Read Ireland Book News - Issue 68
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Frank O'Connor: A Life by Jim McKeon (Hardback; 15.99 IRP / 24.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Hailed as one of the greatest short-story writers of all time, Frank O'Connor was also a poet, lecturer, linguist, playwright, broadcaster, critic and self-taught genius. His success is all the more remarkable given that he was born and brought up in the slums of Cork, his childhood characterised by poverty and sickness and his teenage years involved in the volunteer movement. After the War of Independence, he became Cork's first country librarian and it was then that his literary career truly began: as a librarian he was years ahead of his time, introducing poetry readings and musical gatherings. Eventually, though, he felt Cork could no longer satisfy his thirst for literature and so, in 1928, he went to Dublin. There he became great friends with W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and the acclaimed George Russell among others. After the unprecedented success of his first book, Guests of the Nation (still in print and available) O'Connor was unstoppable. As well as writing plays, short stories and poetry, he continued his library work and took on the role of managing director of the Abbey Theatre at the age of only thirty-three. He continued to write, even when illness and exhaustion forced him to give up everything else. Much of what he wrote was banned due to the draconian Irish censorship laws, and finally he decided to broaden his horizons and go to America; there his success was huge but short-lived: illness forced his return to Ireland for good, and he died here in 1966. Today, more than three decades later, O'Connor's works are as popular as ever; this biography, described by the great writer's widow as 'a masterpiece', is a timely portrait of an author who made such an impact on the literary world - and the man behind the books.
Zulu: An Irish-American's Quest to Discover Her Roots by Joan Mathieu (Paperback; 8.99 IRP / 13.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
For generations, Ireland has been deeply marked by emigration. By spending time in one small town in central Ireland - Roscrea, County Tipperary - New Yorker Joan Mathieu hoped to discover why people still leave and to examine the effect of their departure on those who remain behind. One emigrant was Mathieu's grandmother Sarah who left Roscrea for New York City in 1912 at the height of Irish emigration and this book is thus both a personal exploration and a more general portrait of a community defined by absences. From her superstitious old relatives and those who have never been further than Dublin to her young friends who work at the local ribbon factory and the school's rebellious Catholic teachers, the author gives a vivid sense of life in this town of 4000 people and 40 pubs. She also talks to modern Irish immigrants in New York and discovers that the whole process of emigration has changed as many people no longer leave Ireland for good. These new emigrants do not establish roots in their adopted country and are often faced with a good deal of antagonism from the established Irish-American community. With lyrical intensity, humour and a wonderfully exact attention to the Irish landscape and speech, the author has created a fascinating portrait of the Irish people and the nature of emigration.
The Unappeasable Host: Studies in Irish Identities by Robert Tracy (Paperback; 15.95 IRP / 23.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book explores some of the tensions created when Anglo-Irish writers - Protestant in religion, of non-Irish ancestry - reflected upon their preferred subject matter, Ireland and their unhyphenated Catholic contemporaries. These tensions involve the writers' sense of anxiety about losing their distinctive identity. Anglo-Irish writers founded modern Irish literature in English, identifying themselves with their native country and its people. Yet they often felt themselves surrounded and watched by an 'Unappeasable Host,' a population that resented them
The author discusses Irish writers who in England were considered Irish, in Ireland English - including Maria Edgeworth and Lady Morgan, the Banim brothers, Roger O'Connor, Sheridan le Fanu, W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge, Elizabeth Bowen - together with James Joyce, who, although neither of English ancestry nor Protestant, similarly focuses on individually separated or excluded from the Irish life around them.
Mercier Companion to Irish Literature by Sean McMahon and Jo O'Donoghue (Paperback; 9.99 IRP / 15.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book offers concise, readable and up-to-date information on Ireland literature under three broad headings. It includes all the significant writers in Irish and English, from Adamnan the 7th century author of the life of Colmcille, to contemporary poets and novelists such as Seamus Heaney, Deirdre Madden, Colm Toibin and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill; major works of literature, chosen for their quality and fame or for their seminal influence on Irish writers, such as Synge's Playboy of the Western World, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Heaney's North, Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds, and Eric Cross's Tailor and Antsy; and places, institutions and events that shaped Ireland's authors and literary heritage or features in some of the greatest Irish works of literature, such as the Gaelic League, Coole Park, the Abbey Theatre, the Irish Folklore Commission, the Blasket Islands and the 1916 Uprising. This book is a convenient work of reference, a lively travelling companion and an absorbing bedside book.
Celtic Heritage Saints by Marian Kenny (Paperback; 4.99 IRP / 7.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book celebrates a unique age in the Celtic Church. The influence of great Celtic centres of learning such as Clonmacnoise, Lismore, Whitby and Bangor, the Light of the World, still fascinates us today. Thousands of pilgrims and tourists come to visit these sites and venerate their founders every year. The monk illuminating manuscripts in his scriptorium still holds our imagination. This period of learning and holiness flourished against the backdrop of the Dark Ages in Europe. This book for teenagers introduces them to scholars, adventurous sailors, saints who get their heads chopped off, friends and enemies of kings.
Lenihan: His Life and Loyalties by James Downey (paperback, 9.99 IRP / 15.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
In this major biography of one the most endearing and enduring personalities in Irish politics, the author looks behind the legend of Brian Lenihan. To the true man, with his extraordinary magnanimity, his loyalty to leader, party and country, and the inner shyness which concealed the breadth of his political knowledge and acumen. From his early days touring Europe after World War Two to the trauma of his 1990 Presidential bid, this book reassesses Lenihan's role in the political events of his times and reveals a man who sacrificed himself for the good of the Fianna Fail party.
Reading Paul Muldoon by Clair Wills (Paperback; 12.50 IRP / 18.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
Paul Muldoon is one of the most exciting and accomplished poets writing in English. In this book, the author takes the measure of Muldoon's poetic gifts. She offers close readings of many of his major poems, while also assessing the general features of his unmistakable style, and his relation to significant predecessors such as Robert Frost and Seamus Heaney. Her book also highlights the major themes in Muldoon's poetry, such as autobiography and the question of origins, sexuality, Irish myth and legend, history and political violence in Northern Ireland, and the dynamics of cross-cultural encounters. She tracks the Muldoon's poetic development, exploring key concerns of each of his books. Concluding with an evaluation of his latest collection, Hay, her study will be an essential reference point for discussions of this important poet.
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