Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 263
Shalom Ireland: A Social History of Jews in Modern Ireland by Ray Rivlin
Hardback; 35.00 Euro / 42.00 USD / 28.00 UK; 302 pages
This book is an account of the social life of Irish Jews from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Most of the story is concentrated in Dublin where almost 90 per cent of the entire Irish Jewish community settled. Until the late nineteenth century, there were only a small number of Jews in Ireland, but then came a great influx from Tsarist Russia. The author follows the fortunes of Irish Jews from their arrival as immigrants in the 1880s with no English, no money and no means of livelihood, through their establishment as a thriving community, to their present decline. The book focuses on the colourful panorama of Clanbrassil Street, Dublin's kosher shopping area. The author draws on intensive archival research and library material, unpublished family histories, personal memories and oral testimony to create this informative and entertaining account of a talented, hard-working and profoundly civic-minded people.
Legenday Ireland: A Journey Through the Celtic Places and Myths by Eithne Massey
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 19.00 UK; 240 pages. [Add To Basket]
This book is a vivid and original journey through the Celtic places and myths of ancient Ireland. Woven into the Irish landscape are tales of love and betrayal, greed and courage, passion and revenge, featuring the famous personalities of Celtic lore, such as CuChulainn and Queen Maeve, Diarmuid and Grainne, the Children of Lir, Oisin and Fionn. The book also reveals some of the less well-known but equally captivating stories, including 'The Hag of Beara', and 'Li Ban, the Mermaid of Lough Neagh'. The author has re-visited all twenty-eight sites and explores their history, archaeology and folklore. All of these magical and mythical places open windows to a heroic yet very human world. Illustrated with atmospheric photographs and elegant engravings, full colour throughout.
The Same Age as the State by Maire Cruise O'Brien
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 20.00 UK; 350 pages, with three 8-page black and white photo inserts
Through a life the encompasses Irish tradition, culture, language, scholarship and poetry, as well as national and international politics, Maire Cruise O'Brien is uniquely placed to tell the complex story of the emergence and growth of Ireland as an independent country. Her life not only parallels that development; her family played an active part in it.
Born in 1922, she intimately remembers the generation of the 19th century - her grandparents - and their way of life and values. Her own parents' dangerous involvement in the struggle for freedom, in the company of Eamon deValera and Michael Collins, was a hugely important element in her young life, as was her father's subsequent work as a senior government minister. Part of the new Irish elite, she went on to become an Irish scholar, to study Celtic languages in Paris immediately after the Second World War, and was called to the Bar but chose instead to join the Department of External (now Foreign) Affairs. She was the 'token woman' on the first Irish UN delegation in New York; and she was charge d'affaires in Franco's Spain in the 1940s, with experiences both 'baroque and absurd'.
There she met and married Conor Cruise O'Brien, a rising star in the UN. Thereafter, her life took her to the Congo, Ghana, Europe and America, where Conor worked both academically and politically in highly dramatic situations. From her unique vantage point she vividly recalls the workings of the international community. Their return to Ireland and Conor's position as a government minister took her full circle.
Maire offers a fascinating insight into her eighty-plus years, drawing together threads from Celtic roots to far-flung political and diplomatic activities. Her interests are wide-ranging and her observation acute. Both homely and worldly, this book presents a rare personal perspective on the complete span of the twentieth century both in Ireland and around the world.
Religion and Politics in Ireland at the Turn of the Millennium edited by James Mackey and Enda McDonagh
Paperback; 16.50 Euro / 18.50 USD / 13.00 UK; 304 pages [Add To Basket]
Controversy has attended the relationship between religion and politics in Ireland almost since the beginning of time! This book seeks to examine that relationship with special emphasis on the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the government of the Republic. Part one of this book consists of four chapters, each a general overview of the internal politics of the Roman Catholic Church; of relationships between the state and the Roman Catholic Church in the Republic of Ireland during the last century; of relationships between other Christian churches and the same state; and of relationships between the Christian Churches and Northern Ireland. In part two, the analysis of the relationship between religion and politics is broken down in order to take closer account of the finer details that emerges in the more specific areas of interest to both, namely: family law and morality; education; the health services; bio-medical practice or bio-technology; the search for a just society; economic policy and practice; concern for the foreigners both in Ireland's midst and in need in their own countries; the media and the three-way interaction with politics and religion. The collection concludes with Garret FitzGerald's critical overview and assessment.
