Read Ireland Book News - Issue 84
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Ireland: A Natural History by David Cabot (Paperback; 21.25 IRP / 33.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book conveys all aspects of the natural history of Ireland, from biological history, geology and climate, through to nature conservation. David Cabot, an expert in his field, provinces a comprehensive view of all the different types of habitat to be found in Ireland, from the peatlands and fens, to the mountains and uplands; from broad-leaved woodland to coastal zones. The book examines the rich variety of flora and fauna to be found living there. The final chapter covers nature conservation, addressing the history of the conservation movement in Ireland - its successes and failures - and the needs for the future. This fascinating and highly detailed study for the first time brings together the complete story of the extraordinary flora and fauna of Ireland.
Discovering Celtic Christianity by Bruce Reed Pullen (Paperback; 10.50 IRP / 16.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book combines the ancient spiritual movement with a modern pilgrimage. Readers will trace the gradual development of the Celtic forms of Christianity and deepen their faith through their own spiritual journey. Perfect for those who love to travel or wish they could travel, this book brings to life the saints and illustrates the places where Christianity blossomed through exciting narrative and vivid photography. Learn more about the Celtic way of life and how such people as Patrick, Brigid, Columba and Kevin practiced it throughout Ireland and the British Isles. Find out how people today have received great spiritual inspiration from these people and places and have discovered the relevance of Celtic Christianity in their own lives.
Cast a Cold Eye by Michael B. Yeats (Paperback; 9.99 IRP / 15.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Michael Yeats, only son of the poet William Butler Yeats, takes the reader on a journey through his family and political life. Using anecdotes and personal memories he describes a childhood spent between Dublin, Switzerland and Galway. Famous characters from Irish history, such as Lady Gregory and George Russell, were a part of his childhood. We see the great poet through the eyes of his son, and we get an insight into an unusual family life.
Michael Yeats became a supporter of Eamon de Valera while still at school, and began to take a more active role in politics while at Trinity College, Dublin. He joined Fianna Fail in 1943, and was nominated to the Seanad by de Valera in 1951. So began a career in politics that lasted until he retired some 30 years later. His political life spanned a time of great change. He 'casts a cold eye' on some of those who have shaped our country's political history - Eamon de Valera, Noel Browne, Sean Lemass, Liam Cosgrave and Jack Lynch to name just a few - and he paints his own personal picture of events and personalities. On Ireland's entry to the E.E.C. in 1973, he became on of the Fianna Fail members of the European Parliament, where he embarked on a career in European politics. In this book he looks back at a lifetime spent as a 'Party hack' and discusses the fundamental changes he has witnessed, affecting the whole fabric of Irish society.
Folktales of Ireland edited by Sean O'Sullivan (Paperback; 13.50 IRP / 20.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Few countries can boast such a plenitude of traditional folktales as Ireland. In 1935, the creation of the Irish Folklore Commission set in motion the first organized efforts of assembling and studying a multitude of folktales, both written as well as those of the Irish oral tradition and has collected well over a million pages of manuscripts. This book offers chief archivist Sean O'Sullivan's representation of this awe-inspiring volume. These tales represent the first English language compilation of Gaelic folktales.
A Song for Mary: An Irish-American Memory by Dennis Smith (Hardback; 15.99 IRP / 23.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This memoir delivers poignant reminiscences of the author's big-city Irish upbringing filled with love and loss and fierce ethnic pride. In the absorbing tradition of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, Smith mixes humour in the face of adversity with moving insight as he tells what it was like to be young, Irish, Catholic, and poor. It is a tale in which the presence of Dennis's courageous mother, Mary, is never far off, and the mystery of what has happened to Dennis's father underlies all.
As Dennis ages from seven to twenty-five, we see him learn life's indelible lessons - how to dodge the slaps of crotchety nuns, wallop a punching bag, refuse to 'take crap' from anyone, steal a longed-for-kiss, and finally, stare into death's face. Street denizens, truant, and hard-living thrill seeker, Smith was, in many ways, a young man slated for failure. For his salvation, he could count on only his mother, who at a cost to her own dreams, sometimes hilariously, always lovingly, pulled him by the ear into adulthood; and his Irish-Catholic roots - which even in his darkest moments whispered to him of success, of the power of faith and family and the force of the written word.
Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts collected and narrated by Patrick Kennedy (Paperback; 11.99 IRP / 18.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Patrick Kennedy collected these Irish legends and tales around the middle of the 19th century 'lest they should be irrecoverably lost'. Some of them were first published in the Dublin University Magazine in 1862, and the first edition of the complete work came out in 1866. The present reprint is a facsimile of the 2nd edition of 1891. It consists of 4 parts: Household stories; Legends of the 'Good People', Witchcraft, Sorvery, Ghosts and Fetches Ossianic and other Early Legends; and Legends of the Celtic Saints. The author stated that the greater part of the stories and legends are 'given as they were received from the storytellers with whom our youth was familiar… No story in the present collection is copied either in substance or from any writer of the present or past generation.'
Policing Northern Ireland: Proposals for a New Start by John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary (Paperback; 11.50 IRP / 17.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
Police reform, one of the most hotly debated issues in Northern Ireland, is at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement. This timely and refreshingly dispassionate book examines the status quo and puts forward reasoned proposals to help create representative, impartial, decentralised, demilitarised and democratically accountable policing services - proposals which respect the identities and ideas of unionists, nationalists and others. The authors, acclaimed commentators on Northern Ireland, address tough questions: how to make the police representative of Northern Ireland's population, in national allegiance, religious origin, and gender; how to reconcile the need for 'downsizing' with the need for new recruits; how to deal with symbolically divisive titles, uniforms and working environments; how to combine decentralisation, democratic accountability and operational autonomy; and how to demilitarise policing. Clear-headed and incisive, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the policing of a historically divided territory and the full and fair implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.
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