Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 223
A Ghost Upon Your Path: An Irish Journey by John McCarthy
Hardback; 23.99 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.99 UK; Bantam Press, 310 pages [Add To Basket]
Ever since he first visited Ireland with his family twenty years ago, John McCarthy has felt a strong affinity with its people and landscape. Yet in spite of his Irish name, he has never thought of himself as remotely Irish. Two decades later much about Ireland, and about John McCarthy, has changed. Aware that the Ireland that first attracted him - a place of breathtaking beauty and a culture steeped in its love of language, music and humour - is only a part of the picture, McCarthy sets up home in a wild and isolated corner of County Kerry, where his ancestors lived a thousand years before. From here he examines what it means to be Irish from the viewpoint of a small rural community, and unravels his own curious sense of belonging to a place he has never lived in. Looking back on Ireland's turbulent past, which continues to colour the country today, he realizes that this past nurtured his own family roots too. These roots, he discovers, are still alive and thriving, with a stream of distant cousins receiving him as one of their own. McCarthy charts his reactions to this impermanent homeland, often finding his thoughts turning in on himself as he tackles some of the ghosts in his own life, particularly the death of his mother during his period of captivity in the Lebanon. This book presents an unsentimental picture of the Irish people and the issues confronting them in the 21st century. It is a book about change and continuity, betrayal and loss, identity and displacement.
The Irish War of Independence by Michael Hopkinson
Hardback; 30.00 Euro / 35.00 USD / 22.50 UK; Gill & Macmillan, 274 pages, with two 8-page b/w photo inserts [Add To Basket]
The Irish War of Independence, January 1919 to July 1921, constituted the final stages of the Irish revolution. It went hand in hand with the collapse of the British administration in Ireland. The military conflict consisted of sporadic, localised but vicious guerilla fighting that was paralleled by the efforts of the Dail Government to achieve an independent Irish Republic and the partitioning of the country by the Government of Ireland Act.
This book is a meticulous piecing together of many disparate local actions into a coherent narrative. It stresses local and contingent issues, rather than proposing a central master plan operated by the Dublin-based republican leadership. The book devotes separate sections to British politics and government, to the Intelligence war, the fighting in the various localities, and to Irish America. Particular stress is placed on the war's relevance to the six counties. The overall aim is to place the events in a wider context than is usually adopted and to consider the crucial question of how necessary the use of violence was for the achievement of Irish independence.
Ireland During the Second World War by Ian Wood
Hardback; 20.00 Euro / 25.00 USD / 16.00 UK; Grange Books, 188 pages, with full colour illustrations throughout [Add To Basket]
After the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush denounced a world-wide 'axis of evil' and declared that there could be no neutrals in the fight against it. In the Second World War there were states that chose to avoid taking sides in the fight against Hitler and Fascism. Ireland's role during this time remains a controversial and bitter matter even today. This is because the self-governing state of Eire, still a Commonwealth member at the time, opted for neutrality. How far this policy was benign to the Allied cause, along with the historical and political reasons for it, is explored in this book through informative text by a noted authority on Irish history. Vivid photographs and illustrations, some of which are published for the first time, accompany the text. The very different experience of Northern Ireland in the war years is also examined. There, an Unionist government's support for the war did little to reduce deep internal divisions. There were heightened by IRA action on both sides of the border and in Britain itself and this was a potential threat to the Allies.
Derry Anthology edited by Sean McMahon
Hardback; 35.00 Euro / 42.50 USD / 27.50 UK; Blackstaff Press, 428 pages [Add To Basket]
Derry, with its long tradition of learning, its turbulent history and its cross-fertilisation of Irish, English and Scottish cultures has always been a fertile ground for writing. This handsome new anthology presents a wealth of writing about Derry city from earliest times to the present and includes fascinating extracts from fiction, history, poetry, letters and travel writing. The wide range of writers hints at Derry's eventful past - from St. Columbkille through to John Wesley, William Thackery and Mrs. Alexander. In more recent times, writers like Sean O Faolain, Ben Kiely, Kathleen Ferguson, Nicholas Monsarrat, Brian Friel, Nell mcCafferty, Jennifer Johnston, Eamonn McCann, Seamus Heaney, Michael Foley and Seamus Deane had all recorded vivid impressions of the city and its people. This book provides a complex and stimulating portrait of this ancient city.
