Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 396 - 3 November 2007
Great Irish Speeches edited by Richard Aldous, with a foreword by Colm Toibin
Hardback; Publishers Recommended Retail Price: 30 Euro. Read Ireland Special Price 20 Euro / 30 USD / 15 UK; 224 pages, with black-and-white photos throughout
Great Irish Speeches" contains 50 of the most stirring and memorable speeches in Irish history. From the political oratories of Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera to emotive addresses by the nation's celebrated poets, writers and musicians, all of the included speeches have had a remarkable impact on the course of Irish and world history. Each speech is preceded by an introduction, which places the address in context and underlines its historical significance, as well as an iconic photograph of the speaker. Presented chronologically, the collection provides tremendous insight into Irish history. The speechmakers include: Edmund Burke; Michael Collins; John Hume; Henry Grattan; Mary McSwiney; Charles J. Haughey; Wolfe Tone; W.B. Yeats; Des O'Malley; John Fitzgibbon; Sir James Craig; Ian Paisley; Robert Emmet; Eamon de Valera; Alan Dukes; Richard Lalor Sheill; Frank Aiken; Mary Robinson; Daniel O'Connell; Sean Lemass; Maire Geoghegan Quinn; Thomas Davis; John F. Kennedy; Seamus Heaney; Bishop David Moriarty; Declan Costello; David Trimble; Charles Stewart Parnell; Neil Blaney; Mary Harney; Michael Davitt; Terence O'Neill; Joe Higgins; John Dillon; Jack Lynch; Micheal Martin; Jim Larkin; Paddy Hillery; Bertie Ahern; Edward Carson; Liam Cosgrave; Tim Collins; John Redmond; Joe Connolly; Gerry Adams; Patrick Pearse; Garret Fitzgerald; and, Mary McAleese.
The Generation Game by David McWilliams
Hardback; 25 Euro / 35 USD / 17 UK; 300 pages [Add To Basket]
How big is your piece of the pie? After ten years of a boom and on the eve of a downturn, Irish society has been turned on its head by a Generation War. The clear winners have been the middle-aged Jagger Generation. They have been enormously enriched by the property boom, creating a new class of Accidental Millionaires. The younger generation - the cash-strapped Jugglers - will be badly exposed as the credit wave recedes. The Bono Boomers, wedged between the winners and losers, are not about to grow up just because the economy turns down. They've too many important dates to keep, like 'designer camping' at the Electric Picnic.The Bono Boomers are Ireland's first 'permalescents' - a permanently adolescent generation, too young to be old, too old to be hip. When the Botox Economy is laid bare and the financial filler of others people's money becomes evident, this Generation Game will play itself out as the Jaggers, Jugglers and Bono Boomers struggle to maintain their slice of a diminished pie. However, the slow-down gives us the opportunity to take stock. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic.
Ireland: The Politics of Enmity, 1789-2006 by Paul Bew
Hardback; 50 Euro / 70 USD / 35 UK; 630 pages
The French revolution had an electrifying impact on Irish society. The 1790s saw the birth of modern Irish republicanism and Orangeism, whose antagonism remains a defining feature of Irish political life. The 1790s also saw the birth of a new approach to Ireland within important elements of the British political elite, men like Pitt and Castlereagh. Strongly influenced by Edmund Burke, they argued that Britain's strategic interests were best served by a policy of catholic emancipation and political integration in Ireland. Britain's failure to achieve this objective, dramatised by the horrifying tragedy of the Irish famine of 1846-50, in which a million Irish died, set the context for the emergence of a popular mass nationalism, expressed in the Fenian, Parnell, and Sinn Fein movements, which eventually expelled Britain from the greater part of the island. This book reassesses all the key leaders of Irish nationalism - Tone, O'Connell, Butt, Parnell, Collins, and de Valera - alongside key British political leaders such as Peel and Gladstone in the nineteenth century, or Winston Churchill and Tony Blair in the twentieth century. A study of the changing ideological passions of the modern Irish question, this analysis is, however, firmly placed in the context of changing social and economic realities. Using a vast range of original sources, Paul Bew holds together the worlds of political class in London, Dublin, and Belfast in one coherent analysis which takes the reader all the way from the society of the United Irishman to the crisis of the Good Friday Agreement.
