Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 261
Local Histories
A Hidden Ulster: People, Songs and Traditions of Oriel by Padraigin Ni Uallachain
Large Paperback; 25.00 Euro / 31.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 540 pages
This book is a comprehensive account of the traditions of Oriel, a region that takes in parts of Armagh, Monaghan and Louth. The book contains a wealth of information about the people who made and maintained those traditions - poets and harpers, storytellers and singers, and not least the men and women (from various backgrounds) who wrote down and recorded this material. In addition to including over 50 songs, with translations, it publishes transcriptions of local dance music made by collectors in different periods. All this is set against a backdrop of markets, music festivals, calendar customs, keening and wakes, marriages and abductions, mermaids and the fairy world.
Dublin's Suburban Towns 1834-1930 by Seamas O Maitiu
Large Paperback; 22.50 Euro / 27.50 USD / 16.50 UK; 256 pages, with black-and-white photos throughout [Add To Basket]
In the nineteenth century the expanding Dublin middle class deserted the city for the suburbs, creating nine independent townships. The book examines the impact that these suburban towns had on the greater Dublin area. While Rathmines and Rathgar is taken as the major case-study, the history of other townships - Pembroke, Blackrock, Kingstown, Dalkey, Killiney, Kilmainham, Drumcondra, Clontarf - is also recounted. The author records the civic achievements of the townships in the areas of water supply, main drainage, public lighting, road-building, refuse-disposal, electricity supply, and the provision of town halls, public libraries, technical schools and public baths. The reaction at township level to the huge political changes in the 1914-1922 period is also explored, as are the attempts by Dublin Corporation, finally successful in 1930, to extend its boundaries to include the townships.
The Stones the Ground the Corn: The Story of an Irish Country Grain Mill 1850-2000 by Tony Deeson et. al and edited by Richard Scott
Large Paperback with endflaps; 22.00 Euro / 27.00 USD / 16.00 UK; 232 pages
This book is the story of an Irish country grain mill from its establishment in the traumatic days of the Great Famine to its recent assimilation with one of Northern Ireland's most successful business enterprises. Now in its sixth 'Scott' generation, the family business of W&C Scott is a remarkable record of continuity, progress and diversification in the face of a series of challenges both on a world scale and at the local level over 150 years. But this is not simply another book about a family business. The role the business has played in the development of the local community is featured as the story unfolds. There is a chapter on the history of the town of Omagh and a description of the town as it was in William Scott's day. Another provides a brief history of the ancient practice of milling, the 'world's second oldest profession'. And the contribution of the loyal workforce is closely woven into the fabric of a fascinating tale that entertains and informs. Also includes a nostalgic view of the Tyrone countryside in the early years of the 20th century by the poet W.F. Marshall. Foreword by Benedict Kiely.
A History of County Kildare by Padraic O'Farrell
Paperback; 16.00 Euro / 20.00 USD /10.00 UK; 186 pages, with black-and-white photo insert [Add To Basket]
Kildare is very flat; it is the flatness of this great limestone plain with its rich pastures and its proximity to Dublin that has made Kildare a place of importance since the dawn of history. Early Christian settlements prospered here, of which the Convent of St. Brigid was the most famous. The Normans quickly identified the value of the land and built a series of great tower-houses and castled designed to defend the Pale from the Gaels of Wicklow and the south midlands. Kildare was home to the Geraldines, the Leinster branch of the FitzGerald family that completely dominated political life in late medieval Ireland. The county played a significant role in the 1798 rebellion, and the Curragh Camp has been prominent in a variety of episodes in military history.
A History of County Wexford by Nicholas Furlong
Paperback; 16.00 Euro / 20.00 USD /10.00 UK; 166 pages, with black-and-white photo insert
County Wexford lies in the southeastern corner of Ireland. It is bounded to the west by Waterford, the River Barrow and the Blackstairs Mountains, to the north by the Wicklow Mountains, and by the sea on the other two sides. The River Slaney flows diagonally through the centre, dividing the county. First settled seven thousand years ago, the county has boasted a variety of cultures from Celts to Vikings, Flemish and Normans to English. Historically, it maintained a social, confessional and ethnic mix of populations that was more varied than most other parts of the island. Because of its key strategic position, it has always been militarily important and was the focus of the great rebellion of 1798, the most bloody conflict in modern Irish history. In this book the author traces the story of the county from its earliest settlements through its Gaelic, Christian, Norse and Norman phases to the turbulence of the Elizabethan and Cromwellian regimes. He brings the reader through the great upheaval of 1798 and the institutional revival of Catholicism in the nineteenth century, which was particularly focused on County Wexford. He details the continued prosperity of the county throughout modern times.
