eamon de Valera: A Memoir by Robert Brennan
Paperback; 18.00 Euro / 16.50 USD / 15.00 UK; UCD Press, 182 pages [Add To Basket]
'Ireland Standing Firm', first published in 1958, is a frank and pungent account of Robert Brennan's time as Irish Minister in Washington immediately before and during the Second World War. He gives a fascinating account of his efforts in defending Irish neutrality and his meetings with leading American officials and politicians, including Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the second memoir, also from the late 1950s, he describes his close association with Eamon de Valera from their first meeting in prison in 1917 until de Valera's retirement as Taoiseach in 1959.
Oscar and Bosie: A Fatal Passion by Trevor Fisher
Hardback; 36.00 Euro / 31.00 USD / 26.50 UK; Sutton Publishing, 267 pages with b/w photo insert [Add To Basket]
The love story of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas surely ranks among the world's greatest romantic tragedies. After Wilde's tragic bid to sue the Marquis of Queensberry for libel ended in total humiliation, with his imprisonment, exile and early death in Paris at the age of 46, the London literati split into bitterly opposed camps. Some have believed that Bosie deserted a friend in need, others that Wilde was the innocent victim of a long-running family feud between an obsessed father and his pampered son. Fuelled by the surviving correspondence, successive biographies and Bosie's own polemical writing, the arguments have merely intensified over the years. Of Wilde, however, the question will always remain: Why did he bring about his own downfall? This book is that fascinating and complex story.
Robert the Bruce's Irish Wars: The Invasions of Ireland 1306-1329 by Sean Duffy
Paperback; 30.60 Euro / 25.00 USD / 21.50 UK; Tempus Publishing, 220 pages, with b/w photos throughout [Add To Basket]
The history of the expeditions to Ireland by King Robert of Scotland and his brother Edward, where Robert the Bruce is traditionally said to have been inspired by the perserverence of a spider to continue his fight for Scottish Independence. Much is known about Robert the Bruce's military campaigns for Scottish independence in Scotland and England, but what about his expeditions to Ireland? In the early summer of 1315 a fleet-load of Scots veterans of Bannockburn put ashore on the coast of what is now County Antrim. The Anglo-Scottish conflict had transferred itself to Irish soil. The expedition was led by Edward Bruce, Robert the Bruce's brother, and recently ratified as heir-presumptive to the Scottish throne. By any standards, it was a major undertaking, planned well in advance, to which a significant proportion of Scotland's hard-pressed resources were devoted. It amounted to a full-scale invasion. What the Bruce brothers hope to achieve from their Irish venture is hotly debated. Was it merely an attempt to open up a second front in their war against the English? Was the aim to exploit Irish dissidence to push Edward II into acknowledging Robert's claim to Scotland? Or did the Bruce's actually envisage turning their invasion of Ireland into a permanent conquest? This collection of essays by some of the leading authorities on the subject attempts to answer these questions and tells the story of the invasion itself and the battles that followed.
Stream of Tongues (Sruth Teangacha) by Gearoid Mac Lochlainn
Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 13.50 USD / 12.00 UK; Clo Iar-Chonnachta, 196 pages, with CD [Add To Basket]
As an uneasy peace settles on the North of Ireland, a familiar complacency also returns to settle on the inhabitants of the Republic with regards to the fate of its northern neighbour. This bilingual poetry book will startle them abruptly from such complacency, presenting them with the grim reality that can be life in Northern Ireland. The poems in this book deal with the difficulties of existing within the minority Gaelic language culture in the face of pervading English monoculture. The poet explores the problems which he encounters in his search for an effective artistic voice which will honour both the English and Irish speakers within himself. This is powerful, emotive poetry, with translations written by the poet in collaboration with other poets.
Beyond by Michael Foley
Trade Paperback; 15.50 Euro / 14.00 USD / 12.00 UK; Blackstaff Press; 292 pages [Add To Basket]
Sharp, funny and intelligent - this book is a stylish novel about sexual escapism in 1960s Ireland. Fully intending to have a meteoric career in the Big Smoke (Dublin), a newly-qualified young accountant instead finds himself lured by Marie, 'an intoxicating cocktail of gaiety, mischief and sensuousness', to a small Irish town. Once there, he finds himself further bewitched by the lovely Helen and, captivated by two such different but sexually fascinating women, he is soon entangled. The time is the 1960s and sexual revolution is in the air, with its promise of liberation from life-denying attitudes. But this is Ireland, and freedom comes with a high price tag for even the most daring adventurer.
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