Hugh Doran: Photographer
Trade Paperback; 25 Euro / 36 USD / 18 UK; 82 pages, black-and-white photographs throughout [Add To Basket]
Hugh Doran (1926 - 2004) was an amateur photographer of rare talent. A native of Dublin and a printer by profession who spent his working life in Arthur Guinness & Co., Hugh’s interest in photography began as a teenager. He joined the Photographic Society of Ireland in 1949 and was from the mid- 1950s a regular contributor to – and medal winner at – the Society’s exhibitions. His photographs were also included in exhibitions in Berlin, Bordeaux, Bermuda, San Sebastian and Vienna.
Hugh’s camera focused on a variety of subjects from portrait to landscape, but two themes stand out –architecture and his native city. Hugh’s interest in architecture was long-standing. He travelled extensively in Ireland and abroad, compiling albums of these trips which focused very much on the buildings he had visited. His eye for detail was precise and his composition outstanding. In 1959, Desmond Guinness asked Hugh to photograph Irish country houses – specifically those with curved wings – for an Irish Georgian Society exhibition. A new interest was sparked. Over the succeeding decades Hugh photographed many of the grandest of Ireland’s houses, charming owners to allow him to capture not only the stately exteriors but also the fully furnished interiors. These photographs have gone on to illustrate and enhance numerous publications on Irish country houses.
Hugh’s Dublin photographs are perhaps more personal. They capture a Dublin now vanished, a city free of cars and laced with shadow, an old city, faded certainly yet still as full of life as dereliction. Portrait and architectural photography combine in images which reveal as much of the personality of the city as its fabric.
Forgotten Heroes: Galway Soldiers of the Great War 1914-18 by William Henry
Trade Paperback; 20 Euro / 27 USD / 13 UK/ 250 pages, with an 8-page black-and-white photo insert
The Great War is etched on the consciousness of many nations because of the horrendous number of casualties. Troops were thrown into unspeakable conditions and the men who survived did so by summoning terrific courage and forming a lifelong comradeship with their colleagues. "Forgotten Heroes" is a meticulously researched record of Galwaymen who fought and died in the Great War. This moving history gives the front line soldiers and sailors an identity through photographs and stories drawn together from a variety of printed and electronic sources, newspaper articles and archival material, as well as the input of many of the families and comrades of those who fell in the Great War. This book includes a comprehensive listing of war dead from the city and county of Galway ever produced. Almost every Galway family name can be found in this sobering account of those who are buried, not only in Europe, but in Baghdad and Basra, places where soldiers are still dying today.
Hidden Soldier: An Irish Legionnaire’s Wars from Bosnia to Iraq by Padraig O’Keeffe
Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 320 pages, with two 8-page colour photo inserts
This is an amazing story of a young man driven by adrenalin of the most intense kind, who has cheated death on more than one occasion. O'Keeffe joined the elite and secretive French Foreign Legion at the age of twenty, seeking a challenge that would absorb his interests and intensity. He served with the Legion in Cambodia and Bosnia, then returned to civilian life, but military habits would not allow him to settle. His need for intense excitement and extreme danger drove him back to the lifestyle he knew and loved, and, using his Legion training, he became a 'hidden soldier' by opting for security missions in Iraq and Haiti. In Iraq he was the sole survivor of an ambush in no man's land between Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, the most dangerous place on earth.