After the Ball by Fintan O'Toole
Paperback; 12.50 Euro / 14.00 USD / 9.00 UK; 180 pages
What is the legacy of the Celtic Tiger? Is it the death of communal values? Or the triumph of profit? In a series of sharply observed essays, the award-winning author and commentator looks at Ireland's growing notoriety as one of the most globalised yet unequal economies on earth. Why were the boom years haunted by the spectre of a failing health service? Why do a substantial proportion of Ireland's children continue to be marginalised through lack of funding in education? What is the place of people with disabilities, travellers, women, immigrants and asylum-seekers in this new Ireland? Passionate and provocative, this book is a wake-up call for a nation in transition.
The Bankrupt, the Conman, the Mafia and the Irish Connection by Chris Moore
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 284 pages, with a 16-page photo insert [Add To Basket]
Colin Lees was everybody's friend. A successful businessman in the little town of Magherafelt, Co. Down, he had charms and good connections. He was a winner. That is, until it all went wrong in 1992. That's when his business empire collapsed under a mountain of debt. Over ambitious expansion in previous years left Lees in the hole for 3.5 million pounds sterling. On top of that, there was a further fraud involving a missing 23 million. Then it emerged Lees had a second business in Scotland which was an MI6 shadow company. That also collapsed owing almost 20 million. The Fraud Squad moved in and Lees had to surrender his passport. His UK passport, that is. He did not tell them about his Irish passport, with which he flew the coop to the United States. There he soon relieved a Texas businessman of 1 million dollars in a scam and ruined a business of one of his late father's oldest friends. He returned to Ireland in 1996, bringing with him a Mafia-connected money launderer. Soon his criminal empire expanded into laundering his own cash and that of the Mafia, as well as running drug shipments into Britain and Ireland. This is the amazing and true story.
The Legacy of History by Martin Mansergh
Trade Paperback; 20.00 Euro / 24.00 USD / 15.00 UK; 478 pages [Add To Basket]
Ireland's history had had a profound influence on the Irish as a people and its has certainly shaped the character of the Irish State. This book helps to flesh out and put into perspective the background to the problems with which we have had to deal, as well as highlighting what remains to be done. Subjects dealt with include the Battle of Kinsale, the resonances in the current Northern peace process from the Treaty of Limerick to the commemoration of the rebellion of 1798 and 1848, the legacy of Wolfe Tone, historical revisionism and the patriotism of Padraic Pearse and Roger Casement. There are also essays on Unionism, the Orange Order and the Anglo-Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen. By putting the struggle for nationhood of earlier centuries and particularly of the early decades of the twentieth-century into historical perspective, with essays on Eamon de Valera, Michael Collins, Liam Lynch, Liam Mellows, and Erskine Childers, Martin Mansergh throws valuable light on the Republican ideal and the aspirations of the Irish people of today, north and south.
The Great Dying: The Black Death in Dublin by Maria Kelly
Paperback; 20.00 Euro / 23.50 USD / 15.00 UK; 252 pages [Add To Basket]
Between August and Christmas 1348, 14,000 people are said to have died in Dublin from the plague, a rate of 100 per day. This horrendous disease spread rapidly and, once infected, its victims could die within 3 days. Medieval Dubliners were no strangers to sudden illness, diseases and early death. As the Black Death spread, however, and the symptoms developed into skin eruptions, hallucinations and haemorrhaging, and above all as the death toll mounted, the unprecedented nature of this disease was quickly recognised. The author examines the fear, panic and superstition surrounding the outbreak that many believed was a punishment from God for their sins.
Dublin Review: Issue 14 Spring 2004 edited by Brendan Barrington
Paperback; 8.00 Euro / 11.00 USD / 6.00 UK; 110 pages [Add To Basket]
Contents: Crossing the Delaware by Christina Hunt Mahony; Philanthropy by Philip O Ceallaigh; Writing against the writing against the wall by Glenn Patterson; Ogygia Lost by Tim Robinsin; Francis Stuart to America, 9 June 1940 by Damien Keane; As good as the moon every time by Molly McCloskey; Two stories by Anthony Caleshu; The black North by George O'Brien; and Interlude by Amit Chaudhuri.
Gregory Carr, Bookseller
Read Ireland
392 Clontarf Road
Dublin 3
Ireland
Tel + Fax: +353-1-853-2063
Customer Services Comments, Criticism and Questions
Subscribe to Read Ireland Book News - Our Free Weekly Email Newsletter