Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 409 - 4/5 April 2008
The Irish Folklore Commission: History, Ideology, Methodology by Micheal Briody
Large Trade Paperback; 65 Euro / 100 USD / 50 UK; 535 pages
Between 1935 and 1970 the Irish Folklore Commission (Coimisiún Béaloideasa Éireann), under-funded and at great personal cost to its staff, assembled one of the world’s largest folklore collections. The cultural, linguistic, political and ideological factors that had a bearing on the establishment and making permanent of the Commission and that impinged on many aspects of its work are here elucidated. This study also deals with the working methods and conditions of employment of the Commission’s field and Head Office staff as well with Séamus Ó Duilearga’s direction of the Commission.
This work should be of interest not only to students of Irish oral tradition but to folklorists everywhere. The history of the Irish Folklore Commission is a part of a wider history, that of the history of folkloristics in Europe and North America in particular. Moreover, the Irish Folklore Commission maintained contacts with scholars on all five continents, and this work has relevance for many areas of the developing world today, where conditions are not dissimilar to those that pertained in Ireland in the 1930's when this great salvage operation was funded by the young, independent Irish state.
The Poet’s Chair: The First Nine Years of the Ireland Chair of Poetry by John Montague, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill and Paul Durcan with a forword by Seamus Heaney
Hardback; 20 Euro / 30 USD / 15 UK; 260 pages [Add To Basket]
Celebrating nearly a decade of the Ireland Chair of Poetry, The Poet's Chair brings together public lectures given by the first three Ireland Professors of Poetry, John Montague, Nuala Ni Dhomnhaill and Paul Durcan, during their time in tenure.
From the challenge of translation and a turbulent Turkish odyssey to a vignette of literary Dublin during the early Sixties and incisive analysis of the work of Anthony Cronin, Michael Hartnett and Harry Clifton, this collection highlights the intellectual strength and diversity of Ireland's poetic elite and affirms the reputation of the Ireland Chair of Poetry as a vibrant and flourishing arena for the best thinkers of the island.
John Montague, the first holder of the Chair in 1998, is a poet and a highly regarded critic and prose writer. Nuala Ni Dhomnhaill, who held the post from 2001 to 2003, is a champion of the Irish language and has been widely translated into English by her peers. Paul Durcan, third holder of the chair, is a unique voice in Irish poetry as well as a skilled broadcaster and prose writer.
The Poet's Chair includes a Foreword by Seamus Heaney based on his remarks on the occasion of the first appointment, and an explanatory Afterword by Sir Donnell Deeny, founding chairman of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust.
Dublin Explorer
Trade Paperback; 22 Euro / 29 USD / 15 UK; 460 pages, with full colour photos throughout
From visas and licences to housing and healthcare, the Dublin Explorer is packed with invaluable information for residents and expats. The book also covers leisure activities, exploring, shopping, and socialising. · Relocating to Dublin - from visas and areas to setting up home · Shopping - the lowdown on Dublin´s best streets, malls and markets · Going Out - find the best bars, the poshest restaurants and the liveliest pubs · Maps - detailed city maps and a country overview map · Living and working in Dublin - education, health, money, hobbies and activities · Exploring Dublin and beyond - city areas, daytrips and weekend breaks from Dublin
Prostitution and Irish Society, 1800-1940 by Maria Luddy
Trade Paperback; 24 Euro /32 USD /16 UK; 340 pages [Add To Basket]
This is the first book to tackle the controversial history of prostitution in Ireland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Maria Luddy uncovers the extent of prostitution in the country, how Irish women came to work as prostitutes, their living conditions and their treatment by society. She links discussions of prostitution to the Irish nationalist and suffrage movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, analysing the ways in which Irish nationalism used the problems of prostitution and venereal disease to argue for the withdrawal of the British from Ireland. She also investigates the contentious history of Magdalen asylums and explores how the infamous red-light district of Dublin's 'Monto' was finally suppressed through the actions of the Legion of Mary in the 1920s. Revealing complex social and religious attitudes towards prostitution in Irish society, this book opens up a new world in Ireland's social and political history.
