Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 474
24/25 April 2010
Voices from the Grave by Ed Moloney
Large Format Paperback; 16 Euro / 22 USD / 12 UK; 256 pages
Ed Moloney's "A Secret History of the IRA" is the best-informed account yet written of the IRA's evolution from ruthless guerrilla army into governmental party, ruling Northern Ireland alongside its most intransigent former enemies. But reconciliation between political figures who until very recently wished each other dead or in jail has not been accompanied by very much truth-telling about the past. Men who have been to the White House and hob-nobbed with Tony Blair deny that they ever fired a shot in anger, or caused a bomb to be planted. Now, in a truly ground-breaking piece of historical evidence-gathering initiated by Boston College, two former paramilitary leaders - one republican, one loyalist - speak with unprecedented frankness about their role in some of the most appalling violence of the Troubles. Their openness results in a book of shocking and irresistible testimony, their voices set in the context of a narrative by Ed Moloney of their lives and of the society they grew up in.
Voices of Connemara by Bill Long & Raymonde Standun
Hardback; 30 Euro / 40 USD / 22 UK; 224 pages [Add To Basket]
When Raymonde Standun set about photographing the local people of the South Connemara Gaeltacht, she quickly sensed that here were stories to be told that lay beyond the reach a camera. Unique places, unique people, a nucleus of Irish culture, its language, music and dance. "Voices of Connemara" wants to keep this heritage alive in pictures as well as the written word. The book contains 51 interviews among them: Martin Flaherty on the Black and Tans; Julia Greaney on the Fair Day at Spiddal; Cait Nic an Iomaire on making her own wedding dress; and Festy Conlon on his father's first fife. Set against Standun's stunning images are stories of poitin for two bob, the baker's island-delivery boat and the trials of linefishing, alongside darker tales still vibrant in the collective memory, of landlord brutality, famine and emigration. Edited by Bill Long, who also introduces the volume, here are the extraordinary voices of the ordinary people of Connemara, voices of the living as well as the dead.
Uncommon Valour: 1916 & the Battle for the South Dublin Union by Paul O’Brien
Large Format Paperback; 13 Euro / 17 USD / 10 UK; 158 pages
On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, men and women of the 4th Battalion, Irish Volunteers, under the command of Eamonn Ceannt, occupied a number of well-chosen strategic positions in and around James Street, Dublin. One of these buildings was the South Dublin Union. This building was intended to be a south-side counterpart to the General Post Office on the north of the river Liffey. It was a vast workhouse, a complex of buildings that resembled a small town. It had 52 acres of lawns and almost 3,000 people living within its walls. By 2.00 pm on Easter Monday, that small force of Irish Volunteers were under attack from a large force of the British army. This was to be the beginning of an intense, unremitting guerilla battle that would last until the 30th of April 1916. At the end of that week, it was estimated that 42 Volunteers were in direct conflict with a force of 500 British soldiers drawn from the Royal Irish Rifles, The Royal Irish Regiment and the Sherwood Foresters. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the garrison of the South Dublin Union were not overpowered but surrendered on orders issued by Patrick Pearse.
An Irish Soldier’s Diaries by Michael Moriarty
Large Format Paperback; 20 Euro / 26 USD / 16 UK; 316 pages, with an 16-page black-and-white photo insert [Add To Basket]
Armies tend to attract brutal men for whom authority is an aphrodisiac. They get their rewards from their own certitudes, they are right and all others are weak, wrong or disloyal. They love rank, pomp, uniforms, power and ceremony. The armed forces of any country in the world will tend to be magnets for these undesirables. They should be spotted at an early stage and weeded out before they can do damage. Since the foundation of the state few if any of the senior officer corps have written memoirs. In "An Irish Officer's Diaries", Michael Moriarty becomes the first officer to change that. From joining the Ennis Battalion of the FCA in 1949 until his retirement as a Colonel in 1992, Michael Moriarty experienced almost the full range of domestic and foreign postings that the Irish Army participated in. He served in Congo, Cyprus, Angola, and Lebanon as part of Irish contributions to UN missions. In this personal memoir, he reveals his struggles to serve in difficult and challenging circumstances, the changes in the army and Irish society during his years of service and the life of a senior officer from the inside.
Patrick Kavanagh & The Leader: The Poet, The Politician and the Libel Trial by Pat Walsh
Large Format Paperback; 13 Euro / 17 USD / 10 UK; 284 pages [Add To Basket]
In October 1952 The Leader, a political and cultural magazine published an unsigned `Profile' of the poet, Patrick Kavanagh that he considered offensive. He sued The Leader (and its printer) for damages. The case came to court in February 1954. Former Taoiseach John A. Costello appeared as lead barrister for the defence. The libel case became a public sensation, receiving extensive newspaper coverage at the time, with crowds of spectators outside the court each day. This book is a look at the case and its effects on the key players.
