Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 294
Something in the Head: The Life and Work of John Broderick by Madeline Kingston
Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 UK / 10.00 UK; 175 pages
This sympathetic study is the first full biography of Athlone-born writer John Broderick (1927-89) whose powerful Balzacian novels of life in the Irish midlands, from The Pilgrimage (1961) to An Apology for Roses (1973) and The Trials of Father Dillingham (1975) evoke the satiric spirit of Brinsley MacNamara. They depict Irish sexuality and Catholicism in a series of pungent tableaux and portraits drawn from vivid but entrapped lives. His own bourgeois roots (his father was a prosperous baker), solitary childhood (compounded by boarding-school), enveloping mother, homosexuality and alcoholism fuelled his fictions, which were in turn enlarged by his love of France and its literature, especially Mauriac and Julien Green. Self-exiled to Bath in England with his housekeeper during the 1970s, he became an embittered if astringent commentator on rapidly shifting Irish mores, retaining his contacts with Ireland through criticism and travel writing. A neglected but powerful writer, his work complemented that of his colleague and rival Edna O'Brien and held up a mirror to an Ireland of the mid-twentieth century like no other novelist of his day This work shows us that he is an artist of increasing relevance and interest, now celebrated in annual John Broderick Weekends first instituted by the Athlone Rotary Club in 1999.
The Waking of Willie Ryan by John Broderick
Paperback; 12.50 Euro / 15.00 USD / 9.00 UK; 240 pages [Add To Basket]
Willie Ryan is an old man who arrives back in his home town in 'the great central plain of Ireland', having escaped from the insane asylum where he was wrongfully incarcerated, and unvisited, by his devout Catholic family for twenty-five years. The given reason for his commitment was an attack on his sister-in-law, Mary Ryan, wife of his brother Michael. The true reason: a homosexual affair with a hedonistic young man who introduced him to art, literature and music. When he returns to his family, Mary continues to insist on Willie's insanity. After all, didn't he refuse to go to Confession or to attend Mass during all his years in the asylum? Together with Father Mannix - who was complicit in 'putting away' Willie - she conspires to bring about Willie's reconciliation with the church. For Willie's enemies, nothing evil has happened as long as it is not seen to have happened. But through Willie's piercing vision, we see the truth - his brother Michael's grief and remorse; his nephew Chris's fear of freedom; and the perceptiveness of asylum nurse Halloran. When Willie knows he is about to die, he agrees to a private family Mass, setting the stage for a confrontation with Father Mannix - one which will pitch moral integrity against the 'petty bourgeois snobbishness, hypocrisies and pretensions' of the 'little grocer's republic' of 1950s Ireland.
The Pilgrimmage by John Broderick
Paperback; 12.50 Euro / 15.00 USD / 9.00 UK; 190 pages
Julia Glynn is the very model of a 'prim and well-conducted' bourgeois Catholic wife, a regular Mass-goer and president of her local charitable society. Her crippled husband Michael is the richest man in town, held in awe by bankers and bishops alike. In his illness he is dutifully tended to by the household manservant Stephen Lydon and by his handsome young nephew Doctor Jim. As Michael's condition worsens, their friend Father Victor proposes a pilgrimage to Lourdes. When Julia begins receiving a series of obscene anonymous letters detailing her sexual infidelities with Jim, her suspicions fall on the 'sinister' Stephen. And what connection do Stephen and Michael have with the suicide of local boy Tommy Baggot, a well-known figure within Dublin's secretive homosexual community? Why does she find herself both attracted to and repelled by Stephen? As the day of departure to Lourdes approaches, John Broderick probes into the heart of an Irish small town that is 'as watchful as the jungle', stripping his characters of their 'respectable clothes' to reveal their true selves in all their selfishness and 'elemental sensuality'. The Pilgrimage's depiction of sexual need and the 'petty vices' of 1950s Ireland led to its banning by the Irish Censorship Board on its original publication in 1961. Under the title The Chameleons it sold over 100,000 copies in America. This re-issue restores Broderick to his rightful place alongside John McGahern and Brinsley MacNamara, taking a new generation of readers on a unique 'pilgrimage of the body'
Donegal in Old Photographs by Sean Beattie
Trade Paperback; 18.00 Euro / 22.00 USD / 13.00 UK; 144 pages, with photos throughout [Add To Basket]
Sean Beattie has brought together nearly 200 pictures from the last 150 years, many never published before, to create a photographic portrait of the county of Donegal. From the streets of Donegal town itself to the county's beautiful islands, from schools to farms, from golf courses to bustling markets, from holidays on the beach to poignant images of emigrants aboard ship waiting to leave Ireland for a 'new life', this collection of pictures reveals all aspects of Donegal's life over the last century and a half. It includes images of Eamonn de Valera at Glencolmcille, a rare stereoscopic photograph of the children at Terryone National School in Inishowen and many other fascinating slices of the county's life.
Tom Walsh’s Opera: A History of the Wexford Festival, 1951-2004 by Karina Daly
Hardback, 40.00 Euro / 47.00 USD / 32.00 UK; 228 pages, with full color photos throughout
‘My own favourite festival is Wexford … the town is small, as is the opera house ... the place is small enough to surround you with new friends all the time, if you were sociable. Food, drink and gossip are everywhere on tap at all times. Salzburg in the early 1920s must have been like this. It is how an opera festival should be’ William Mann, writing in the London Times. In 1951, the first ever Wexford Opera Festival (now known as ‘Wexford Festival Opera’) took place in a small town in the southeast corner of Ireland. What started out as an informal gathering of friends listening to gramophone music, developed into one of Europe’s leading classical music events. T.J. Walsh, a medical doctor by profession and an amateur musician, was the man whose novel idea it was to start an opera festival from such humble beginnings. This book traces the history of the Festival, from its establishment up to the present day.
