Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 274
Do Penance or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland by Frances Finnegan
Trade Paperback; 20.00 Euro / 24.00 USD / 15.00 UK; 256 pages
This book tells the fascinating story of Ireland's Good Shepherd Magdalen Asylums. First brought to widespread public attention by the 2002 film 'The Magdalen Sisters', the asylums were homes that were founded in the mid-nineteenth century for the detention of prostitutes undergoing reform. The inmates of these asylums were discouraged - and many forcibly prevented - from leaving and sometimes were detained for life. Put to work without pay in adjoining laundries, these women were subject to penance, harsh discipline, enforced silence, and prayer. Their hair was cropped, and they were made to wear drab and shapeless clothing. Their children were taken away and they were forbidden to discuss their lives prior to their entry into the asylums. As the numbers of prostitutes began to dwindle, the church looked elsewhere for this free labour, targeting other 'fallen' women such as unwed mothers and wayward or abused girls. Some were incarcerated simply for being 'too beautiful', and therefore in danger of sin. Others were 'simple minded'. Most of them were brought to the asylums by their families or priests. Unbelievably, women were still being admitted to these institutions in the 1980s, and the last of these asylums was closed only in 1996.
Drawing on previously unpublished material, the author traces the development of the Magdalen Asylums. She presents case histories of individual women and their experiences in the homes, which claimed some 30,000 women in all. She looks at the social consequences of such a system, and ponders how it was able to survive into the late twentieth century, right through the feminist campaign for women's rights and the trade union movement. This book illuminates a shameful episode in Irish history. (Copies also available in Hardback, priced at 40 Euro.)
A Memoir by Terry de Valera
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 20.00 UK; 320 pages [Add To Basket]
Into a very volatile Ireland the author was born in June 1922. In this memoir he recounts events in his life and that of his family against the ongoing changing political landscape of the Civil War, the threat of World War II, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 1916 Rising, his father's presidency, the ultimate demise of his very famous parents, Eamon and Sinead de Valera, and the growth of his own family, including of course his daughter, Sile, who is also a member of parliament and government minister.
The author draws too on his mother's memoirs, which he asked her to commit to paper, to provide a fascinating pen picture of Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In addition to matters political, there is also much to appeal to those interested in music and the arts. This is at once a very personal memoir and of interest to anyone keen to learn more about one of Ireland's foremost political families.
Two Little Boys by Edward O'Neill and Barry J. Whyte
Trade paperback; 15.00 Euro; 18.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 230 pages
On the afternoon of 17 May 1974, Ed O'Neill was playing just like any other four-year-old boy in the city. That day, however, was not to be like any other day. Later, as he was walking on Parnell Street with his brother Billy, and father Edward O'Neill senior, a major explosion went off, killing his father instantly. Thirty-three others were killed that day in what became known as the 'Dublin and Monaghan Bombings'. This book sketches the political situation at the time of the bombings. A pen picture of Eddie O'Neill is offered, together with a sense of how the young family strove to get on with their lives in the immediate aftermath of the bombings and in the years that followed. Despite the initial outrage, political and moral, at the atrocities, no one was held accountable for these murders. By the mid-1980s, Denise and Angela O'Neill, Ed's sisters, started to make inquiries as to the status of the investigation. This was to be the start of a campaign seeking justice for their father and all those killed that day. There have been many trial and tribulations since then, with significant developments along the way, including the formation of Justice for the Forgotten and the broadcast of the television documentary 'Hidden Hand - the Forgotten Massacre'. The material is brought right up to date with the publication of the Barron Report and the recommendations of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights. This book is the story on one family, but one that tragically will have resonance for many more, and will move all who read it.
Kicking and Screaming: Dragging Ireland into the 21st Century by Ivana Bacik
Trade Paperback; 14.00 Euro / 17.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 256 pages [Add To Basket]
This is an important book that takes an acerbic look at the Irish legal system and examines a range of campaigns to change the law and liberalize Irish society. After a century of wars, civil wars, internal division, political upheaval, mass emigration and high unemployment, a more prosperous, diverse and tolerant Irish society has emerged. But this is a twenty-first century hybrid, where Catholic religious traditions sit uneasily alongside a culture that is growing more secular and liberal in outlook. The author examines the state of the new Ireland, discussing such contentious issues as the make-up of the modern Irish family, organised religion, modern sexuality, reproductive rights, equality, racism, censorship, the environment and the central role of the legal system in creating a framework for our changing social values. The author analyses how Irish society has developed over recent years, and suggests where it might go from here.
Ireland in the 1950s: The Lost Decade by Dermot Keogh, Finbarr O'Shea and Carmel Quinlan
Trade Paperback; 17.00 Euro / 21.50 USD / 11.50 UK; 302 pages
This book is a comprehensive survey of a complex and often overlooked decade in Irish history. The essays bring to light new research on the literary, social, cultural, economic and political life of the 1950s in Ireland and in the Irish diaspora. The book seeks to examine the history, striving to establish the complexities in finding a single interpretation of those years of high unemployment with a level of emigration unprecedented in this history of the young state. The book attempts to provide a range of different perspectives, based on new research. It does not seek to provide definitive historical answers.
Cromwell's Revenge: A True Story by Peter McLoughlin
Paperback; 14.00 Euro; 17.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 189 pages [Add To Basket]
In 1649, the English parliament appointed Oliver Cromwell lord lieutenant of Ireland, with the mission of crushing popery and destroying all remaining royalist forces in Ireland. Believing the Irish to be a barbarous and bloodthirsty race after the 1641 Rebellion, Cromwell was determined to succeed. As both a staunchly Catholic and royalist family, the 'Old English' Uniackes of East Cork anxiously followed the news of Cromwell's campaign. Blood-drenched accounts reached them of his unyielding march through towns such as Dublin, Drogheda, Wexford, New Ross and Cork. The future for the Uniackes, and their Irish co-religionists, was uncertain at best; what was more certain was the deep and bitter division that trying to survive in an anti-Catholic state would cause in the family. Seen through the eyes of this family - one of the wealthiest land-owning families in East Cork - this book narrates those startling and fascinating events of the time.
Gregory Carr, Bookseller
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