Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 110
Bloody Women: Ireland's Female Killers by David M. Kiely (Paperback; 7.99 IEP / 10.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book tells the stories of seventeen Irish murders, all committed by women. Some are notorious, some less well known: all reveal that the dark forces which drive men to murder are fully shared by women. Murder by a female hand can be just as brutal as by a man's. This book contains drownings, shootings, stabbings and savage clubbings - as well as highlighting the ingenious methods by which some of Ireland's female killers disposed of their victims' corpses. Here are women who murdered their lovers; or who murdered relations in disputes over land and inheritance; here is Mamie Cadden, the Hume Street abortionist; Jane O'Brien from County Wexford who shot her own nephew in order to get possession of a farm; and Hannah O'Leary who killed and dismembered one of her elder brothers in County Cork. With murder sites from London to Donegal, from Down to Limerick, this book is a chilling and unforgettable read.
A Letter to Veronica: The Last Days of Veronica Guerin, Crime Reporter by Michael Sheridan (Paperback; 7.99 IEP / 11.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
In September 1995, the author began to collaborate with Veronica Guerin on a screenplay: the story of a woman journalist who takes on the crime bosses of the Dublin underworld. Here, with that story now a major film, starring Patrick Bergin and twice-Oscar-nominated Joan Allen, he recounts the unique story of his relationship with Veronica. This book powerfully expresses his personal grief and rage and, with passion and eloquence, conveys his sense of her being on the most extraordinary women of this century.
Murder Madness: True Crimes of the Troubles by Alan Simpson (Paperback; 7.99 IEP / 10.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book is an account of many of the crimes that the author helped to investigate in the course of his career. He combines these cases with recollections of his varied police career through the years, conveying the tense atmosphere in which member of the RUC operated during the height of the Troubles. He joined the RUC as a Constable in 1970 and retired in 1993 as a Detective Superintendent and Deputy Head of Belfast CID. He was stationed in some of the most difficult areas of the city and witnessed at first hand much of mayhem caused by the Troubles. This book is not simply a series of true murder tales, although it is that. It recaptures the atmosphere and tension of the Troubles from a uniquely privileged perspective. Among the cases the author investigated were the kidnapping of Thomas Neidermayer, the West German consul in Belfast; the series of appalling murders committed by Lenny Murphy and the Shankill Butchers, including the notorious 'romper room' killings; and the Provisional IRA's murder of the prison officer William McConnell, a crime for which the essential intelligence preparation had been done by a disgruntled civil servant.
Father Ted: The Complete Scripts edited by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews (hardback; 12.99 IEP / 17.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
Since they were banished to a remote island off the coast of Ireland because of mysterious clerical misdeeds, Father Ted Crilly, Father Dougal McGuire, Father Jack Hackett and their housekeeper Mrs. Doyle have been entertaining countless television viewers. While Ted dreams of a more high-class parish, Dougal attempts to grasp complex theological issues between games of Cluedo, Jack shouts 'Drink! Feek! Arse! Girls! With little or no provocation and Mrs. Doyle does her best to give Irish friendliness and hospitality a bad name. This book is a collection of late, but not final drafts - jokes, characters and scenes that didn't make it into the popular comedy series are here, along with an introduction to each episode by the authors, which explains how the insane plotlines arose. So whether you are a fan of the show, or simply interested in how a comedy programme makes the final leap from page to screen, this book will delight and inform you.
After the Good Friday Agreement: Analysing Political Change in Northern Ireland edited by Joseph Ruane and Jennifer Todd (Paperback; 15.95 IEP / 22.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book is an up-to-date account of the impact of the Good Friday Agreement offering a theoretical understanding of the processes and forces at work in making and implementing the Agreement. The contributors draw on theories of globalisation, conflict resolution, employment equality, liberalism, postmodernism, and theories of the state and citizenship to analyse the changes and the continuities.
Ten-Thirty-Three: The Inside Story of Britain's Secret Killing Machine in Northern Ireland by Nicholas Davies (hardback; 14.99 IEP / 19.99 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book reveals the secret conspiracy between British Military Intelligence and the gunmen of the Ulster Defence Association who targeted and killed Republican terrorists, Sinn Fein activists and even ordinary Catholics. Ten-Thirty-three was the code number given to Brian Nelson, the UDA's chief intelligence officer, who worked for the Force Research Unit, Britain's secret Northern Ireland Intelligence Unit. It reveals how British Army intelligence gave details of Provo and Sinn Fein activists to Ten-Thirty-Three, providing photographs, names, addresses, car registration numbers and any other information necessary for Loyalist gunmen to carry out their murderous activities. This secret partnership was known about at the very highest level of Government, and full details of planned operations, including killings, were passed through the Joint Irish Section - staffed by MI5 officers - directly to the British Government's Joint Intelligence Committee in London.
The Skywriter by Terry Prone (Paperback; 9.99 IEP / 13.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This is novel with steel and menace at its core but it is also warm , funny and engaging - about family life and relationships of all kinds. At twenty, Dominique has it all. Fame - as the star of a TV soap. An award-winning advertising executive boyfriend who adores her. She has good looks, money and a career to die for. Then a family tragedy changes her life. It puts her under pressure to marry a man she does not love, to live in a way she never planned. Coping with two adopted children, stalked by a deadly enemy from her past, finding her husband has secrets she never anticipated, she breaks through to new possibilities and falls fiercely, passionately in love.
Ghosts in Sunlight by Gretta Curran Browne (Hardback; 14.99 IEP / 21.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Into the gripping plot of this novel, the author has woven the eternal themes of love and loss, cruelty and revenge, wealth and power. This is the story of an orphan's search for an identity, a mother's obsessive jealousy, a killer's cold callousness. Above all, it is the compelling story of a search for love, and a quest to avenge the death of a loved one. No ordinary thriller, this complex modern tale is germinated in the fertile soils of the past. Set primarily in London, the book spans the years from 1940 to 1995 - from Paris during the French Resistance through 1960s London and the Kennedy era. It is a story of tender love and youth, which suddenly takes a startling change of direction, racing into the publishing world of the 1990s.
Lines of Most Resistance: The Lords, The Tories and Ireland, 1886-1914 by Edward Peace (Hardback; 23.50 IEP / 32.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book concerns the furious and bitter politics of the late Victorian and Edwardian era, but in its description of fights over Ireland and the House of Lords it could hardly be more topical. The author has undertaken original research in the press and political records of a hundred years ago. He catches the enraged mood of Conservatives at the thought of granting to Ireland then what has just now been conceded to Scotland. The recurring crisis, from Bladstone's first attempt to solve 'the Irish problem' in 1886 and the arming of Ulster Volunteers to resist the horror of a Dublin Parliament in 1913-14, is explored, and with it two related political explosions: the Lloyd George budget of 1909, which the House of Lords rejected, and the Parliament Act of 1911 which, after a tense and vicious struggle, stripped the Lords of their veto. The author has also unearthed the extravagance and paranoia of right-wing politics before the First World War.
Longings and Legacies: Irish Perspectives on the New Millennium by Ann Marie McMahon (Paperback; 9.99 IEP / 13.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book peeps into the mind of the Irish people on the brink of the new millennium, and listens to the words of wisdom emanating from all sections of Irish society, including the high and mighty and the ordinary person in the street. It looks at the aspirations and longings of all who are about to shape - or are involved in - the future.
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