Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 292
All Hell Will Break Loose by Austin Currie
Hardback; 30.00 Euro / 36.00 USD / 24.00 UK; 458 pages
Austin Currie was born in Coalisland, County Tyrone, in 1939, the eldest in a family of eleven children. The Northern Ireland in which he grew up was a place of segregation and distrust; where Protestants and Catholics were very aware of the divides that separated their communities; where the simmering tensions eventually erupted into terrible violence and huge loss of life. Politics was a natural draw to a young boy who had witnessed his parents’ humiliation at the hands of a Protestant landlord who denied them a house because of their religion. At the age of 8 he led a small process of boys to an anti-Partition meeting and made a stirring speech about the Border. As a student of History and Politics at Queen’s University, Belfast he co-founded the New Ireland Society and got his first taste of the potential of politics for positive change.
The 1960s and 1970s saw him engage in direct-action tactics as a leader of peaceful protests and civil rights marches. His first brush with the law came as a result of the Caledon affair, when he occupied a house to highlight the sectarian bias in public housing allocations. He witnessed first-hand the attempts of Ian Paisely and his supporters to intimidate and suppress free expression through counter-demonstrations and threats of violence. Later, as a founder member of the SDLP, he was involved in political negotiations at the highest levels, most notably during the Sunningdale period.
In this book the author pieces together the complex and dramatic machinations that brought Northern Ireland to its current political incarnation, giving a behind-the scenes account of the people and the events that changed history. Alongside this tale of politics and politicians is the story of the private man, and the violence visited upon his own family because of his commitment to non-violent politics.
Nell by Nell McCafferty
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 434 pages [Add To Basket]
For over three decades Nell McCafferty has been Ireland's most provocative and interesting activist and commentator. As a member of that brilliant 1960s generation of working-class idealists politicized by class, war and sex. McCafferty, in her writing and broadcasting on everything from the hunger strikes to football, has inspired and infuriated in equal measure. Yet, although she is an iconic figure, ‘Nell' (there is only one) her sexuality has remained in the background, hardly acknowledged and never, it seemed, to be discussed. Until now, in a memoir of scorching honesty McCafferty writes about what it is to be the public, and the private, Nell. Nell McCafferty was born on Derry's Bogside in 1944. She was the first of her family to go to university and after graduating she began a career in journalism that made her one of Ireland's most controversial commentators. She lives in Dublin.
Dublin’s Lost Heroines: Mammies and Grannies in a Vanished City by Kevin C. Kearns
Hardback; 30.00 Euro / 36.00 USD / 21.00 UK; 330 pages
This book is a masterly chronicle of the forgotten, ‘voiceless’ women in Dublin’s impoverished old communities. It is based upon thirty years of research trips to Dublin where the author gathered original oral testimony about the daily lives of mothers who struggled to survive in difficult, often dreadful, circumstances. What emerges is an intimate and poignant account and celebration of the mammies and grannies who held the fabric of family life together in an environment of hardship, and often cruelty.
This work covers the squalid tenement days of the early 1900s, through the mid-century decades of ‘slumland’ block flats, into the 1970s when deadly drugs infiltrated poor neighborhoods, terrified mothers and stole their children away from them. Telling vividly of how they coped with grinding poverty, huge families, pitiless landlords, the oppressive Church, dictatorial priests, feckless and often abusive husbands, the voices of the mammies and grannies from the Dublin slums course through this remarkable book. Yet, throughout their heroic struggle, they maintained an astonishing dignity, early wit, pride and resilient spirit.
The Irish Face: Redefining the Irish Portrait by Fintan Cullen
Hardback; 45.00 Euro / 54.00 USD / 30.00 UK; 240 pages, 158 images, 78 in colour [Add To Basket]
The relationship between art and national identity is a recurring theme in modern history. Is it possible to define a "national" school of art? How far does culture inspire or reflect social and political change? "The Irish Face" tackles these questions head-on with a bold and original analysis of three centuries of portraiture. Starting with a discussion of what makes a portrait particular to one country or region, Fintan Cullen explores the contradictions within existing definitions of national art. Politics, geography, religion, commerce, class, gender and the affiliations of artists and sitters all play a part in how we read and respond to portraiture. But the history of Ireland and the experience of the Irish diaspora present the need for a redefinition of Irish portraiture. "The Irish Face" includes chapters on the production of portraiture both in and about Ireland, the political portrait, the family and the biographical portrait, and the relationship between portraiture and success. Featuring over 100 illustrations, from Jonathan Swift, Charles Stewart Parnell and Seamus Heaney, to Bono and Mary Robinson, this ambitious study by Fintan Cullen brings a refreshing and important perspective to our understanding of art, history and national culture.
