Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 309
Haughey’s Forty Years of Controversy by T. Ryle Dwyer
Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 10.50 UK; 260 pages
Charles J. Haughey, over the last five decades, has been involved in major political scandals of Watergate proportions: the Arms Crisis, the telephone tapping scandal, the Beef Tribunal, the Ben Dunne payments, tax evasion, the Terry Keane revelations, the Moriarty Tribunal investigation into payments to politicians, the McCracken Tribunal, etc.; In this revised edition of Fallen Idol, Ryle Dwyer updates the scandals and delivers his conclusions on the Haughey Years.; Lively, succinct, opinionated, drawing extensively on in-depth research, Forty Years of Controversy is the indispensable handbook for anyone intrigued by one of Ireland's most inscrutable politicians.
Killing Finucane by Justin O’Brien
Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 19.00 USD / 11.00 UK; 210 pages [Add To Basket]
Pat Finucane's murder in 1989 was the most infamous incident in the long story of British counter-insurgency in Northern Ireland. But it was in no way unique. In Killing Finucane, Justin O'Brien tells the full story of collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and agents of the state – especially the RUC Special Branch and sinister elements in the British Army. The result was the corruption of the state itself and the loss of its claim to moral precedence in the fight against republican terrorism.
Killing Finucane tells the story of Northern Ireland's dirty war from the start of the Troubles and through the 1980s and 90s. It tells of how Special Branch corrupted the RUC, stymied the Finucane murder hunt while recruiting his killer as an agent, and perverted the course of justice by lying to the Stevens inquiry. These abuses were official government policy: O'Brien demonstrates that MI5 controlled the entire security environment, including Special Branch, and covered its tracks by a deliberate policy of scapegoating alleged 'rogue operators'.
In exposing the reality behind the dirty war in Northern Ireland, Killing Finucaneserves as a warning about the corrupting tendencies of an unaccountable security apparatus. It tells of how agents involved in the killing were protected rather than prosecuted, and reveals why this was allowed to happen. This is an explosive and important exposé.
The Open Door Book of Poetry edited by Niall MacMonagle
Paperback; 10 Euro / 13.00 USD / 7.00 UK; 116 pages
Edited by acclaimed Lifelines editor, teacher and critic Niall MacMonagle, the book is both an introduction to the joys of poetry for the general reader, and also an aid for secondary students, adults learning to read, and people learning English. Published in the same much-praised format as Open Door, the book promises to be one to treasure. Innovatively laid out by Niall MacMonagle and series editor Patricia Scanlan, the book will feature a poem a page, followed by glossary, explanation and poet biographies. This brilliant new book will both introduce people to the concept of poetry, while also introducing them to the personal favourites of one of our most inclusive critics and teachers.
The Midnight Court by Ciaran Carson
Paperback; 12.50 Euro / 16.00 USD / 8.50 UK; 80 pages [Add To Basket]
An outstanding poet, Ciaran Carson has also proved himself and adept and adventurous translator. Now he turns to a masterpiece perfectly suited to his abundant gifts, the eighteenth-century Irish 'Cúirt an Mhéan Oíche'. Brian Merriman's classic debate on marriage and the plight of young women culminates in the fairy goddess Aoibheall's judgement against men.
Carson echoes Merriman's mix of high rhetoric and rude colloquial wit and replicates his probing analysis of sexuality and social mores. The acrobatics of his couplets quicken the poem's passionate argument, capturing its nudges and winks in earthy, contemporary idiom.
What he calls Merriman's 'abundant lexicon of vilification . . . numerous double entendres and gorgeousness of verbal music' comes alive in his brilliant recreation. This Midnight Court unfolds with a spring — and a surprise — in every step. (Also available in Hardback, priced at 20 Euro)
Harbour Lights by Derek Mahon
Paperback; 12.50 Euro / 16.00 USD / 8.50 UK; 80 pages
When one of the finest contemporary poets produces a new collection containing some of his finest work our response is one of exhilaration and gratitude. The long, wide-ranging poems here (‘Resistance Days’, ‘Calypso’, ‘Harbour Lights’ itself) are interspersed with penetrating glances and a series of dazzling translations which enhance and extend their traditions; his version of ‘The Seaside Cemetery’ is a masterpiece. Together they form a book of rare organic unity and distinction.
