Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 289
Collision Culture: Transformations in Everyday Life in Ireland by Kieran Keohane and Carmen Kuhling
Trade Paperback; 17.00 Euro / 20.00 USD / 12.00 UK; 204 pages
The central premise of this book is that Ireland’s experience of ‘economic boom’ has resulted in the collision of incompatible ways of life. These ‘cultural collisions’ in Irish life today occur between the local and the global, between the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’, between Catholic and secular, and between urban and rural. They have become apparent in a variety of changes – changes in rates of traffic accidents, in suicide patterns, in patterns of consumption, in representations of Irish ‘celebrities’, in patterns of home ownership, in the rise of the tribunals, and in a variety of other points of public discourse and Irish culture. The authors show the reader that by investigating these cultures of everyday life – driving, housing, music, religion, consumerism and fashion, among others – the reader gains a better understanding of how recent social transformations are manifest at the everyday level.
Reds and the Green: Ireland, Russia and the Communist Internationals, 1919-43 by Emmet O’Connor
Trade Paperback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 260 pages [Add To Basket]
In August 1922, at the height of the Civil War, when the Communist Party of Ireland could count on barely 50 activists, two agents of the Communist International held a secret meeting in Dublin with two IRA leaders. The four signed an agreement providing for the transformation of Sinn Fein into a socialist party. In return, Moscow was to assist with the supply of weapons to the IRA. The incident illustrates what made the Comintern a beacon of hope to beleaguered revolutionaries or an object of sometimes hysterical suspicion. From February 1918, when over 10,000 thronged central Dublin to acclaim the Bolshevik revolution, to July 1941, when the Party in Eire was dissolved by the votes of just 20 members, communists were involved with every radical movement, and demonised in every pulpit. Based on former Soviet archives, Reds and the Green shows why Irish Marxists and republicans turned repeatedly to Russia for support and inspiration, what Moscow wanted from Ireland, and how the Comintern was able to direct an Irish political party. (Also available in Hardback priced at 50 Euro)
Medicine and Charity in Ireland 1718-1851 by Laurence Geary
Trade Paperback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 241 pages
In this illuminating social history of medicine and charity in Ireland over a period of almost 150 years, the author focuses on the plight of the poor and in the process underlines the close relationship between illness and poverty.
During the eighteenth century the sick came to be regarded as one of the groups that constituted the deserving poor and society attempted to assist them in their illness and distress. From 1718, when the first voluntary hospital was established in Dublin, a network of medical charities evolved in Ireland to provide free medical aid to the sick poor. The inspiration was not always or entirely charitable: the motives for founding charitable institutions embraced utilitarian as well as philanthropic considerations. The author examines these issues, along with the contribution and role of doctors, patients and governors, the core groups involved in the medical charities. He describes the nepotism, sectarianism and divisive politics that characterized these institutions and traces the emergence of an increasingly confident Catholic opposition voice in the opening of the nineteenth century.
The author explores developments in policy making and legislation, and suggests that the disease, poverty and famine crises of the first half of the nineteenth century prompted a more interventionist government approach to Irish social problems. The Great Famine precipitated the 1851 Medical Charities Act, which established a poor law medical service in Ireland. This act was the culmination of a process that had been under way throughout the period covered in this book, the unrelenting pressure on philanthropy and private medical charity, and the inexorable shift from voluntarism to an embryonic system of state medicine. (Also available in hardback priced at 50 Euro)The Information Revolution and Ireland by Lee Komito
Trade Paperback; 22.00 Euro / 27.00 USD / 15.00 UK; 222 pages [Add To Basket]
This book explores the implications of information and communications technologies for social and cultural change. Where there is a new economic, political and social order emerging or not, and whether the new order is beneficial or detrimental to citizens, it is clear that significant changes are taking place. The author provides an anthropological perspective on these changes in this clearly structured and readable book.