The Fighting Irish: Inside the Ring with Boxing’s Celtic Warriors by Roger Anderson
Hardback; 24.00Euro / 28.00 USD / 16.00 UK; 270 pages
The Fighting Irish tells the remarkable story of how the Irish and their descendents took the boxing world by storm. Irishmen have enjoyed a unique place in the sport, punching way above their weight and exerting a truly global influence. From the brutal bare-knuckle era to the present day, they've also played their part in many of the most famous - and infamous - moments in ring history. The French have their flamboyance, the Germans efficiency, but no one likes a scrap quite like the Irish. It's hardly surprising then, that the boxer should become a source of national pride, not least for those people forced through famine to seek a new life in the new world. John Morrissey, Yankee Sullivan, John C. Heenan and Paddy Ryan paved the way for the sport's first superstar, John L. Sullivan. His boast that he could 'lick any son-of-a-bitch in the house' tapped into the mood of a people fighting for their place in America's melting pot of immigrants. From the brazen Boston Strong Boy-to-Gentleman Jim Corbett, legend of the 'Roaring Twenties' Jack Dempsey, through to James J. Braddock, who fought his way from the Welfare queue to the heavyweight championship of the world, satisfaction was
The Irish Famine by Colm Toibin and Diarmaid Ferriter
Paperback; 16.00 Euro / 19.00 USD / 9.00 UK; 214 pages [Add To Basket]
This unique volume, comprising Toibin’s acclaimed short overview and a linked collection of key documents put together by one of Ireland’s leading young historians offers a many-sided view of one of history’s most poignant and far-reaching catastrophies.
Robert Emmet: The Making of a Legend by Marianne Elliott
Paperback; 17.00 Euro / 20.50 USD / 10.00 UK; 292 pages [Add To Basket]
Robert Emmet was executed in Dublin at the age of 25 for leading a disastrous rebellion in July 1803. He quickly became a popular martyr and is remembered to this day in popular myth, folk ballads and in the work of figures as diverse as Hector Berlioz, Shelley and James Joyce. Yet he left no political writings. This book unravels the myth, legend and symbol of Robert Emmet which shows all the elements of a classic story: a tragic love affair; a conspiracy and betrayal; an unmarked grave. The author shows, for the first time, how myth-makers and patriots created one of the most powerful legends in modern Irish history.
Classic Irish Proverbs (in English and Irish) by James O’Donnell
Small Hardback; 12.00 Euro / 15.00 USD / 8.00 UK; 80 pages, with full colour illustrations throughout [Add To Basket]
The Irish wit, wisdom and love of words is captured in this beautifully illustrated collection of Irish proverbs. From the graceful to the inspiring to the solemn and the practical, each proverb is an insightful evocation of an Ireland of yesteryear!
Toss the Feathers: Irish Set Dancing by Pat Murphy
Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 222 pages [Add To Basket]
This book provides a comprehensive approach to Irish set dancing. It contains 64 complete set dances, including all those danced commonly in classes, summer schools, and at feiseanna. These are laid out in conventional set terminology and can be easily followed by teachers, pupils and anyone who has an acquaintance with the art of set dancing. The book also contains the first concise history of the development of set dancing in Ireland from its eighteenth-century European origins.
An Outburst of Frankness: Community Arts in Ireland a Reader edited by Sandy Fitzgerald
Trade Paperback; 20.00 Euro / 24.00 USD / 15.00 UK; 266 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is the first serious attempt to gather together a wide range of views dealing with the history, theory and practice of community arts in Ireland. Not an academic book, the style, over twelve commissioned essays and the edited transcripts of two unique for a, in accessible and open, ranging from a general art-history perspective to the particular experiences of artists working in and with communities.