Watch My Lips, I’m Speaking by Baroness May Blood
Hardback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 220 pages, with 16 page colour photo insert [Add To Basket]
The advent of the Troubles was a deeply traumatic experience for her. Brought up in a 'mixed' community she watched in disbelief and horror as that community disintegrated under the impact of inter-communal violence. She became increasingly involved in grassroots community work and an active participant in the developing 'peace process'.In 1999, in recognition of her years of trade union and community endeavours, May Blood was offered a life peerage and a seat in the House of Lords, the first working-class person from Northern Ireland to be so honoured. Her initial response was to decline the offer, for to her the House of Lords was a place where rich old men sat around and slept all day, a place far removed from the everyday realities of working-class Belfast. Nevertheless, she took her seat, hoping that, as 'Baroness May Blood', she could advance the causes she holds so dear. She has lived to see the end of the Troubles, but a society still deeply divided and one still needing people with her undiminished energy and commitment. "Watch My Lips, I'm Speaking" is not only May's own story, but a unique insight into how ordinary people strove to rise above the appalling experience
The Billionaire Who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney Made and Gave Away a Fortune by Conor O’Cleary
Hardback; 23 Euro / 29 USD / 14 UK; 330 pages [Add To Basket]
This work describes the curious life of the secretive Irish-American billionaire who is trying to give all his money away before he dies (it's harder than you think...). Chuck Feeney was born in New Jersey to an Irish-American family struggling to make their way in the fiercest years of the Depression. In 1997, he called Judith Miller of the "New York Times" to correct a widely reported fact. He was not, as "Forbes" and others alleged, one of the 400 richest Americans. He was worth a relatively modest $2 million. He had been a billionaire however, but since 1984 he'd been quietly giving his money away, without fanfare or recognition. Now, in 1997, he was determined to wrap up his philanthropic efforts before he died. But in actual fact that meant having to get rid of $3.5 billion, because the fund that he had endowed was one of the richest and most secretive of all the great philanthropic trusts: Chuck Feeney was the money and brains behind the Atlantic Foundation. This authorized but not approved biography of one of the world's richest and most secretive donors tells the story of how Chuck Feeney made his millions - buying and selling in post second world war Europe and Asia - and how he spent them, giving to causes around the world as various as hospitals in Vietnam and, controversially, Sinn Fein. More than a story of an extraordinarily gifted and fortunate entrepreneur, it's the tale of what happens to a man and his family when confronted with wealth beyond imagining, and how Feeney could come to make the decision to get rid of almost all of it. It isn't easy to give away $3.5 billion in good conscience. That much money requires a lot of due diligence; and money has the habit of attracting money. As fast as Chuck Feeney tried to deplete the foundation he found its funds were growing through its investments. At the time of writing, the Atlantic Foundation remains one of the wealthiest and most secretive, and Chuck Feeney is as busy today as he was a decade ago trying to give the money away.
Are Ye With the Band: A Memoir of the Showband Era by Jimmy Higgins
Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 235 pages [Add To Basket]
In 1960, Jimmy Higgins, a 14 year-old native of Tuam, Co Galway, waited nervously outside his house to be collected by the ‘lads’ and begin his career as trumpet player in the Paramount Showband. This was the beginning of a rollercoaster ride through every ballroom, parish hall and marquee (wet or dry) in Ireland, as showband fever gripped the young people of Ireland. Jimmy’s memories of life on the road – not just in Ireland, but in England, Germany and the US as well – include encounters with dodgy promoters, clapped-out vans, desperate publicity stunts, an endless supply of ham and tomato sandwiches and some great tunes. With massive international success always just a step away, Jimmy tells his story of life in the showband era as trumpet player, manager and music lover.
No Man’s Land: The Story of a Man Who Became a Woman by Paula Grieg
Paperback; 11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 250 pages [Add To Basket]
No Man's Land is the authentic story of one woman's struggle towards discovery; to find both herself and true acceptance; the story of two lives intimately entwined; a gender odyssey. Born a male in post war Germany, Paula spent her formative years in Ireland, constantly on a voyage of self-discovery, struggling to find her true gender identity while trying to maintain a `normal' life as a loving husband and father. The journey finally culminated in gender transition and re-alignment surgery. Now living in self-imposed exile in Manchester, Paula tells the dramatic story of what it means to struggle with Gender Identity Disorder, and the high price to be paid for finding out who you really are.
