Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 431
Irish Politics and Poetry
Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney by Dennis O’Driscoll
Hardback; Publishers Recommended Price: 30 Euro. Read Ireland Special Price: 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 521 pages, with two 8-page black-and-white photo inserts
Widely regarded as the finest poet of his generation, Seamus Heaney is the subject of numerous critical studies; but no book-length portrait has appeared until now. Through his own lively and eloquent reminiscences, "Stepping Stones" retraces the poet's steps from his early works, through to his receipt of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature and his post-Nobel life. It is supplemented with a large number of photographs, many from the Heaney family album and published here for the first time. In response to firm but subtle questioning from Dennis O'Driscoll, Seamus Heaney sheds a personal light on his work (poems, essays, translations, plays) and on the artistic and ethical challenges he faced, providing an original, diverting and absorbing store of reflections, opinions and recollections.
Earth Voices Whispering: An Anthology of Irish War Poetry 1914-1945 edited by Gerald Dawe
Hardback; 22 Euro / 30 USD / 15 UK; 410 pages [Add To Basket]
In the first half of the twentieth century, the men and women of Ireland experienced the brutal realities of a succession of wars - from the unrelenting casualties of the First World War, to the domestic upheavals of the 1916 Easter Rising and the Irish Civil War; from the romantic idealism of the Spanish Civil War, to the unimaginable horrors of the Second World War."Earth Voices Whispering" gathers together, for the very first time, a wide range of poetic voices that chart the human experiences of these wars. Featuring over two hundred and fifty poems by celebrated poets such as Francis Ledwidge, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney, and including new poems by Derek Mahon and Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, the anthology records the thoughts and experiences of poets as soldiers, patriots, observers, protestors, medics and mourners. From patriotism to anger, passion to compassion, hope to regret, this groundbreaking new anthology embraces the complex reality of a rich, unique and historically overlooked period in Irish poetry.
First Citizen: Mary McAleese and the Irish Presidency by Patsy McGarry
Hardback; 30 Euro / 40 USD / 20 UK; 320 pages with full colour and black-and-white photographs throughout
The remarkable story of a woman who journeyed from working class Catholic West Belfast to the highest office in the Republic of Ireland, and who, shedding most of her own tribal baggage, became a President for all the people of Ireland. No other Irish president has remained as popular throughout their terms of office. Mary McAleese is a uniquely Irish phenomenon at an unprecedented time in Irish history when peace and prosperity arrived together on an island bedevilled for centuries by great hatreds. She played an active part in the peace process and she became the incarnation of the theme of her presidency, that of building bridges. This comprehensive title examines Mary McAleese’s background and upbringing, her time at Queen’s University, her controversial period in RTÉ, and the road to the presidency. Recounts Mary McAleese’s family’s personal experience of the troubles, including the night their house was riddled with bullets. Provides the ‘inside story’ of the president and her husband’s work in the Peace Process, and Martin McAleese’s behind-the-scenes work with the loyalist community. Reveals fascinating facts about Áras an Uachtaráin and its occupants, and includes an overview of the seven previous presidents and an analysis of what the presidency means. Fully illustrated with memorabilia and presidential photographs.
Countdown to Unite: Debating Irish Reunification by Richard Humphreys
Trade Paperback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 230 pages [Add To Basket]
This book explores how the Good Friday Agreement has put in place the broad outline of how a united Ireland might be achieved by consent. The increasing momentum of nationalist politics in Northern Ireland combined with an ever greater sense of self-confidence in nationalist Ireland as a whole creates an environment in which we can begin to think about the practical steps required to bring a united Ireland into being. It examines the legal implications of a united Ireland and sketches out a programme of action to move towards achieving reunification of the island of Ireland in a spirit of reconciliation and peace. The work looks firstly at the historical legal background to achieving a united Ireland, tracing the evolution of the legal steps required for reunification. Secondly, it looks at the legal changes which could be carried out now with a view to strengthening the case for unity and promoting reconciliation. Finally, it examines the sequence of legal steps required to achieve reunification, from the future border poll, to the subsequent international agreement, and its implementation, and examines the legal measures required to be put in place. The work is the first modern, in-depth and practical legal roadmap to bring about the reunification of the island of Ireland.
Another Europe? After the Third No by Gwyn Prins
Trade Paperback; 11 Euro / 16 USD / 8 UK; 170 pages
After the French and Dutch electorates decisively rejected the EU Constitution at the polls in 2005, the Irish delivered a resounding ‘Third No' in June 2008, triggering a political earthquake in the capitals of Europe. A call for the Irish to vote again, having given the ‘wrong' answer, reveals divergent visions of Europe's future.