Reminiscences of Daniel O’Connell by William Cooke Taylor
Paperback; 17.00 Euro / 20.00 USD / 11.00 UK; 140 pages [Add To Basket]
Soon after Daniel O'Connell's death, Taylor published (as 'A Munster Farmer') this short account of the Liberator's life, drawing on his personal memories and on articles he had written for the Athenaeum in the 1840s. It includes eyewitness accounts of O'Connell's appearance as he walked through the streets of Dublin. Taylor shows personal sympathy for O'Connell as the leader of oppressed people, but he also sees his talents as distorted by the experience of oppression and by a conservative upbringing, and claims that his abusive and truculent oratory did as much to retard Catholic Emancipation as his tactical leadership did to advance it. This edition also includes a review article by Taylor in the Athenaeum of books including Carleton's Famine novel, The Black Prophet, and a long article on 'Repeal Songs of Munster', considering O'Connellite street-ballads as a study in human folly
Memories of West Wicklow, 1813-1939 by William and Mary Ann Hanbridge
Paperback; 17.00 Euro / 20.00 USD / 11.00 UK; 110 pages [Add To Basket]
The Hanbidge family originated in Gloucester, and came to Ireland in the seventeenth century. They have been settled in the Donard/Dunlavin area ever since, with branches in Dublin, and elsewhere. The Hanbidge memoirs provide a vivid and unique account of Protestant 'small farmer' life in West Wicklow in the nineteenth century, together with recollections of the 1798 rebellion. There are also glimpses of Jonathan Swift and members of the Synge family. Wiliam Hanbidge wrote at the behest of his daughter, setting down in a simple but detailed manner the life of his family, their farming practices, past-times, communal relations, religious views, and awareness of the outer world. His account of travelling to New York after the Famine with a party of boys is especially fascinating. No comparable account of his social group and class has ever been published. Mary Hanbidge's devoted private publication of her father's memoirs was eclipsed by the outbreak of the Second World War, when many copies were destroyed by bombing.
The Green Republic by A.P.A. O’Gara
Paperback; 20.00 Euro / 25.00 USD / 15.00 UK; 244 pages [Add To Basket]
The Green Republic, a novel first published in 1902, actually describes real characters and events at the turn of the century in Poyntzpass, Co. Armagh. O'Gara's fictional town of Jigglestreet in South Tyrone accurately represents the real Poyntzpass where O'Gara, under his real name - William Robert MacDermott (1839-1918) - worked as a dispensary doctor. The 'novel' is both a sophisticated sociological study of rural Ulster Protestants and a political argument for instituting joint stock company management of Irish agriculture. For MacDermott, the 'Green Republic' was an ironic title used not to describe Irish nationalism but to express his fears about the rise of the new force in agriculture - the former tenant farmers who were gaining title to their land. MacDermott believed that as long as irresponsible power remained in the hands of the old landlords or the new owner/occupiers, Irish agriculture would never operate to maximise production for the common good. The introduction is written by Edward A. Hagan
The Galtee Boy by John Sarsfield Casey
Paperback; 18.00 Euro / 21.00 USD / 12.00 UK; 226 pages [Add To Basket]
This very vivid memoir describes the prison experiences of a Cork Fenian activist, John Sarsfield Casey. 'The Galtee Boy' was a name used by Casey when he sent letters for publication to newspapers, one of which was used against him at his trial in 1865. His memoir was written after he had returned from deportation and describes the period from his arrest in 1865, his trial in Cork and conditions in Mountjoy, Millbank, Pentonville and Portland prisons. His memoir is the most extensive surviving account from the Fenian side of the experiences of those prisoners detained in Cork. Biographies of people mentioned in the memoir are given in an appendix.
Belfast Politics by William Bruce and Henry Joy
Paperback; 18.00 Euro / 21.00 USD / 12.00 UK; 240 pages [Add To Basket]
Belfast Politics, arguably one of the most important texts in modern Irish history, appeared in 1794 as a collection of twenty essays outlining a moderate political position in the increasingly polarised politics of 1790s Ireland. It contains the seeds of the so-called 'transformation' of so many late eighteenth-century Ulster radicals into the Unionists of the early nineteenth-century. Although sharing many of the political principles and much of the language which inspired the United Irishmen, including support for the American Revolution and the use of civic humanist and Enlightenment discourse, Bruce and Joy maintained that these ideas were consistent with, and best served within, the framework of the British constitution, and their book was unique in bringing an inclusive notion of 'Britishness' to the mainstream Irish reform movement.
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