Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 132
James Joyce: A Passionate Exile by John McCourt (Hardback; 23.80 IEP / 30.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This large-format gift book is a revealing account of the life, times and writings on the twentieth-century's most distinguished novelist. Combining words with an extraordinary collection of contemporary photographs and other images, it depicts his family's fall from riches to rags and his experience of growing up in late nineteenth-century Dublin. The author also examines Joyce's relationship with his life-long partner, Nora Barnacle, and casts new light on their 40-year voluntary exile in Europe, first in the cosmopolitan Adriatic port of Trieste, then in lively wartime Zurich and finally in Paris, the artistic centre of the world in the 1920s and 30s.
Gander at the Gate by Rory O'Connor (Paperback; 9.99 IEP / 12.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
Knocknagoshel, north Kerry, in the 1930s. Autumn mornings with mist rolling over a 'kindly and fertile land'; the pungent smoke of turf fires; open-air wrestling contests; convoys of tinkers with their piebald ponies; farm boys and servant girls aching with desire; and a cast of remarkable men and even more remarkable women, fiery and forthright, their lives 'teeming with the emotions of love and jealousy, and human conflict, common among all the simple people of the world.' Through the lyrical prose of this author, this book tells of an Irish farmhouse, the family who lived there, and the community of which they were part. The reader discovers the imaginings and adventures of the local 'goboys'; the widow Delia and her sons lost to America; and the eccentric Uncle Jack, full of 'riddles and recitations and the latest rhymes and small poems'. As the gander of the title begins to intrude on his consciousness, the author describes his youthful wonders and apprehensions and the darker shadows cast by his father's experience of Ireland's civil war.
Complete Guide to Celtic Music: From the Highland Bagpipe and Riverdance to U" and Enya by June Skinner Sawyers (Paperback; 18.20 IEP / 23.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book is a comprehensive guide to the traditional and contemporary music of the Celtic lands - an examination of its past, an assessment of the present, a glimpse into its future. The hundreds of artists profiled in these pages range from The Corrs to The Pogues, Planxty to Christy Moore, Andy M. Stewart to Seamus Egan and Van Morrison, Dolores Keane to Sinead O'Connor, and the Hothouse Flowers to The Cranberries. The book includes 'Recommended Listening' guides for all categories, a list of '100 Essential Recordings' and notes on Celtic festivals, publications and Arts and Music Centres worldwide. Details of record outlets, record labels and music schools are also included to make this the most comprehensive and informative guide possible.
Modernisation: Crisis and Culture in Ireland, 1969-1992 by Conor McCarthy (Paperback; 14.95 IEP / 18.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
In this book, the author offers a series of readings in Irish culture in the light of the set of crises that beset the project of modernisation in Ireland from the late 1960s onward. These crises - economic and political in Northern Ireland, economic in the Republic of Ireland - are argued to have contributed to a crisis of representation that can be seen to have afflicted a variety of intellectuals - novelists such as John Banville and Dermot Bolger, the playwright Brian Friel, the film-makers Bob Quinn, Pat Murphy and Neil Jordan, and the literary critics Edna Longley and Seamus Deane. McCarthy locates the source of this problem in the overly narrow conceptualisation of modernisation and modernity that has held sway in Irish intellectual life since the 1960s, and in a lack of attention paid to the negative aspects of the processes of modernisation.
Contemporary Irish Social Policy edited by Suzanne Quin et. al. (Paperback; 15.95 IEP / 19.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book provides a comprehensive review of the range of social policy provision in Ireland - education, income maintenance, employment, housing and health - together with chapters relating to different categories of consumers of services including children, people with disabilities, older people, travellers and the growing population of refugees and asylum seekers in Ireland. Key areas of policy development concerning youth, drugs and the criminal justice system are also examined.
Irish Social Policy in Context edited by Gabriel Kiely et. al. (Paperback; 15.95 IEP / 19.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book traces the historical development of Irish social policy and discusses major influences - such as the European Union - on policy formation. Ireland is presented in a comparative context and as an example of the mixed economy of welfare. The policy-making process in analysed, and the financing and evaluation of social policy measures are clearly explained. Separate chapters are devoted to the treatment of women, the concept of citizenship, the rise in the significance of partnerships, the place of the family, the understanding and measurement of poverty and the role of consumer participation.
The Irish Parading Tradition: Following the Drum edited by T.G. Fraser (Paperback; 23.80 IEP / 30.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Written by specialists on the topic, this book explores the Irish parading tradition from the 17th century to the present. With serious confrontations over parades recurring since 1995, the subject is a vital, but imperfectly understood dimension of the Irish situation. Parades are examined from historical and anthropological perspectives, showing their long-standing importance to both traditions in Ireland, and for the Irish in Scotland and England. Both unionist and nationalist parades are analysed, as well as the peace marches of 1976. There is a particular focus on recent events, especially the disputes over the Relief of Derry parades and the Drumcree church parade at Portadown. Parades are shown to be complex events, with their own traditions which are constantly evolving.
More Celebrated Letters of John B. Keane (Paperback; 9.99 IEP / 12.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book comprises 3 books originally published in the 1970s: Letters of a Civic Guard, Letters of an Irish Publican, and Letters of a Country Postman, with one published in the early 1990s: Letters to the Brain.
A History of St. Margaret's, St. Canice's and Finglas by Peter Sexton (Paperback; 12.50 IEP / 16.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book is a local history of these areas of North county Dublin based on Ecclesiastical records, local census, G.A.A. histories and local oral folklore.
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