In this defining moment Another Europe? comes as a timely stimulus to debate about the future of the EU. Just as The Federalist papers of 1788 lent the stage to Publius at an equally pivotal time in the history of the United States of America, so his sister ‘Publia', with her friend ‘Lydia', jointly address the peoples of Europe on the future of their Continent. Their inspired exchanges contain the ideas of over seventy distinguished thinkers and political actors across the European Union. They expose two logically consistent if irreconcilable routes towards a democratically legitimate Europe.
Authoritative and highly readable, Another Europe? aims to bridge academic and popular discourse and open up all the key issues, from law to environment, identity, citizenship, finance and foreign policy. It is essential for anyone who wishes to engage in Ireland's - and Europe's - great debate.
How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev
Trade Paperback; 17 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 272 pages [Add To Basket]
The Irish came to America in the eighteenth century, fleeing a homeland under foreign occupation and a caste system that regarded them as the lowest form of humanity. In the new country – a land of opportunity – they found a very different form of social hierarchy, one that was based on the color of a person’s skin. Noel Ignatiev’s 1995 book – the first published work of one of America’s leading and most controversial historians – tells the story of how the oppressed became the oppressors; how the new Irish immigrants achieved acceptance among an initially hostile population only by proving that they could be more brutal in their oppression of African Americans than the nativists. This is the story of How the Irish Became White.
The Builders: How a Small Group of Property Developers Fuelled the Building Boom and Transformed Ireland by Frank McDonald and Kathy Sheridan
Trade Paperback; 16 Euro / 24 USD / 12 UK; 320 pages [Add To Basket]
In the past fifteen years, Ireland has gone from being one of the poorest countries in the EU to one of the richest in the world. Of all the factors in this extraordinary transformation, none has been more prominent than the astonishing boom in construction. The transformation was created by a relatively small number of men, mostly from humble rural backgrounds. In "The Builders", Frank McDonald and Kathy Sheridan tell the stories of these men, of the local and national governments that have helped them, and of the changes - physical and psychological - they have brought about. They also go behind the facades of these secretive men, explaining what drives them and what they do with their vast wealth. The story of Ireland's property developers has been the great untold story of the country's growth - until now.
Ireland’s International Financial Services Centre: A Story of Global Financial Success by Fiona Reddan
Hardback; 30 Euro / 40 USD / 20 UK; 286 pages [Add To Basket]
This book offers a comprehensive history to mark the twenty-first anniversary of the International Financial Services Centre.Dublin's IFSC came into being 21 years ago in 1987 and has been one of the drivers of Ireland's dynamism since then. An essential cog in the wheel of the Irish economy, the IFSC houses the operations of some 400 international firms and almost 1000 managed entities. Merrill Lynch, Sumitomo Bank, ABN Amro, Citibank, AIG, JP Morgan (Chase), Commerzbank and BNP are just some of the blue chip companies that have chosen to locate offices there.The IFSC was championed by Charles Haughey and driven by people of vision. The book goes into the moves that led to the centre's creation and the ideas that gave rise to it.In this meticulously researched and well written book, Fiona Reddan follows both the political and commercial moves behind the story of the IFSC, from its conception through to its completion and onto its success in the years of the Celtic Tiger and beyond.
The New America by Mark Little
Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 245 pages [Add To Basket]
Look behind the American presidential election, and you will see the beginning of a reinvention. No matter who wins the race for the White House, the United States is entering a new era. The age old pioneering spirit of Americans and the cult of the individual are guiding that transformation, but so too is a stunning combination of ethnic, generational and suburban change. Its central thesis predicts a power shift from the east coast to the southwest of America, based on the stream of population migration in that direction, and explores the changing expections and demands of the American people. "A Reinvention of America" is an intimate portrait of those forces at work in the most dynamic part of America: its desert frontier.
How the Peace Was Won by Brian Rowan
Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 230 pages, with a 16-page full-colour photo insert [Add To Basket]
"How the Peace was Won" is the inside track on how the deal was done. Rowan talks to the players in the endgame, and brings his years of reporting experience to the pages of this book. He discusses the dilemmas of reporting a war while living in that conflict - a conflict in which the puppets and strings became a tangled mess. How did Adams and McGuinness change the orders? What made Paisley say yes? How now does the North make peace with its past? In "How the Peace was Won" the hardest questions are asked and answered.
