Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 221
Becoming George: The Life of Mrs. W.B. Yeats by Ann Saddlemyer
Hardback; 40.00 Euro / 47.50 USD / 30.00 UK; Oxford, 808 pages [Add To Basket]
'I, the poet William Yeats, Restored this tower for my wife George' claims the lovely six-line poem in which Yeats dedicates the renovation of Thoor Ballylee. But the poem's truth conceals another, and different truth - that they worked together at the restoration, and it was largely her vision and hands that created a dwelling from the former ruins. Just how symbolic this is, of the close but largely hidden collaborations between them, is revealed by this deeply researched life of George Yeats - the first full scale-biography of a woman of remarkable gifts and generous self-concealment.
Raised in the decades before the First War, in London literary salons where the arts and occult met, Georgie Hyde-Lees became an art student, accomplished linguist, and serious scholar of medieval arcana, anthroposophy, and astrology. She was a lifelong friend of Ezra Pound and his wife Dorothy Shakespeare, in whose social circle Yeats also moved; he sponsored her initiation to the Order of the Golden Dawn. In 1917 they married (she was 25, he was 52), and on their honeymoon Georgie began the automatic writing which formed the substance of 'A Vision', and from which sprang the ideas that occupied Yeats for the rest of his life. Her extrasensory perceptions fed his poetic imagery as her practicality and warmth supplied the environment for his writing. As with the restoration of Ballylee, they were intimate collaborations - but her instinct was always for self-effacement. Though valued by numerous writer friends as a perceptive critic - and known to have written two plays and a novel, which she suppressed - she deliberately hid her talents from public view. Her choice was to appear as Yeats's wife, helpmate, and secretary, the mother of his children - and for over thirty years after his death the tireless overseer of his literary legacy and a knowledgeable adviser to generations of young critics and writers.
For the first time this intelligent and creative woman is allowed to take centre stage. Drawing on memoirs and a wealth of unknown and unpublished sources, this biography reveals someone much more significant than just 'Mrs. W. B. Yeats' - a personality at once visionary and practical, and an important figure in twentieth-century literary history.
I Am Just Going Outside: Captain Oates - Antarctic Tragedy by Michael Smith
Hardback; 30.00 Euro / 40.00 USD / 23.50 UK; Collins Press, 300 pages, with black and white photographs throughout [Add To Basket]
On 17 March 1912, Lawrence 'Titus' Oates crawled bootless from a tent to his death in blizzard conditions on -10 Celcius. Oates, always an outsider on Scott's polar expedition, died on his thirty-second birthday. His parting words were: 'I am just going outside and may be sometime.' Oates was the epitome of the Victorian English gentleman, a public schoolboy who became a dashing cavalry officer and hero in the Boer War. Stationed in Ireland from 1902-06, his passion became horseracing and he won numerous victories at racecourses throughout Ireland. In 1910 he paid 1,000 pounds to join Scott's South Pole expedition.
Oates was dominated by his austere mother and constantly struggled with dyslexia. He clashed with Scott on the expedition and his diary and letters offer a very different perspective from the traditional myth of Scott's heroic failure. Even the motives behind Oates' sacrifice can now be challenged! Oates' mother blamed Scott for her son's death and she was among the first to challenge the accepted version of events. She continued to control his memory long after his death, keeping his diary and letters hidden, even ordering their destruction from her deathbed.
Oates always had difficulty forming lasting relationships with women. He died without knowing that he was a father. The story of how Oates died, unaware of his daughter, has been a closely guarded secret until now. This book is a compelling and heart-rending story of endurance, bravery and folly. The author's previous book, An Unsung Hero - Tom Crean, Antarctic Explorer, was a bestseller in Ireland.
Robert Emmet: A Life by Patrick M. Geoghegan
Hardback; 30.00 Euro / 40.00 USD / 23.50 UK; Gill & Macmillan, 348 pages [Add To Basket]
Robert Emmet (1778-1803) was one of the most romantic of all Irish revolutionaries. His doomed relationship with Sarah Curran, his failed rebellion at the age of twenty-five, and the brilliance of his speech from the dock, captured the popular imagination and created a powerful and enduring legend. W.B. Yeats declared that Emmet was the leading saint of Irish nationalism.
Born in Dublin, Emmet was the youngest son of the state physician. Educated at Trinity College Dublin, he was a leading member of the College Historical Society until his expulsion for radical activity in 1798. Prevented from pursuing a profession, Emmet visited the continent where he discussed plans for liberating Ireland with Napoleon and Talleyrand. He returned to Ireland in 1802 and soon became involved in a conspiracy for a new rebellion.
This book reveals for the first time the complex and ingenious plans that Emmet devised for the rebellion. His youthful idealism and military talent proved insufficient, however, and his attempt to seize Dublin on 23 July 1803 was a dramatic failure. Captured soon after, Emmet won an unlikely victory with his extraordinary speech from the dock that is rightly considered to be one of the greatest courtroom orations in history. He died bravely on the scaffold the next day.
This book draws on new archival material from Ireland, the United Kingdom, France and the United States, and is the first modern study of Robert Emmet in almost fifty years. Romantic, impulsive and doomed, Emmet is one of the tragic heroes of Ireland's past.
