Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 234
Irish Sport: 1950-2000 An Insight Into Irish Sporting Success edited by Ian Foster
Hardback; 40.00 Euro / 47.00 USD / 32.00 UK; 365 pages, with 140 black and white photos throughout [Add To Basket]
With a population of only 5.5 million, Ireland is nonetheless respected around the world for its sporting achievement and diversity of sporting interest. In addition to well-known team sports such as soccer, rugby and cricket, the Gaelic sports - hurling and Gaelic football - contribute to a full agenda for participants and spectators alike. Throughout Ireland, sport is played with enthusiasm and, win or lose, the craic of the game is paramount.
This book is a collection of essays written by the editor with contributions from eight authorities in their chosen field. It examines 12 different sports over the last 50 years and provides a colourful insight into Irish sporting achievement and success. It presages many of the remarkable changes that have taken place in the very recent past in Irish sport - the primary one being a steady growth in the professionalism of the major disciplines.
Combining historical fact with the accounts of individuals involved, this book is at once both informative and highly entertaining and will be an important addition to the collection of sports enthusiasts as well as those who sit on the sidelines and cheer on their favourites.
Toleration and Religious Identity: The Edict of Nantes and Its Implications in France, Britain and Ireland edited by Ruth Whelan and Carol Baxter
Hardback; 50.00 Euro / 65.00 USD / 40.00 UK; 306 pages [Add To Basket]
Why do we commemorate key events from the past? Is commemoration a way of keeping historical grudges alive? Or can it be liberating? Does historical reflection shape our identity? Should it? Are there lessons to be learned from commemorating the Edict of Nantes - that uneasy pacification of the conflicts between Roman Catholics and Protestants in early modern France? These and other questions are addressed in the fifteen essays in this volume written by an international group of writers and teachers, historians, pastors, psychiatrists, sociologists and theologians. The book is organised around five interconnecting sets of issues: commemorating the Edict of Nantes; the political culture that made the Edict necessary and defined its provisions; the shaping of identity under the Edict; the evolution of the concept of toleration; the implications of the Edict for our own time of pluralism and multiculturalism and particularly for the struggle for peace and reconciliation in Ireland.
Hot Footing Around the Emerald Isle by Ian Middleton
Paperback; 10.99 Euro / 14.00 USD / 8.99 UK; 191 pages [Add To Basket]
Ian was more than a littler apprehensive when his turn came to kiss the Blarney Stone. Not only had they just met, but it seemed this stone wasn't at all fussy, as to who it allowed to kiss it. This was just the first obstacle Ian had to cross during his two-month journey around the Emerald Isle. With just a backpack as a home, a guidebook in one hand, a bizarre travelogue in the other and very little money in his bank account, Ian leaves his home and sets off to this little country that has always been his neighbour, yet overlooked by him for many years as he pursued dreams to travel to far and exotic countries.
U2 2000-2002: Elevate Me Here edited by Karin and Marcel Wagenaar
Large Paperback with b/w photos throughout; 30.00 Euro / 35.00 USD / 23.00 UK; 256 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is a comprehensive documentary that guides the reader through the last few successful years with news, awards, Bono and Africa, discography, a complete description of the Promo and Elevation tour, including concert reviews, quotations of Bono, stories and photos from the fans, also professional photographs. This book is written by fans … for fans !
The Memory Stones by Kate O'Riordan
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 14.00 USD / 9.00 UK; 372 pages [Add To Basket]
Nell Hennessy left rural Ireland at sixteen to have her daughter Ali. In over thirty years, she has never returned. Now she lives an uncluttered, elegant life in Paris, enjoying her independence, only broken from time to time by her married lover Henri. Until a phone call shatters the peace of her carefully constructed world … her daughter and granddaughter may be in grave danger and Nell can no longer avoid the inevitable. She must return to her childhood home. This novel is a poignant and gripping exploration of love, loss and the nature of memory itself as well as a study of the intricacies of mother/daughter relationships, observed with razor-sharp precision and great tenderness.
Kilbrack by Jamie O'Neill
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 14.00 USD / 9.00 UK; 300 pages [Add To Basket]
Crossing the road one night, a great black car came and ran him down. He woke two weeks later, scarred and amnesiac, a new name looking at the blank page of a new life; O'Leary, Montagu, born, it would seem, at the age of twenty-five. Two women have sustained him since: Mary, the nurse who took him in when the hospital ran out of patience, and Nancy Valentine, author. Her memoir of an idyllic childhood in Kilbrack, with its cast of idiosyncratic characters ends in her return to the village after sudden, inexplicable banishment to find it abandoned, in utter desolation and ruin.