The Girl in the Wicker Basket by Anne Kenny
Trade Paperback; 14 Euro / 19 USD /9 UK; 240 pages
When Ann Kenny was four years old her foster mother hit her across the face with a fireplace shovel. She was left lying unconscious on the cold hard floor while her foster family went to mass. She almost lost an eye from that incident. This is just one of the childhood incidents Ann recalls in her vivid, shocking memoir of growing up in a house where she wasn't wanted. She was given most of the household chores, and she was not even allowed to sit with the family at mealtimes, but was forced to stand while they sat. Her grandfather also regularly beat her viciously. She later discovered that he had also abused her sexually, drugging her with whiskey before putting her to bed. When she grew up, Ann got out of Ireland completely, but she couldn t escape the shadow of her childhood. She married an alcoholic; his drinking came to dominate their marriage, and she was left to raise their three children as best as she could. He died of liver failure in 1997 at the age of 46. Slowly, Ann set out on the road to recovering her life. She came to terms with the past when she sought out and found her birth mother, now a bitter old woman. Today Ann has found love in a new relationship, and this book is a testament to the strength of a survivor.
Good Times and Bad:From the Coombe to the Kremlin: A Memoir by Seamus Martin
Trade Paperback; 20 Euro / 30 USD /15 UK; 320 pages
"Good Times and Bad" recalls Seamus Martin's colourful life and tells fascinating stories about his childhood in a working class family. They moved house frequently from Dublin to Derry to Donegal and back to Dublin and he went to Gormanston College boarding school as a scholarship boy. Before joining the "Times", Martin had an eventful career. He worked as a sports commentator in the "Irish Press" and the "Irish Independent", sports editor of the "Sunday Tribune" and as a columnist in the "Evening Herald".As Moscow correspondent for "The Irish Times", he was an eyewitness to the collapse of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Later, he covered the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, the collapse of the apartheid regime and the arrival of democracy in South Africa and reported on Mandela's rise to president. Back in Ireland he was a senior editor in the thick of the financial crisis that nearly ended the "Irish Times" in 2002 and 2003 and writes frankly about that time.
Historical Dictionary of Irish Cinema by Roderick Flynn and Patrick Brereton
Hardback; 80 Euro / 120 USD / 60 UK; 400 pages [Add To Basket]
In 1898, documentary footage of a yacht race was shot by Robert A. Mitchell, making him the first Irishman to shoot a film within Ireland. Despite early exposure to the filmmaking process, Ireland did not develop a regular film industry until the late 1910s when James Mark Sullivan established the Film Company of Ireland. Since that time, Ireland has played host to many famous films about the country—Man of Aran, The Quiet Man, The Crying Game, My Left Foot, and Bloody Sunday—as well as others not about the country—Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan. It has also produced great directors such as Neil Jordan and Jim Sheridan, as well as throngs of exceptional actors and actresses: Colin Farrel, Colm Meaney, Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Maureen O'Hara, and Peter O'Toole.
The Historical Dictionary of Irish Cinema provides essential facts on the history of Irish cinema through a list of acronyms and abbreviation; a chronology; an introduction; a bibliography; and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on the pioneers and current leaders in the industry, the actors, directors, distributors, exhibitors, schools, arts centers, the government bodies and some of the legislation they passed, and the films.
Blarney Castle: Its History, Development and Purpost by Mark Samuel and Kate Hamlyn
Hardback; 40 Euro / 60 USD / 30 UK; 150 pages with full colour photographs throughout [Add To Basket]
Blarney Castle in County Cork is one of Ireland's oldest and most historic castles, an ancient stronghold of the McCarthys, Lords of Muskerry, and one of the strongest fortresses in Munster. It is also one of Irelands biggest tourist attractionsover 300,000 people visit Blarney Castle each year.