Ireland and India: Nationalism, Empire and Memory by Michael Silvestri
Hardback; 75 Euro / 95 USD / 55 UK; 300 pages [Add To Basket]
Ireland and India examines both imperial and anti-imperial aspects of Ireland's relationship with India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through a consideration of historical memory, commemoration and the 'imagined communities' of nationalism, the book analyzes three aspects of Ireland's multi-faceted involvement with the British Empire: relationships between Irish and Indian nationalists, the construction of Irishmen as British (and Irish) national and imperial heroes, and Irish nationalist commemoration of the mutiny of a regiment of Irish soldiers in India. Ranging from Irish imperial heroics on the Northwest frontier of India to anti-imperial collaboration between expatriate nationalists in New York City, the book demonstrates how both imperial and anti-imperial legacies are critical elements of Ireland's modern history.
While Keeping Watch by Patrick Daly
Paperback; 9 Euro / 13 USD / 7 UK; 256 pages [Add To Basket]
'So we've been joined by another fella who is too lazy to work and too cute to starve' Fresh from the Garda College in Templemore, new recruit Kevin McMahon is eager to get on the beat in his first city centre posting. But life as a garda is not all he expects. Life inside the station, with its outdated rituals and political infighting, contrasts starkly with the unpredictable world outside: vicious attacks on prostitutes, simmering resentment from the local gougers and the worsening state of the Shambles ghetto. Partnered with the unpredictable Harry King and thrust into city life, Kevin's first year promises to be an eye-opening lesson. As he is about to find out: one minute you're walking the beat, the next you're on the flat of your back.
Without Consent by Sheila O’Connor
Paperback; 11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 425 pages [Add To Basket]
Without Consent is the horrific true story of what happened to women in a modern Irish hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes, Drogheda. Over the course of 25 years, Dr Michael Neary betrayed his patients, his profession and himself by unnecessarily removing the wombs, and sometimes ovaries, of a large number of women. Young women were denied the chance to become mothers, instead being forced to suffer early menopause, while many older women had healthy organs removed for non-existent diseases. These women lost their faith in a hospital system they depended on. The story only emerged when a brave midwife, Ann, told the truth, leading to one of the greatest scandals in modern Ireland. This is also the story of managers and health officials who did the right thing in the face of powerful opposition, and stolen or altered medical records. But most of all it is the story of the families, especially the women involved, who got together, took comfort from each other and ensured change for their children's sake. They fought medical secrecy and denial, political and official apathy, local opposition and legal obstacles. Along the way, they had help from trusted doctors, lawyers appalled by what was unfolding and politicians who finally responded to people power. Without Consent is a story about the fight for justice to right a terrible wrong, about the strength of solidarity in the face of tragedy.
My Father’s Lands by Ger Burke
Hardback; 20 Euro / 26 USD / 15 UK; 470 pages [Add To Basket]
Historical novel set in Ireland, England and Spain against the background of events leading to the Plantation of Ulster in 1609. A story of passion, divided loyalty, betrayal and courage the novel is both a searing love story and a poignant insight into how the old Gaelic world changed from being an assortment of Chiefdoms into England's first colony.
Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah by John P. Anderson
Large Format Paperback; 25 Euro / 30 USD / 20 UK; 458 pages [Add To Basket]
This non-academic author presents his key to opening James Joyce's infamously difficult and endlessly playful novel Finnegans Wake. The key was fashioned in Kabbalah, an ancient Jewish mystical tradition that as interpreted by Joyce champions independent individualism as the path to the highest spirituality. Kabbalah images a universe excreted by the ultimate god, a universe that is necessarily finite and limited that came with its own secondary god that is finite and limited, the god presented in Genesis that issues blessing and curses designed to make mankind fearful and dependent- the curse of Kabbalah. Joyce laid this curse in his dream-like "Book of the Night" in the elastic way that the latent or hidden content of a dream distorts the presentation of dream materials. Acting like a black hole, this curse pressures the main character Harold Chimpden Earwicker to "fall," to become fearful and dependent just like everyone else, that is reduced to the mere initials HCE for "Here Comes Everybody."Joyce traces this curse from the myths in Genesis to the primal horde, the first social organization of humans, to the Oedipal Complex and to nation state warfare such as the Battle of Waterloo. In a groundbreaking presentation, Anderson deciphers word by word the first two chapters and part of the last chapter to show how this key opens the lock. He shows, for example, how the joined ending and beginning of Joyce's wisdom book form the Hebrew word for curse and the ending shows confrontation rather than repression of fear of death as the key to life, to your own wake.
Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah volume 2 by John P. Anderson
Large Format Paperback; 25 Euro / 30 USD / 20 UK; 335 pages [Add To Basket]
This second volume continues this non-academic author's ground-breaking word-by-word analysis of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, Joyce's last blessing on mankind. In chapters 1.3 and 1.4, which are covered by this volume, the Kabbalah-based analysis peers into the darkness of the Egyptian Land of the Dead and corresponding Book of the Dead. These chapters are joined at the hip by Egyptian death-obsessed theosophy and increase the font on Joyce's principal subject matter-the loss of human potential to fear and dependency. Joyce finds Kabbalah-cursed paralysis in ancient Egyptian religion as part of his effort to show the same paralysis in nearly all religions and to champion the independent individual. In these chapters, the search for meaning in the god/mankind relationship serves up several father and son stories. This selection is based on the fundamental importance in Egyptian religion of the story of father Osiris and son Horus, and the corresponding importance in Christian religion of Jesus as the son of god and the second person in the Trinity. These father and son stories include Attackler and Adversary, a tale framed by a dependency- demanding father god betraying the independent son god on the cross. The story of Abelbody is based on the premise that the real son of the god of this world was the arbitrary and violent Cain. Joyce's masterful synergism of style and content continues. In these two chapters sentences are wrapped up like mummies in parenthesis and parenthesis within parenthesis and slowed down by flow-interrupting dependent clauses. By contrast, the sentences at the end of chapter 1.4 display a new spirit. The unification aspect of the female psyche shows in long and open compound sentences joining many independent elements (much like Molly's soliloquy in Ulysses). In addition, the transition at the end of chapter 1.4 to the female in chapter 1.5 (covered in volume 3) is made by poetry-at first doggerel and then dignified poetry. Like the aspect of female mentality that Joyce focuses on, poetry is based on partial connection and unification of the sounds, words and thoughts. Joyce's closing words nurture each other. The author's plan is to cover all of Finnegans Wake in subsequent volumes.
The Story of the Cope by Patrick Boner
Large Format Paperback; 25 Euro / 30 USD / 20 UK; 604 pages [Add To Basket]
The story of the Templecrone Co-operative Society is one of triumph against almost impossible odds. Founded in 1906 in Cleendra, a small rocky townland four miles outside Dungloe in west Donegal, the Cope, as it is universally and affectionately known, became one of the largest co-operatives in Ireland. It was acclaimed by the Irish Co-Operative movement and by commentators across the world as a model of what a determined community could achieve in the most unpromising of circumstances. In the process, it overcame an economic system which had institutionalised seasonal migration to Scotland, emigration to America and the child slavery of working away in the Lagan. From a small agricultural supply business, the Cope quickly developed a breathtaking array of businesses: a chain of eight retail stores, a knitwear factory, a bakery and, in the 1940s, a fleet of boats for its fishing co-operative. It expanded into soapstone mining, granite quarrying, milling and brought electricity to Dungloe over 30 years before the ESB’s Rural Electrification Scheme.
The story is one of a resilient community working together in a spirit of cooperation, and courage in the face of adversity. The central figure is Paddy the Cope, who left school aged nine for the hiring fair in Strabane and for Scotland when he was 16 where he worked, like so many Donegal people had to then, on the land and in the oil shale and coal mines. However he never forgot where he came from and who his people were. On his return, he was determined to do what he could to improve their lot. Paddy captured this stirring tale with style and humour in his acclaimed autobiography, My Story, still regarded as a classic piece of storytelling and social commentary. This book, supplemented by Paddy’s wife Sally’s recently unearthed stories, written in the 1940s, illustrates the Cope’s first hundred years through new research material, personal memories and over 400 photographs.
Filiocht Chomhaimseartha na Gaeilge ed by Riona Ni Fhrighil
Large Format Paperback with Endflaps; 20 Euro / 25 USD / 17 UK; 330 pages [Add To Basket]
Cnuasach ilúdar d'aistí critice é seo ar fhilíocht chomhaimseartha na Gaeilge. Tugann údair na n-aistí léargas cuimsitheach ar shaothar filí éagsúla agus rianaíonn na príomhléamha critice a rinneadh ar an fhilíocht sin go dtí seo. Saothar tábhachtach tagartha é seo do mhic léinn agus do scoláirí a bhfuil suim acu i bhfilíocht chomhaimseartha na Gaeilge.
Scribhneoiri Faoi Chaibidil by Alan Titley
Large Format Paperback with Endflaps; 12 Euro / 16 USD / 9 UK; 134 pages [Add To Basket]
Sraith alt ar údair mhóra liteartha na Gaeilge - beo agus marbh. Bunaithe ar an tsraith chlár den teideal céanna a craoladh ar RTE, agus ag tarraingt as gaois agus léaspairtí na rannpháirtithe de réir mar a oireann.
In Ord is in Eagar by Antain Mac Loochlainn
Large Format Paperback with Endflaps; 20 Euro / 25 USD / 17 UK; 276 pages [Add To Basket]
Leabhar tagartha agus leabhar saothair is ea In Ord agus in Eagar, ní hamháin don ábhar eagarthóra ach d'iriseoirí agus d'aistritheoirí a chaithfidh slacht a chur ar a gcuid scríbhinní Gaeilge féin.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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