The author’s resolution to study ‘clouds and their formation’ and his concentration on ‘the real thing’ affirm aesthetic values in a violent time. Remembering ‘lives in a former life’ and celebrating ‘the redemptive power of women’, his work is unique in its verve and fluency. Harbour Lights is an act of faith, and a triumph. (Also available in Hardback, priced at 20 Euro)
Fiction by Conor O’Callaghan
Paperback; 12.50 Euro / 16.00 USD / 8.50 UK; 80 pages
Conor O’Callaghan’s third collection, his first for six years, navigates a channel between half-truth and deception. Narratives, at once private and impersonal, happen against the backdrops of desire and love’s complexities.
Fiction , a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, is a collection of broad formal and thematic range. A pair of gloves becomes an erotic keepsake. An Irish family survives the morbid paranoia of contemporary wartime America . The meaning of ‘hello’ mutates through its relationship to the telephone. The creatures of ‘ Free State ’ coinage vanishes from legal tender, and a young woman encounters her first poem in print.
If Fiction is often bleak — its version unreliable, its vision unforgiving — it is as often witty and tender and deceptively rhapsodic. It expands the achievement of one of Ireland ’s most original and engaging younger poets. (Also available in Hardback, priced at 20 Euro)
Negotiated Governance and Public Policy in Ireland by George Taylor
Trade Paperback; 22.50 Euro / 28.50 USD / 15.00 UK; 206 pages [Add To Basket]
Over the past ten years the Irish polity has experienced profound change. The pessimism that had engulfed Irish society during the 1980s has given way to a new found confidence, one that befits its status as an emerging, confident and cosmopolitan European state. This book provides a theoretical examination of this startling turnaround in the fortunes of the Irish polity and details the developments that have taken place in key areas of public policy over the last decade: civil service reform, the welfare state, environmental policy and rural development.
George Taylor is Lecturer in Politics at the Department of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway Contents: Introduction 1. Negotiated governance in the era of the Celtic Tiger 2. All boats rise on a new tide: reconstructing welfare in the era of the Celtic Tiger 3. Redefining the public: civil service reform in the era of the Celtic Tiger 4. Contestation in the countryside: rural governance in the era of the Celtic Tiger 5. Environmental governance in the era of the Celtic Tiger Conclusion
The Redemption Factory by Sam Millar
Trade Paperback; 13.00 Euro / 16.50 USD / 9.50 UK; 253 pages [Add To Basket]
Paul Goodman, a would-be snooker champion working at an abattoir, has never known his father and believes – wrongly – that he deserted him when young. But he is befriended by the one many who holds the key to the mystery of his disappearance, the man responsible for his death. This compelling novel weaves a story about the struggle to acknowledge a wrong, about loyalty and corruption, life and death.
Me and My Bleeding Mouth: The Painful True Story of Gary McCormick by Sue Weller
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 13.00 USD / 7.00 UK; 120 pages [Add To Basket]
"He's not bleeding on my new carpet. If you're going to shoot him, take him somewhere else..." This is the story of a 36 year old man born the year the Irish Troubles began. Arrested at the age of 12 Gary climbed the penal ladder adeptly, ending up in prison on the Isle of Wight for an impetuous bomb hoax. His story infuriates, disturbs and frustrates, but he knows his faults, tries hard to make amends, and whatever's thrown at him he won't give up, or shut up for that matter. Even when the BBC put him in a monastery for six weeks with four other men, to see how they will respond to cloistered life, he causes a stir.
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