Living in Ireland by Barbara and Rene Stoeltie
Large Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 32.50 USD / 18.99 UK; Taschen, 200 pages, full colour illustrations throughout [Add To Basket]
Few countries conjure up images of idyllic country houses and snug rambling mansions as readily as Ireland does. The mere mention of Ireland prompts thoughts of fairytale castles and cottages, rolling emerald hills dotted with sheep and cows, jagged cliffs and crashing waves, and mystic stone circles and enchanted gardens. The houses presented here live up our wildest expectations: from an eccentric artist's retreat in a disused school to a haunted country estate enclosed by high walls, to a magnificent house in the Palladian style … and more. Of special interest is a medieval fort, Leixlip Castle, belonging to Desmond and Penny Guinness of the world-famous brewers.
Native Trees and Forests of Ireland by David Hickie
Hardback; 35.00 Euro / 42.50 USD / 27.50 UK; Gill & Macmillan, 140 pages, with colour photos throughout [Add To Basket]
Ireland's native trees and woodlands have been with us for the last 10,000 years. When once they covered the whole island, today they cover less that 1 per cent. But the woodlands that have survived are some of the richest ecosystems in the country, providing the perfect environment for many species of native animals and plants. This book is a celebration of the precious heritage of Ireland's trees and woodlands. This is a story with a future, as well as a past and a present. The author recounts the history, the tree species, the folklore and superstitions of Ireland's native woods, as well as the traditional uses of timber products. He looks at the future of Ireland's native trees and forests, how to manage and protect them and plan for their further development. Photographer Mike O'Toole spent a year shooting the extraordinary photographs contained in the book. Accompanied by an excellent and informative text, this book is an important and beautiful records of a unique part of Ireland's heritage.
Another Time: Growing Up In Clare by Colette Dinan
Paperback; 12.95 Euro / 15.00 USD / 10.00 UK; Mercier Press, 95 pages, with b/w photos throughout [Add To Basket]
Set in the 1940s and 50s, this book portrays the simple pastimes and day-to-day happenings in what seems another era. The small town of Scariff in County Clare might have appeared sleepy on the outside, but a day never passed without some excitement. It is hard for us now to imagine what life was life before electricity, television and video. In this book, the author brings to life the pleasant, friendly and resourceful lifestyle that existed without these modern conveniences. Friends and neighbours played an important role and were seen as part of the extended family. Despite economic hardship and the uncertainty of the times, life seemed secure. There was time to listen, to play and to sit and dream in those days.
A Shared Childhood: Story of the Integrated Schools in Northern Ireland by Fionnuala O Connor
Paperback; 17.50 Euro / 22.50 USD / 11.50 UK; Blackstaff Press, 196 pages [Add To Basket]
Drawing on in-depth interviews with parents, teachers and pupils and many others - critics as well as supporters - award-winning journalist Fionnuala O Connor has written a vivid account of the first two decades of a quiet revolution in Northern Ireland.
The deeply ingrained divisions in Northern Ireland do not spring solely from segregated schooling, but there can be little doubt that children sent to separate schools on the basis that some are Catholic and others Protestant, will later find it easier to fear and demonise each other. In 1981 a group of parents decided to tear up the pattern of division and open a school that would welcome Protestants, Catholics, children of all faiths and of none. The history of organised integrated education in Northern Ireland is marked by the effort of challenging long-accepted and unquestioned assumptions. Enemies have been plentiful and varied, from the loyalist paramilitaries who threatened that first school to the more genteel churchmen who met appeals for help with coldness and hostility. Twenty-one years later, efforts to break down barriers and encourage links between schools are established government policy. Integrated education has become an accepted and formidable part of the education system, putting other school sectors on their mettle.
Community and the Soul of Ireland: The Need for Values- Based Change by Fr. Harry Bohan
Paperback; 12.50 Euro / 15.50 USD / 8.99 UK; Liffey Press, 128 pages [Add To Basket]
Fr. Harry Bohan, Founder of the Ceifin Institute, is recognized as one of the leading social commentators in Ireland today. An innovative and original thinker, Fr. Bohan contends that the economic success of recent years was hugely important, but it has come at a considerable cost. The rapid changes in Irish society over the last decade - including the decline in the authority of the Catholic Church, the revelations of political corruption, a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, and a breakdown in the family and community as social units - have created a sense of unease despite our increased prosperity. Fr. Bohan argues that people are becoming disconnected from institutions that shaped them and provided leadership in the past. Our current social model emphasises individualism and consumerism to the extent that child-rearing, for example, is seen as another 'cost', to be met by both parents working, often meeting their children for a few brief exhausted hours in the evening. The key questions then remains: if the family and institutions are losing their authority, who will raise the next generation? Fr. Bohan believes that there is an urgent need to re-form society through values-based change, because it is values which mobilise a society, not facts or laws. This book, the result of a lengthy interview with journalist and playwright Frank Shouldice, is a provocative, timely and significant analysis of contemporary Ireland.
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