Now, exasperated by his obsession, Mary has left him, fleeing to an early death back in Ireland. Armed with his treasured copy of the book, O'Leary decides to seek out the place that has haunted him. But imagine his consternation to find that the village is not abandoned at all. What has happened to Kilbrack?
With an affection and wit as incisive here as in his recent masterpiece, this novel prefigures the darker forebodings, the tenderness that marked 'At Swim, Two Boys.'
In the Castle of the Flynns by Michael Raleigh
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 14.00 USD / 9.00 UK; 342 pages [Add To Basket]
The year is 1954, the setting a vibrant Irish neighbourhood of Chicago. Daniel Dorsey learns at the age of seven the intimate meaning of death when his parents are killed in a car crash. Taken in by his extended, at times crazy, and always tender and caring family, Daniel learns that even the deepest sorrows and hurt can be healed. In a time of wakes and weddings, conflicts and romance, Daniel comes to understand both his own loss and the secret places in the hearts of his loved ones.
In The Forest by Edna O'Brien
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 14.00 USD / 9.00 UK; 273 pages [Add To Basket]
Set in the countryside of western Ireland, this novel centres on unwitting victims for sacrifice: a radiant young woman, her young son and a trusting priest, all despatched to the wilderness of a young man's unbridled, deranged fantasies. The author's riveting, frightening and brilliantly told novel reminds us that anything can happen when protection is not afforded to either perpetrator or victim.
A Fanatic Heart by Edna O'Brien
Paperback; 13.50 Euro / 17.00 USD / 10.50 UK; 461 pages [Add To Basket]
Love and loss, the villages and countryside of western Ireland, sexual intimacy and social alienation - everything that makes Edna O'Brien such a distinctive voice in contemporary fiction is contained in the short stories in this collection. The volume includes all nine stories from 'Returning', four interrelated stories that have previously appeared in The New Yorker magazine, and the author's own selections from 'The Love Object', 'A Scandalous Woman', and 'Mrs. Reinhardt'.
The Secret Army: The IRA by J. Bowyer Bell
Paperback; 45.00 Euro 60.00 USD / 33.00 UK; [Add To Basket]
Revised and updated third edition. This book is the definitive work on the Irish Republican Army. It is an absorbing account of a movement that has had a profound effect on the shaping of the modern Irish state. The secret army in the service of the invisible Republic has had a powerful effect on Irish events over the past more than twenty-five years. These hidden corridors of power interest the author and inspired him to spend more time with the IRA than many volunteers spend in it. This book is the culmination of twenty-five years of work and tens of thousands of hours of interviews. Bell's unique access to the leadership of the republican movement and his contacts with all involved - British politicians, Irish politicians, policemen, arms smugglers, and others committed or opposed to the IRA - explain why this book is THE book on the subject. This edition represents a complete revision and includes vast quantities of new information.
Robert Emmet: A Life by Patrick M. Geoghegan
Hardback; 33.00 Euro / 40.00 USD / 27.00 UK; 350 pages [Add To Basket]
Robert Emmet (1778-1803) was one of the most romantic of all Irish revolutionaries. Born in Dublin, Emmet was the youngest son of the state physician. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he was a leading member of the College Historical Society until his expulsion for radical activity in 1798. Prevented from pursuing a profession, he visited the continent where he discussed plans for liberating Ireland with Napoleon and Tallyrand. He returned to Ireland in 1802 and soon became involved in a conspiracy for a new rebellion.
This book reveals for the first time the complex and ingenious plans that Emmet devised for the rebellion. His youthful idealism and military talent proved insufficient, however, and his attempt to seize Dublin on 23 July, 1803 was a dramatic failure. Captured soon after, he won an unlikely victory with his extraordinary speech from the dock that is considered to be one of the greatest courtroom orations in history. He died bravely on the scaffold the next day.
This book draws on new archival material from Ireland, the United Kingdom, France and the United States and is the first modern study of Robert Emmet in almost fifty years.
Irish Penitentials edited by Ludwig Bieler
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 20.00 UK; 368 pages [Add To Basket]
This classic book puts before the reader the basic documents relating to the administration of penance in Ireland during the Middle Ages, and brings together some material for their literal and historical interpretation. First published in 1963, and reprinted in 1975, there are only a few copies remaining available.
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