Interrogating Irish Policies by William Kingston
Trade Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 140 pages [Add To Basket]
This book republishes a series of articles that cast a cold eye on some of the underlying assumptions of Irish policy-making. It responds to the beginning of awareness in this country that these policies have been losing effectiveness, with which is associated the feeling that the good times are not going to last. Its broad theme is the harm that comes from ‘Belief in the Superior Wisdom of the State…’ and this is followed by ‘The Lemmings of Democracy,’ that explains why this belief is exceptionally strong in Ireland. In the next section, ‘Why Ireland failed to keep up,’ ‘Entrepreneurship or Rent-Seeking?’ and ‘New Property Rights are Better than State Involvement’ discuss some of the consequences of this credulity about what the State can do in the Irish context.
Nothing to Declare: The Drug Smuggler’s Deadly Trade by Ann Murray
Paperback; 12 Euro / 19 USD / 9 UK; 300 pages, with two 8-page black-and-white photo inserts [Add To Basket]
When stormy conditions at sea overturned an inflatable boat, a rescue mission became a recovery operation for a Euro 440 million consignment of cocaine; Ireland's largest ever seizure. Similar twists of fate, as well as significant work by the state over the past two decades, have resulted in other massive drug seizures. "Nothing to Declare" includes major stories: a man on trial for drugs importation while his wife was dying in Panama, the arrival of the Sea Mist into Cobh - which led to the fall of one of Britain's biggest drug smugglers, and the lengthy legal battle to convict three Britons for their role in a botched trafficking operation off the Fastnet Rock.
Our Lives Out Loud: In Pursuit of Justice & Equality by Ann Louise Gilligan and Katherine Zappone
Hardback; 25 Euro / 36 USD / 18 UK; 300 pages [Add To Basket]
When Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan met it was love. It has been love through twenty-seven years together. But that love had consequences which brought this couple to the High Court, and beyond. They met at Boston College. Returning to Ireland, their relationship had to be kept secret. Jobs were at stake, and elevation to positions of authority could be jeopardised. What would happen if one of them died? Only a married couple received the support of the state in such circumstances. Ireland rejected their Canadian marriage and they had to make a huge decision: to go public and fight or to stay quiet and suffer the consequences? Here they offer their deeply personal story – out loud for all to read.
Collected Poems by Ciaran Carson
Large Format Paperback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 592 pages [Add To Basket]
Ciaran Carson’s Collected Poems – published on the occasion of his 60th birthday – gathers work from eight breathtaking collections. From the neat shapes and thought of his earliest work, The New Estate, with its influence of Early Irish and Welsh nature notes, to the explosion of energy, inventiveness and verve in The Irish for No and Belfast Confetti; from the increasingly encyclopaedic range and formal dexterity of First Language and Opera Et Cetera to the sustained high pitch and wit of The Twelfth of Never; from the scalpelled precision of his biopsy of the causes and extent of war in Breaking News to the mysterious, moving and half-hinted narratives of For All We Know, his body of work, with its power surges and spikes, emerges as a triumph of style, strange fun and organic wholeness. Collected Poems embodies a conversation with various traditions whose parameters it enforces and stretches. It ensures Ciaran Carson’s place at the cutting edge of contemporary art and secures his position as one of the finest poets at work today. (Also available in hardback, priced at 35 Euro)
Life on Earth by Derek Mahon
Large Format Paperback; 12 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK; 62 pages [Add To Basket]
The publication of a new book of poems by Derek Mahon is a momentous occasion. Life on Earth collects, and adds to, work which has appeared recently in limited editions. It opens with celebrations of notable exemplars: Coleridge, Chekhov, the novelist Brian Moore. This echo poetry extends to ‘Art Notes’ on Hopper, de Staël and others, followed by the eco-poetry of the ‘Homage to Gaia’ sequence on environmental themes. A substantial and positive volume distinguished by its light touch, Life on Earth is the work of a supreme artist. (Also available in hardback, price at 18.50 Euro)
My Love Has Fared Inland by Medbh McGuckian
Large Format Paperback; 12 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK; 82 pages [Add To Basket]
Medbh McGuckian’s twelfth collection, this ‘autumnal journal’, takes as one of its themes the tracing of a poem’s source and evolution in the conflict of opposites — the elements, the male and female principles, the play of season and light, the confusion between war and peace. Other entries in this introspective book mirror states of feeling including the prelude to a moment of crisis in the author’s life. Bereft by the loss of Marconi’s Cottage, her beloved seaside summer dwelling, she turns for inspiration to the hinterland of the ‘new Belfast’ in an endeavor to pinpoint the relevance or rightful place of the feminine in relation to the contemporary poetic tradition. Medbh McGuckian’s unique meld of metaphor, private — yet intimate — tones, and lyric force testify to the healing alchemy of art. (Also available in hardback, priced at 18.50 Euro)
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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