This new book sets the castle in a wider context which includes aspects of social, architectural and local history with particular focus on County Cork, including the history of the area around Blarney, the Gaelic society which built the castle, the function of the castle and the gradual development of the property from a well-defended family seat to a major tourist attraction. At the same time it sets the castle within a wider context of national history and events. Since the site controlled a natural route to Cork City and was at the very edge of English Rule in Ireland, there is a relative wealth of extant documentation. Thus the book uses the evidence of both the building itself and of historical material to interpret the castle.
A new survey of the castle has been carried out and there is a fresh examination of the evidence it provides and how this illuminates the documentary accounts. The authors draw on their own archaeological expertise to pull together for the first time the historical material from a variety of published sources.
New Contexts: Re-Framing Nineteenth-Century Irish Women’s Prices edited by Hiedi Hansson
Hardback; 40 Euro / 60 USD / 30 UK; 224 pages [Add To Basket]
This collection contains new readings of nineteenth-century Irish women's prose works by a wide range of international scholars. The authors place nineteenth-century women's writing in new contexts and offer a fresh view of the nineteenth century through women's literary perspectives. The authors covered include: Elizabeth Hamilton, Lady Blessington, Selina Bunbury, Mrs Hungerford, M.E. Francis, Somerville and Ross. The authors look at writers who have been previously ignored in Irish Studies and they draw attention to women's contributions to literary genres commonly associated with male writers. Serious attention is also given to devalued genres such as the romance. The authors also examine prose writing that does not fit the usual categories and they research the cultural and material contexts of women's literary production. The authors read nineteenth-century Irish women's works according to the main themes that emerge in the novels and texts, not according to any overarching principle based on aesthetic or ideological criteria. This means that the contexts in which women's writing are usually understood are often changed.
The designation 'Irish' is widened so that writers whose works were important in Ireland but who themselves did not live there have been included, although most of the writers discussed lived in various parts of Ireland.
Roddy Connolly and the Struggle for Socialism in Ireland by Charlie McGuire
Hardback; 50 Euro / 75 USD / 38 UK; 328 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is the first biography of Irish Labour politician, Roddy Connolly. His was a career wholly unique in Irish politics, spanning 65 years and linking the revolutionary politics of the 1916-23 era with the more moderate Irish Labour Party politics of the 1970s. Connolly took part in the Easter Rising, formed Irelands first Communist Party, had a brief involvement in the short-lived Workers Party of Ireland in 1926, and ended up joining the Irish Labour Party with the intention of taking it to the left. In the 1940s he was a twice-elected Labour TD, and in the 1970s returned to the fore as party chairman and Senate member. Roddy Connolly died in 1980.
Author Charlie McGuire details the career of one of the Irish Lefts most important figures and offers a window into the development of the organizations and parties in which he was involved. In the process, he sheds light on and challenges existing interpretations of many of the key periods in twentieth century Irish history.
Shadows of the Gunmen: Violence and Culture in Modern Ireland edited by Danine Farquharson and Sean Farrell
Hardback; 40 Euro / 60 USD / 30 UK; 230 pages [Add To Basket]
The first interdisciplinary study of violence and the modern Irish experience, Shadows of the Gunmen contributes to both Irish studies and the broader examination of violence in the modern world. Providing both examples of and an introduction to recent scholarship that addresses the representations of violence, Shadows of the Gunmen probes the connections between political/historical violence and aesthetic representations thereof.
Scholars have long understood the key roles played by violence in the making of modern Ireland. In recent years, studies on violence have become increasingly creative and sophisticated, as scholars have used new analytical lenses to confront the real challenges faced in writing violence. Much of the best work in this new literature examines the complex relationships between violence and its representation. Shadows of the Gunmen provides a coherent introduction to the latest scholarship. With essays from historians, film scholars, literary critics, and philosophers, Shadows of the Gunmen is both relevant to the particular Irish experience and the broader contemporary world. Violence may not speak, but violence is represented and these depictions are continually interrogated and/or contested in public and private arenas across Ireland and abroad. This volume of essays will explore and probe the connection between political/historical violence and aesthetic representations of such violence. The first interdisciplinary study of violence and the modern Irish experience, Shadows of the Gunmen is a major contribution to both Irish studies and the broader examination of violence in the modern world.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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