Contents:
The most ambitious venture in years, 1951; An amateurish affair, 1953–1955; The burden of carrying it on, 1956–1959; On the musical map of the world, 1960–1963; Walsh and Wexford, Anthony and Cleopatra, bacon and eggs, 1964–1966; The professional amateurs, 1967–1973; Not so much a festival as a way of life, 1974–1985; Walsh’s final farewell, 1986–1988; We still believe in miracles at Wexford, 1989–2004
Carden of Barnane by Arthur Carden
Large Paperback; 40.00 Euro / 50.00 USD / 30.00 UK; 366 pages, with photos throughout [Add To Basket]
The book has 360 A4 pages and about 250 black-and-white illustrations. It is paperback with colour illustrations on the front and back covers. The proof of the front cover which is reproduced here shows the wonderful 1772 map of the estate which was found in a lawyer’s office in Dublin in 1995, together with over 100 important deeds which are listed and summarised in the book.
A prologue Barnane before the Cardens gives some background about Cromwell’s savage suppression in 1650 of the Irish Rebellion, and tells how Barnane was confiscated from the O’Meagher family which held the land from the earl of Ormond. Barnane was granted to an ‘adventurer’ and was leased in 1701 to Jonathan Carden, eldest son of John Carden of Templemore.
The origins of the Cardens of Tipperary are still obscure, but DNA evidence proves that without a doubt they are descended from the Carden/Cawarden family of Cheshire which existed in the thirteenth century. The Tipperary Cardens may have come via Lincolnshire, and appear to have lived for a while in County Carlow.
A biography is given of each of the seven Cardens who held Barnane in succession until the last died in 1932. Perhaps the most famous (or notorious) of these was John Rutter Carden (1811-1866), who evicted many of his tenants from the estate and was shot at on several occasions, earning the nickname “woodcock” because the bullets always missed him (though one of his stewards was murdered). Though he was a prominent and wealthy landlord and a Deputy Lieutenant of the county, he was convicted in 1854 of attempting to abduct a certain Miss Eleanor Arbuthnot, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. Of great interest are the 80 or more letters he wrote from gaol to his friend Lord Donoughmore, published here for the first time.
Other fascinating paragraphs cover the successive houses at Barnane, the family graveyard, the model farm, events which took place on the slopes of the Devil’s Bit which is a famous mountain forming part of the estate, the impact of the Fenians, United Irish League and other groups who challenged the Cardens, and much else besides.
The book also contains relevant extracts from the Tithe Applotments, Griffith’s, the 1901 census and other sources, and much else besides. There is a comprehensive series of indexes, of places, tenants and servants, Cardens, people with other surnames, etc.
In Green and Red: The Lives of Frank Ryan by Adrian Hoar
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK 300 pages [Add To Basket]
Socialist And republican Frank Ryan is best remembered for his leadership of Irishmen in the Spanish Civil War and his collusion with Nazi Germany against Britain. But his earlier life is equally revealing of the man and his times, thanks to his highly active role in both political agitation and the ideological debates that divided Ireland and shaped Europe between the wars. Born in County Limerick in 1902, he joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at the age of sixteen during the War of Independence and fought against the Treaty in 1922 until he was wounded and interned. He became a prominent member of the republican left, a fiery and inspirational orator, and editor of Art Phoblacht. A founder member of the Republican Congress, Ryan, a committed socialist, was a leading opponent of Eoin O'Duffy and the Blue Shirts. On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War he led the first contingent of Irish volunteers to support the Popular Front government. A brave and inspirational leader, he served with Italian and German Republican divisions, as well as with the Irish and Americans. He was badly wounded at Jarama in February 1937 and returned to Ireland to recuperate. On his return to Spain he was appointed adjutant to General Jose Miaja. He was captured during the Aragon offensive on 1 April 1938 and was held at the Miranda del Ebro detention camp. He was sentenced to death but after representations from Eamon de Valera his sentence was commuted to thirty years. In August 1940 Ryan was transferred to Nazi Germany, where he was reunited with IRA maverick Sean Russell. The two were sent to Ireland in a U-boat, but Russell died on the journey and Ryan returned to Germany where, as unofficial IRA ambassador, he acted in an advisory capacity for German intelligence. He died in a sanatorium near Dresden in July 1944.
The Lighthouses of Ireland: A Personal History by Richard Taylor
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 180 pages, with colour illustrations throughout [Add To Basket]
Lighthouses are associated with the Romantic, the mystical and the tragic. There are 86 lighthouses on or off the coast of Ireland, many barely accessible. Richard Taylor takes the reader on a tour around the Irish coast examining the lighthouses and their histories.
Inishmurray Island Voices by Joe McGowan
Trade Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 200 pages [Add To Basket]
The men and women of Inishmurry, Co. Sligo left their island home in 1948. The Great Blasket was evacuated five years later. The Blaskets had Tomas O Crohan and Maurice O’Sullivan to beat witness to a lost way of life. Here, Joe McGowan sets down the life and times of another ancient people. Inishmurray’s presence looms large beyond his native fields and in the tales told him by the last of the island residents. This book is the perfect companion for an understanding of its early Christian monuments, rivalled only by those on Sceilg Michael. Bit it is more than that. The book is a family ramble through a cherished place bringing life to an ancient monastery and a disappearing era.
Gregory Carr, Bookseller
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