Farang: Thailand Through the Eyes of an Ex-Pat by Iain Corness
Paperback; 11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 330 pages [Add To Basket]
Dr. Iain Corness is medical practitioner, racing car driver, restaurateur, photographer, freelance journalist and fi rst rate raconteur. The UK born ex-pat, who fell in love with Thailand, both it's people and way of life, while on a holiday, and finally managed to move there permanently 20 years later. As a settled `farang' (the Thai term for a westerner) he enjoys a unique perspective on Thai life and all its eccentricities; looking in from the outside while also getting to see the things most foreigners don't. His stories and anecdotes are full of the joys of life, and celebrate this exotic and exciting land in all its glory with painfully funny observations. From a date with a fortune teller to tales of a reincarnated squid, Corness revels in the chaos and charm of `the only country where you can be run over by a shop.' This is a book to be enjoyed by anyone interested in Asian culture.
The Kings of September: The Day Offaly Denied Kerry Five in a Row by Michael Foley
Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 270 pages, with an 8-page black-and-white photo insert [Add To Basket]
On the 19st September 1982 Mick O'Dwyer's Kerry ran out in Croke Park chasing immortality. Victory over Offaly in the All-Ireland football final would secure them five titles in a row, a record certain never to be matched again. And it had taken Offaly six heartbreaking years under manager Eugene McGee to drag themselves up from their lowest ebb, but now they stood on the cusp of a glorious reward. The result was a classic final that changed lives and dramatically altered the course of football history. The Kings of September is an epic story of triumph and loss, joy and tragedy, a story of two teams that illuminated a grim period in Irish life and enthralled a nation.
The Irish Book of Lists by Julian Ashe
Hardback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 370 pages [Add To Basket]
Do you know how the Temple Bar area got its name? Can you give 10 facts about Guinness? What do our county names mean? The addictive lists in this collection range from things you didn't know to things you always wanted to know. This is the ultimate compendium of things Irish, covering Ireland's past and present, buildings and streets, famous people, and lots more. It contains curious facts, unusual statistics and quotations; it chronicles achievements, failures, tragedies and scandals; it lists eccentrics, prison escapes and much more. Over 150 lists will amuse, amaze and inform while you baffle, educate and entertain friends.
Life in an Irish Castle
Hardback; 19 Euro / 27 USD / 13 UK; Spiral bound, large format [Add To Basket]
He introduces us to the ghost of Sir Humfrey who takes the reader back to the building of the castle. He tells how the castle grew from a single tower to the building we see now and shows how the weapons used, both to attack and defend the castle developed as the castle's defences strengthened. Different flaps, tabs and pop-ups illustrate long bows, siege engines, battering rams and catapults. Daily life in the castle is also illustrated - from the work of blacksmiths, farriers and armourers to the life of the knights and soldiers. There are also illustrations of the castle's farms and gardens, which provided a regular supply of fresh food. Finally the journal brings the story through the development of gunpowder and cannons to the siege and eventual fall of the castle. Using the style and techniques which have proved so popular in "Life on a Famine Ship" and "Voyage of the Titanic", "Life in an Irish Castle" will introduce children to the world of the medieval castle.
Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles by David McKittrick et. al.
Hardback; 50 Euro / 75 USD / 38 UK; 1696 pages [Add To Basket]
A work filled with passion and violence, with humanity and inhumanity. It is the story of the Northern Ireland troubles told through the lives of those who have suffered and the deaths which have resulted from the conflict. The authors - three of them Belfast-born and the fourth an American - are award-winning journalists. Over a seven-year period they examined every single death which was directly caused by the troubles. Their research has seen them interview witnesses, scour published material and draw on a huge range of investigative sources. "Lost Lives" traces the origins of the conflict from the firing of the first shots, through the carnage of the 1970s and 1980s and up to the republican and loyalist ceasefires and beyond. All the casualties are here: the RUC officer, the young soldier, the IRA volunteer, the loyalist paramilitary, the Catholic mother, the Protestant worker, the new-born baby. Each account is impossible to ignore. Updated 2007 edition.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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