James Larkin by Emmet O'Connor
Paperback; 16.50 Euro / 20.00 USD / 12.50 UK; Cork University Press, 148 pages [Add To Basket]
James Larkin (1874-1947) retains a central position in the pantheon of the Irish labour movement. In the popular consciousness he is most commonly linked to his role in the epic 1913 Dublin Lockout and to his turbulent leadership of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union. Less well known is his role as leader of the Workers' Union of Ireland, his thorny relations with Soviet Russia, and his political career as a city councillor and Dail deputy.
In general, labour historians have been kind to Larkin, and his style of leadership, which was often abrasive and dictatorial, has often been portrayed as a form of improvisation engendered by contemporary exigencies. In this important new biography, the author, a leading labour historian, radically reassesses the man and asks whether he should be viewed as a 'hero' of the working class, or as a 'wrecker' whose difficult personality was detrimental to both trade unionism and an emerging Irish communist movement. The author uses new archival sources, including declassified Soviet Union and FBI files, to cast new light on Larkin and his relations with international communism. He aims to uncover the motivation behind Larkin's public persona, and to assess the reality obscured by the myth.
Fishamble Pigsback: First Plays edited by Jim Culleton
Paperback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; New Island, 568 pages [Add To Basket]
Fishamble is a dynamic theatre company at the core of new Irish playwriting. It has produced numerous award-winning new plays in Dublin, throughout Ireland and abroad. This collecting brings together six diverse plays by new playwrights produced by Fishamble - and under the company's original name, Pigsback - in the past decade: a moving exploration of childhood friendship and adult betrayal; a warm-hearted saga of a Jewish family living in Dublin during the 1930s; a contemporary bitter-sweet comedy about a dysfunctional Irish family; a comic thriller or revenge, violation and a smelly dog; a mythic play about dark secrets and adolescent passions during a hot summer in the 1970s; a macabre farce about murder and the search for justice during carnival time. The playwrights are: Deirdre Hines, Gavin Kostick, Joseph O'Connor, Mark O'Rowe, Pat Kinevane and Ian Kilroy.
Fat God, Thin God by James Kennedy
Paperback; 12.95 Euro / 15.00 USD / 9.99 UK; Mercier Press, 284 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is a true story of cultures colliding and the tender love affair that led to one priest to choose a different path. In the 1970s, in an isolated, rural parish in northwest Philippines, James Kennedy began to question the beliefs that had sustained him through almost twenty years as a Columban priest. With wit and sensitivity, the book describes the uncertainties, conflicts, and good-humored comradeship of the missionary life, as well as the author's personal struggle to reconcile religious training with natural compassion. Against a backdrop of revolution, martial law, the war in Vietnam and upheavals throughout the Catholic Church, the author tells the dramatic story of how he fell in love and left the priesthood.
Nice Fellow: A Biography of Jack Lynch by T. Ryle Dwyer
Large Paperback; 12.95 Euro / 17.50 USD / 8.99 UK; Mercier; 416 pages [Add To Basket]
Jack Lynch, who died in October 1999, was the most popular Irish politician of his time. In Cork he is revered as no public figure since Daniel O'Connell. Born John Mary Lynch on 15 August 1917, Jack became a superb sportsman. He led Cork to All-Ireland hurling or football glory in six consecutive years. He began his government career as Parliamentary Secretary in charge of the Gaeltacht and later became Minister for Education, where he abolished the ban on married women teachers. As Minister for Industry and Commerce, Lynch helped prepare Ireland for membership of the EEC, and as Minister for Finance he engaged in some political sleight of hand, bringing in a budget and then requiring a mini-budget in the year de Valera was re-elected president.
After assessing his sporting career, the author provides the only in-depth assessment of Lynch's early political career and deals with his time as Taoiseach, his calm leadership during the Northern Troubles and his difficult relations with British Prime Minister Ted Heath. The push to oust Lynch as Fianna Fail leader, his difficult relations with Charles Haughey, and his decision to step down in order to facilitate his supporters are also considered in depth. Although opinion is divided over whether he was one of the country's great Taoisigh or a week leader who was manipulated by others, there is no disputing the fact that Jack Lynch was a gentleman, and a thoroughly nice fellow.
It's A Long Way From Penny Apples by Bill Cullen
Paperback; 9.95 Euro / 12.50 USD / 6.99 UK; Mercier; 484 pages [Add To Basket]
A phenomenal best-seller in hardback, this book is the story of a Dublin reflecting with stunning honesty on his city and his past, according to current Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
Born and bred in the tough inner-city slums of Summerhill in Dublin, Bill Cullen was one of fourteen children. Selling on the streets from the age of six was a means of putting food on the table for Bill and his family. He finished school at thirteen to work on the street full-time. In 1956, Bill got a job as a messenger boy for a pound a week in Walden's Ford Dealers in Dublin. Through hard work and determination, he was appointed director general of the company in 1964. Bill went on to set up the Fairlane Motor Company, which became the biggest Ford dealership in Ireland. In 1986, he took over the troubled Renault car distribution franchise from Waterford Crystal. His turnaround of that company into what is now the Glencullen Group is an Irish business success story.
This book is an account of incredible poverty and deprivation in the Dublin slums. It highlights the frustrations of a father and a mother feeling their relationship crumble as they fight to give their children a better life. It is a story of courage, joy and happiness - of how a mother gave inspiration and values to her children, saying, 'The best thing I can give you is the independence to stand on your own feet.'
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