Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 276
The SAS in Ireland by Raymond Murray
Trade Paperback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 19.00 UK; 542 pages
This book traces the history of the British Army Special Air Services Regiment, the SAS, in Ireland. It details their activities - intelligence gathering and surveillance, their links with British Intelligence, notably MI5 and MI6, their connection with sectarian murders and many other deaths. The author is a respected commentator on events in Northern Ireland. In this book, originally published in 1990 and fully-updated for this new edition, he analyses in detail the activities of the SAS and plain clothes soldiers in the Six Counties. His research leads him to the conclusion that in many instances the SAS engaged in a careful and organised shoot-to-kill policy.
Pearse's Patriots: St. Enda's and the Cult of Boyhood by Elaine Sisson
Hardback; 50.00 Euro / 60.00 USD / 35.00 UK; 232 pages, illustrated [Add To Basket]
When the gates of St. Enda's opened in 1908 its headmaster and founder, Patrick Pearse, declared that the school would be an 'educative adventure' for nationalist boys. Pearse's desire was that St. Enda's would create a modern Irish boy educated in the scholarly tradition of the early Celtic Church and in the ancient warrior culture of pagan Ireland. This heroic, yet Christian, boy would become the prototype of Irish masculinity educated into a life of public service and citizenship in order to serve the future nation state. This book explores how the cult of Irish national boyhood at St. Enda's was expressed through mythology, pageantry, theatre, Gaelic Games and Celticism.
Ogam Stones at the University College Cork by Damian McManus
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 12.00 USD / 7.00 UK; 24 pages
The collection of 28 Ogam stones at UCC represents the largest collection of Ogam inscriptions on open display in Ireland. In this guide the author places the stones in their literary, linguistic and archaeological context, and discusses the origins of Ogam, its distribution, execution and significance. The origins of the UCC collection are discussed, the provenance of each stone outlined and each inscription is described and carefully considered. This book presents a new reading of the inscriptions in light of the research conducted in recent years.
The Wee Wild One: Stories of Belfast and Beyond by Ruth Schwertfeger
Paperback; 20.00 Euro / 24.00 USD / 14.00 UK; 190 pages [Add To Basket]
Born in Ballycoan, Northern Ireland, in this book the author represents history and memory in an impressionistic memoir of her childhood on a small farm and attending a girls' school in Belfast. Through the author's girlhood and discovery of her own national and religious identity, this humorous memoir is shaped significantly by images of her father - 'the Wee Wild One' - who spent his days in delightful mischief on a Purdysburn farm in the early 1900s. The author provides her own interpretations of characters existing before her time and connects these and her own childhood memories in Ireland to her life today.
Listowel and its Vicinity Since 1973 by J. Anthony Gaughan
Paperback; 16.50 Euro / 19.00 USD / 11.50 UK; 200 pages
Situated in north Kerry on the banks of the River Feale, the town of Listowel is an attractive urban center. Perhaps most renowned for its literary offspring, the town is also a thriving sporting, industrial, as well as artistic hub. A quick name check of John B. Keane, Bryan MacMahon, the Listowel Races, St. John’s Theatre and Arts Centre, and Writers’ Week reveals the extraordinary contribution which the town has made. In this book the author looks at the town and its hinterland from a wide variety of perspectives. Thus he takes account of antiquarian and archaeological activity in the area over the past thirty years, the parish, the town, commercial and industrial development, education, writers, visual arts, cultural activities and recreational pursuits. All told, this is a fascinating modern history, guaranteed to be of interest to locals, historians, descendants, visitors and Kingdomites everywhere.
Eamon Kelly The Storyteller: An Autobiography
Paperback; 17.00 Euro / 20.00 USD / 12.00 UK; 350 pages [Add To Basket]
Eamon Kelly was born in east Kerry in March 1014 and reared near Killarney. From an early apprenticeship as a carpenter, he went on to become one of Ireland’s leading actors – notably with the Abbey Theatre. He also wrote and presented, in the role of the traditional ‘seanchai’, a number of story theatre shows. This autobiography is a funny, sad, informative and memorable evocation of a life, an era and a great dramatic tradition.
Medieval Dublin IV edited by Sean Duffy
Paperback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 20.00 UK; 300 pages [Add To Basket]
This book contains the results of four major archaeological excavations in the city, two of them in an area very close to the site of the original ‘Dubh Linn’ or ‘black pool’, where the Vikings first established themselves and from which the city takes its name, and two from Dublin north of the Liffey, the first of which exposes something of the origins of the pre-Norman parish church of St. Michan’s and the second reveals the development of the north Liffey quays in the Anglo-Norman era. Two chapters deal with the hinterland of Dublin, one a detailed study of ethnic relations in the south of the country and beyond in the aftermath of the Anglo-Norman invasion, the other an analysis of the way in which the architecture of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin influenced the design of the medieval parish churches of the pale. Also included is an examination of the sources for the oldest surviving Dublin book, the Martyrology of Christ Church, and an account of a history of medieval Dublin written in the late seventeenth century that has not yet been published.
The Irish Donkey by Averil Swinfen
Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 11.00 UK; 172 pages [Add To Basket]
The donkey is an integral part of the Irish landscape and tradition. This new, enlarged edition of a book originally published in 1969 traces the evolution of the species from its origins in Africa and central Asia to its arrival in Ireland in the early medieval period, and the multiple uses to which it was put in transport and agriculture. The life of a donkey is described with tender insight drawn from the author’s own experiences, from breeding to welfare, whether as pets or beasts of burden. Its afterlife in literature, folklore and mythology is evoked by James Stephens, R.L. Stevenson, G.K. Chesterton, Patricia Lynch, Patrick Kavanagh and others. Photographs by the author and noted Irish photographer Bill Doyle accompany the text. There is also a select bibliography.
English-Irish Slang Dictionary by Gearoid Mac an Bhainisteora
Paperback; 12.00 Euro / 14.50 USD / 9.00 UK; 88 pages [Add To Basket]
Ancient Ireland: Life Before the Celts by Laurence Flanagan
Paperback; 20.00 Euro / 24.00 USD / 15.00 UK; 264 pages [Add To Basket]
This unique book surveys the way ordinary social life was lived in Ireland before the advent of written records. The author is a distinguished archaeologist who uses his professional skills to reconstruct how the lives of ordinary people were lived from earliest times to the coming of the Celts around 200 B.C. This ambitious book gives the reader a glimpse into a lost world that extended over a vast period of time.
Gregory Carr, Bookseller
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