Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 207
The Millennium Legacy: Ireland 2000 compiled and edited by Tom Rowley and Laurie Cearr
Large Paperback; 14.99 Euro / 13.50 USD / 12.00 UK; National Millennium, 296 pages, with full colour illustrations throughout [Add To Basket]
Ireland's celebration of the Millennium was unique. The National Millennium Committee responded to a clear signal from the Irish people that the marking of this milestone in history should be inclusive and memorable. Instead of one single grandiose national statement, thousands of different projects, events and celebrations in cities, towns and villages were funded. Uniquely, some reached into every home in the country: Memories of the moving Last Light Ceremony with the Millennium Candle will long endure; the People's Millennium Forests will thrive for centuries. In addition to many other high profile projects, thousands more modest initiatives sprung from within the community itself. This book captures in words and photographs a country in all its diversity and creativity celebrating this extraordinary event in an imaginative and lasting way. It also includes a comprehensive listing of the 2,500 projects and events that combined to create that one-in-a-thousand occasion, a 'People's Millennium', for Ireland.
Justice and Truth: The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven by Patrick Victory
Paperback; 19.99 Euro / 18.50 USD / 16.50 UK; Century, 408 pages [Add To Basket]
There were two serious miscarriages of justice when the Guildford Four were convicted in 1975 and the Maguire Seven the following year. A number of distinguished observers had doubts about the safety of the convictions. January 1987 saw the final coming together, with Cardinal Basil Hume, of two of probably the greatest Law Lords of the twentieth century, Lord Devlin and Lord Scarman, and two distinguished former Home Secretaries, Roy Jenkins and Merlyn Rees, to form what came to be known as the Deputation. Over succeeding years they fought tirelessly behind the scenes to get the verdicts overturned, in the face of considerable opposition and difficulties from political and legal authorities. This book is that story.
Shackleton's Boat Journey by F.A. Worsley
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 9.25 USD / 8.25 UK; Collins Press, 143 pages, with 3 x 16 page black-and-white photo inserts [Add To Basket]
This book is the classic account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914-1916 Antarctic expedition, first published in 1940. Written by the captain of the 'Endurance,' the ship used by Shackleton on this ill-fated journey, it is a remarkable tale of courage and bravery in the face of extreme odds and a vivid portrait of one of the world's greatest explorers. First trapped, then crushed by ice of her way south, the 'Endurance' drifted in an ice floe for five months. After reaching the uninhabited Elephant Island, Shackelton, Worsley and four others set off in a small boat on the 800-mile journey to South Georgia. They then made the first crossing of the island to the whaling station at Grytviken. It is a testament to Shackleton's indomitable spirit that during the whole expedition, now one man was lost.
Journeys of a Lifetime by Mary Russell
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 9.25 USD / 8.25 UK; Pocket Books Town House; 339 pages [Add To Basket]
Since beginning her travels, the author has been nearly everywhere. From Donegal in Ireland to Lesotho and Sudan, from the West Bank of the Sahara to Russia, from the Caribbean to South Africa, from Bosnia to the Arctic to Syria and home again to Ireland. In this inspiring travelogue, with an outsider's eye for new peoples and cultures, she reflects on the need for new horizons that lies at the restless heart of every traveller. The book is set against a backdrop of her own personal adventure through life: the joys and sorrows of marriage, an illicit affair and the death of her partner. It also brilliantly encapsulates one woman's need to establish her own personal identity separate to family and friends. This book illustrates that often the most dramatic journeys are the ones within.
Errislannan: Scenes from a Painter's Life by Alannah Heather
Trade Paperback; 14.99 Euro / 13.50 USD / 12.00 UK; Lilliput Press, 210 pages [Add To Basket]
Errislannan, or Flannan's peninsula, juts out into the North Atlantic on Europe's western extremity south of Clifden, Connemara, Co. Galway. The home of the author of this book, it gave shape to her life. Her ancestors were minor Protestant gentry and estate-owners who occupied Errislannan Manor for five generations from the 1790s to the 1960s. This book tells their story, using family diaries and letters salvaged from a coach-house loft before the auction, and enlarges upon it in this remarkable self-portrait, articulating a childhood and landscape peopled by cottagers and fisherfolk, islanders and evangelicals, and a richly eccentric body of relatives. Their history reveals Ireland in microcosm - touching upon the Great Famine and subsequent diaspora, the 1916 Rising and Civil War, the Alcock and Brown landing on Derrygimlagh bog, and the more intimate dramas of unrequited love, bereavement and isolation, in a perpetual cycle of exile and repatriation.
Irish Emigration Since 1921 by Enda Delaney
Paperback; 9.00 Euro / 8.00 USD / 7.25 UK; Dundalgan Press, 61 pages [Add To Basket]
Between the early 1920s and the end of the 20th century, two million people left the island of Ireland. For many this continued exodus of mainly young men and women represented damning evidence of economic and political failure. Yet the reasons behind the decision to emigrate could be far more complex than simple economic necessity. Moreover, the meaning of emigration for the individual was also changing rapidly, as Great Britain replaced North America as the destination of the majority and affordable air transport revolutionised travel. Drawing together the results of the latest research, the author offers a comprehensive survey of the causes, chronology and character of emigration from Ireland, north and south, from the troubled aftermath of the First World War to the end of the 20th century, when what had long been a nation of emigrants became for the first time host to a growing immigrant population of its own.
The SAVI Report: Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland by Hannah McGee et. al.
Trade Paperback; 25.00 Euro ; 20.00 USD / 16.50 UK; Liffey Press, 350 pages [Add To Basket]
In Ireland, there has been a substantial increase in the number of sexual offences being reported in the past 20 years. While the recorded crime numbers increase, there is still concern that there is considerable under-reporting of abuse and, in particular, a shortfall in those seeking legal redress. This book, commissioned by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, provides the results of the first national survey to assess sexual abuse and violence in Ireland. It details specific information about the prevalence of sexual violence in relation to age and gender for over 3,000 adults, and identifies the barriers accessing law enforcement, medical and therapeutic services for those abused and their families. The study focuses not only on the responses of those abused, but also includes attitudes and perceptions of the general public to sexual violence, and the myths and negative attitudes that make disclosure difficult. With concrete and specific recommendations for addressing this issue, this book is a landmark national study of Irish experiences, beliefs and attitudes concerning sexual violence.
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