He first places contemporary technologies in an historical context and then discusses global social and cultural changes. The book explores not only economic changes, but also changes in communities, culture, social relations, individual identity and national politics. As information-intensive networked societies emerge, it often seems as though we are all bystanders, watching change take place but having little participation in the process. This book argues that technology, including the new information and communications technology linked with the Information Society, is not a force external to and beyond the control of society but an integral part of it.Keeping It Real: Irish Film and Television edited by Ruth Barton and Harvey O’Brien
Paperback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 210 pages
This timely collection of essays considers the nature and direction of Irish film and television, and also explores the contributions of other media including radio and the internet to contemporary Irish culture. It includes topics such as the first Irish-language soap opera, the new Irish gangsters, Irish identity post-11 September, images of Belfast in recent Irish film, female punishment in Irish history and culture, and print and radio coverage of the ‘Roy Keane’ affair as a proving ground for new Irish masculinity. The book reflects a desire to hear new voices on new topics, as well as a current popular and academic desire to extend the notion of Irishness to include not just the inhabitants of the State but also the wider diaspora – particularly Britain and North America, questioning issues of national identity and ethnicity.
The Real Ireland: The Evolution of Ireland in Documentary Film by Harvey O’Brien
Paperback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 352 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is the first full-length study of Irish documentary film, but more than that, it is a study of Ireland itself – of how the idea of Ireland evolved throughout the twentieth century and how documentary cinema both recorded and participated in the process of change. Not just a film studies text, this book is a discussion of history, politics and culture, which also explores the philosophical roots of the documentary idea, and how this idea informs concepts of society, self and nation. It features rare and previously unseen illustrations and a detailed documentary filmography, the first of its kind in print anywhere.
Retrospection of Dorothy Herbert, 1770-1806
Paperback; 12.50 Euro / 15.00 USD / 8.00 UK; 434 pages [Add To Basket]
Dorothy Herbert wrote these ‘Retrospections’ as a diary, a form of personal therapy much needed after her thwarted love affair with the handsome John Roe of Rockwell House in County Tipperary. Reminiscent of the novels of Jane Austen, this book breathes life into the Irish world of grand balls and sparkling parties. Personal tragedy, however, is not far behind as pranks, deception and genteel mortification all conspire against Dorothea in her quest to find a husband.
Walking the Mist: Celtic Spirituality for the 21st Century by Donald McKinney
Paperback; 17.50 Euro / 22.50 USD / 11.00 UK; 235 pages [Add To Basket]
In this book the reader discovers the magic, wisdom and profound spirituality of the Ancient Celts for a more peaceful and purposeful life today. From his own personal journey along the Celtic path, the author shows how their wisdom can be applied to enrich our day-to-day lives. He explores the Celtic connection with the natural world, showing us how to find out own Sacred Space and tap into earth energies through meditation. Revealing the power and significance of the changing seasons and lunar cycles, he also offers practical guidance on the Celtic approach to everything from relationships to work and health.
The Grand Tour of Limerick by Cornelius Kelly
Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 230 pages, with black-and-white photos and illustrations throughout [Add To Basket]
This book explores County Limerick through the eyes of sixty-four visitors. For centuries visitors have written about their experiences in Limerick. This anthology brings together the best of these first-hand accounts spanning five centuries. There’s a Jacobite soldier at the Siege of Limerick, Catherine McAuley setting up a Convent of Mercy, Eamon de Valera seeing Ireland for the very first time. Along with Brendan Behan, Heinrich Boll, Charles Dickens and Harold Pinter, they take the reader on a tour of every corner of the county. Their accounts, brought to life with old maps, photographs and pictures, are a valuable archive of Limerick’s history.
The Grand Tour of Kerry by Penelope Durell and Cornelius Kelly
Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 230 pages, with black-and-white photos and illustrations throughout [Add To Basket]
For centuries travelers have been visiting County Kerry and writing about its legendary beauties. This book brings together their impressions – from Giraldus Cambrensis in the 12th century to Robert Mitchum nearly 800 years later. In between, William Wordsworth, George Bernard Shaw, Kate O’Brien, Brendan Behan, J.P. Donleavy, and numerous others take to the highways and byways of the Kingdom. The regale the reader with their adventures, share their impressions of the area, and provide a vivid picture of Kerry and its inhabitants.