A History of County Wicklow by Arthur Flynn
Paperback; 16.00 Euro / 20.00 USD /10.00 UK; 166 pages, with black-and-white photo insert [Add To Basket]
Wicklow, the Garden of Ireland, lies immediately to the south of the city of Dublin and has three distinct landscapes. A narrow coastal littoral gives way to upland farms that gradually rise towards the magnificent wilderness of the Wicklow Mountains. West Wicklow falls away from these heights through sheep-farming uplands towards the plains of Kildare. Wicklow was one of the last areas of Ireland to be shired. Its existence in its modern form dates only from the early 17th century. Traditionally, its society and economy have been dominated by the two coastal towns of Wicklow and Arklow. From the late 19th century, Bray in the north of the county became a watering place for Dubliners in the classic way of Victorian seaside resorts, and was quickly dubbed the Blackpool of Ireland. The 20th century has seen the country's traditional agrarian economy supplemented by tourism and leisure activities, as Dublin's residents explore in ever greater numbers the cultural variety and spectacular scenery of their near neighbour.
A History of County Clare by Sean Spellissy
Paperback; 16.00 Euro / 20.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 156 pages with black-and-white photo insert [Add To Basket]
Although County Clare is one of the six counties of Munster, many consider Clare to have a landscape and atmosphere more typical of the counties west of the River Shannon. In its northern parts, especially the Burren, it shares much the same topography as south Galway and the Aran Islands, while in its southern parts the familiar landscapes of its Munster neighbours, Limerick and, just across the Shannon estuary, north Kerry are instantly recognisable. The Clare we know today once formed part of the mighty kingdom of Thomond, whose renowned leader, Brian Boru, sent on to become the only uncontested high king of Ireland. Caught between the Norman strongholds of Galway and Limerick, Clare remained disputed territory for many centuries, ensuring a rich and eventful history.
Galway in Old Photographs by Peadar O'Dowd
(All are in paperback: 16.00 Euro / 20.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 120 pages, black-and-white photos throughout) [Add To Basket]
These wonderful collections of photographs are a chronicle of social life in three towns in Ireland from the 1850s to the present day. The main emphasis is on the period from the 1920s through to the 1980s. The book recalls the city's commercial, sporting and artistic life with nostalgia and affection. The authors have assembled a remarkably wide selection on images, all of them drawn from private sources and most of them never seen before in print.
Limerick in Old Photographs by Sean Spellissy
Cork in Old Photographs by Tim Cadogan
Derry in Old Photographs by Art Byrne and Sean McMahon
Irish Pages: Empire (A Journal of Contemporary Writing) edited at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast Volume 2, Number 1
Trade Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 20.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 262 pages [Add To Basket]
Irish Pages is a Belfast journal combining Irish, European and international perspectives. It seeks to create a novel literary space in the North adequate to the unfolding cultural potential of the new political dispensation. The magazine is cognizant of the need to reflect in its pages the various meshed levels of human relations: the regional (Ulster), the national (Britain and Ireland), the continental (Europe) and the global.
Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA by Richard English
Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 19.50 USD / 7.50 UK; 496 pages, with 8 page photo insert [Add To Basket]
The Provisional IRA has been one of the world's most important revolutionary movements. It has embodied some of the most powerful forces in modern world history: nationalism, violence, socialism and religion. The Provisionals have been pivotal in the interwoven histories of Ireland and Britain, but their full significance reaches far beyond the politics of those islands into the world of non-state political violence so prominent today. The IRA has been a much richer, more complex and layered organization than is frequently recognized. It is also open to more balanced and thorough examination now - at the end of its long war in the north of Ireland - than was possible even a few years ago.
This book purports to be the first full, systematic study of the through and action of the IRA, the first book which asks not only what the IRA have done, but also why they have done it and what the consequences have been. Based on the most extensive research ever conducted for such a study, this book offers a detailed history and analysis of the IRA, building historical foundations on which to base on understanding of the modern-day Provisionals. The book examines the dramatic events of the Easter Rising in 1916 and the bitter guerrilla war of 1919-1922; the partitioning of Ireland in the 1920s and the Irish Civil War of 1922-3. Here, too, are the clandestine IRA campaigns in Northern Ireland and Britain during the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. The author explains how the Provisionals were born out of the turbulence generated by the 1960s civil rights movement. And he examines the escalating violence; the sending of British troops to the streets of Northern Ireland; the split in the IRA that produced the Provisionals; the introduction of internment in 1971 and the tragedy of Bloody Sunday in 1972. He then details the prison war over political status culminating in the Hunger Strikes of the early 1980s and moves on to describe the Provisionals' emergence as a more committedly political force throughout that decade, a politicalization that made possible the peace process that has developed over the last decade.
This book offers a fair-minded, explanatory and historically rich account of one of the world's most significant paramilitary organizations. It is meticulously researched and provides original analysis of the motives, actions and consequences of the IRA that offers a full, balanced and most authoritative treatment of the Irish Republican Army. (Our Book of the Month - NonFiction - April 2003.)
Gregory Carr, Bookseller
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