How Far We Have Travelled: The Voice of Marry Holland edited by Mary Maher
Paperback; 13.00 Euro / 16.00 USD / 9.50 UK; 256 pages [Add To Basket]
This collection of Mary Holland’s work, drawn largely from her weekly column in the Irish Times, records Ireland’s passage through the last three turbulent decades from the viewpoint of one of the most influential journalists in 20th century journalism in Ireland and Britain. An outspoken champion of the voiceless and powerless, her compassion, courage and shrewd political insight illuminated the issues that dominated the era and influenced changes of heart and mind. Reporting and reflecting with both passion and wry wit, her themes covered social justice, women’s rights, international relations and the arts, as well as the evolution from the worst years of bloody conflict in Northern Ireland toward a new and tentative accord.
My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress: An Irish Childhood in the 1960s b Christina McKenna
Trade Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 242 pages [Add To Basket]
This memoir is a tale of two generations of Irish women. Sparkling with wit and compassion, the book tells the story of a mother and daughter, one bound by the constrictions of 1960s Ireland, the other struggling desperately to escape both it and the heartless father who has blighted her life. But escape does come, and in the most macabre way: a prolonged haunting confirms for Christina the reality of the spirit world, freeing her imagination from the dysfunctional dance of her mother and father, her twisted headmaster, her unyielding uncles scrounging for land and the hoard of ancestral money. Passionate and beautifully told, this book is the redemptive postscript to over a decade of Irish childhood memoirs, concluding that our past, no matter how painful, need not keep us bound!
The Castles of South Munster by Mike Salter
Paperback; 17.50 Euro / 21.00 USD / 12.00 UK; 130 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is a comprehensive guide to castles, fortified houses, bawns and town defences in the counties of Cork, Kerry and Waterford, which make up the southern half of the province of Munster. An introduction describing the development of castellated buildings of stone in South Munster, dating from the early 13th century to the late 17th century, is followed by three gazetteers describing the history and architecture of over 220 such buildings. The gazetteers are illustrated with many plans, drawings and photographs, and there is also a map of surviving buildings. Lists at the ends of the gazetteers give summary information on another 80 buildings, and there are lists of sites of former castles.
The Castles of Ulster by Mike Salter
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 7.00 UK; 72 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is a comprehensive guide castles, fortified houses, bawns and town defences in the nine northern counties which make up the province of Ulster. An introduction describing the development of castellated buildings of stone in Ulster, dating from the late 12th century to the mid 17th century, is followed by nine gazetteers describing the history and architecture of over 100 such buildings. The gazetteers are illustrated with many plans, drawings and photographs, and there is also a map of surviving buildings. Lists at the ends of the gazetteers give summary information on another 70 buildings, and there are lists of sites of former castles.
The Castles of Leinster by Mike Salter
Paperback; 20.00 Euro / 25.00 USD / 14.00 UK; 200 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is a comprehensive guide castles, fortified houses, bawns and town defences in the twelve counties of the eastern and south-eastern parts of Ireland which make up the province of Leinster. An introduction describing the development of castellated buildings of stone in Leinster, dating from the late 12th century to the mid 17th century, is followed by twelve gazetteers describing the history and architecture of over 350 such buildings. The gazetteers are illustrated with many plans, drawings and photographs, and there is also a map of surviving buildings. Lists at the ends of the gazetteers give summary information on another 300 buildings, and there are lists of sites of former castles.
The Castles of Connacht by Mike Salter
Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 20.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 106 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is a comprehensive guide castles, fortified houses, bawns and town defences in the five counties of Galway, Mayo, Leitrim, Roscommon and Sligo which make up the province of Connacht. An introduction describing the development of castellated buildings of stone in Ulster, dating from the early 13th century to the late 17th century, is followed by five gazetteers describing the history and architecture of over 200 such buildings. The gazetteers are illustrated with many plans, drawings and photographs, and there is also a map of surviving buildings. Lists at the ends of the gazetteers give summary information on another 150 buildings, and there are lists of sites of former castles.
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