Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 415
Seamus Heaney: A Bibliography, 1959-2003 by Rand Brandes and Michael J. Durkan
Hardback; Publishers Recommended Price: 75 Euro. Read Ireland Special Offer Price: 65 Euro / 85 USD / 42 UK; 500 pages
This is the first attempt at a comprehensive bibliography of the published work of the poet and critic, Seamus Heaney. Compiled in accordance with principles of modern bibliographical scholarship (and with the assistance of the poet), the aim of the editors has been to list everything that Seamus Heaney has published, poetry and prose, and to provide full details of the circumstances of publication for his major works, including first print-runs, reviews, previous appearances of individual items in periodicals and newspapers and other descriptive notes. Sections also include translations, recordings, broadcasts and interviews. Aside from its importance to bibliographers, the Bibliography will be essential for students of the textual history of Seamus Heaney's work.
The Maeve Binchy Writer’s Club by Maeve Binchy
Paperback; 13 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK; 160 pages [Add To Basket]
'The most important thing to realise is that everyone is capable of telling a story. It doesn't matter where we were born or how we grew up?' Maeve Binchy The Maeve Binchy Writers' Club gives a unique insight into how a No.1 bestselling author writes. Inspired by a course run by the National College of Ireland, it comprises 20 letters from Maeve, offering advice, tips and her own wonderfully witty take on the life of a writer, in addition to contributions from top writers, publishers and editors. Whether you want to write a saga or a thriller, comedy or journalism, or write for the radio or stage, this also gives advice on the best way to get started, and what editors, publishers and agents are looking for. The Maeve Binchy Writers' Club is a fascinating and informative guide to inspire all budding writers as well as entertaining Maeve Binchy fans the world over.
Modern Irish Poetry 1800-2000 by Justin Quinn
Large Format Paperback; 20 Euro / 30 USD / 15 UK; 242 pages
Over the last two centuries, Ireland has produced some of the world's most outstanding and best-loved poets, from Thomas Moore to W. B. Yeats to Seamus Heaney. This introduction not only provides an essential overview of the history and development of poetry in Ireland, but also offers new approaches to aspects of the field. Justin Quinn argues that the language issues of Irish poetry have been misconceived and re-examines the divide between Gaelic and Anglophone poetry. Quinn suggests an alternative to both nationalist and revisionist interpretations and fundamentally challenges existing ideas of Irish poetry. This lucid book offers a rich contextual background against which to read the individual works, and pays close attention to the major poems and poets. Readers and students of Irish poetry will learn much from Quinn's sharp and critically acute account.
Aran Islands and Connemara by J. M. Synge
Paperback; 13 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK; 224 pages [Add To Basket]
The reader's interest is sustained throughout this fascinating book as J.M. Synge shows us that 'one has to go a little way only to reach people and places that are typical of Connemara' and the Aran Islands. He paints a very moving picture of the reality of life in the west of Ireland. He admires the simplicity of the people's character, their skill in many and varied crafts and their readiness to face risks and danger without any show of bravado. We hear the call of the wild and our professors are the fishermen, mountainy men and the people of the bogs. Synge's sympathy and delight with whatever was traditional enriches every page of this book. As we visit the Aran Islands, Spiddal, Carraroe, Ballina, Belmullet and the inner lands of Mayo we frequently hear beautiful and striking phrases as we meet fiery peasants in their cottages.
The Atlas of the Island of Ireland: Mapping Social and Economic Change by Justin Gleeson et. al.
Oblong Hardback; 35 Euro / 50 USD / 25 UK; 132 pages, with full colour illustrations throughout
This book provides a set of full colour, detailed maps and cartograms for a range of variables across the whole island of Ireland and provides a fascinating insight into population, housing, transport and the economy across the island and how these have changed since 1991.
Saints of the Celtic Church by Martin Wallace
Gift hardback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 80 pages, with full colour illustrations throughout [Add To Basket]
With the collapse of the Roman Empire, it was the Celtic Church which kept the flames of Christianity burning. This gift book tells the story of those missionaries who, throughout the sixth and seventh centuries, travelled throughout Europe in their battle against paganisim. Most of the saints in this book belong to that golden age of the Celtic Church. Their stories can only be a mixture of fact and legend. Fact is certainly discernible in the stone remains of their buildings, less often in the fanciful biographies written centuries after their deaths. But who knows where truth ends and myth begins? The stories of Patrick of Ireland and Brendan the Navigator may be the best known, but those of Columba of Iona, David of Wales and Aidan of Lindisfarne are, amongst others, equally fascinating. Each has been beautifully illustrated by Ann MacDuff.
Angels in My Hair: The True Story of a Modern-Day Irish Mystic by Lorna Byrne
Large Format Paperback; 15 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 324 pages [Add To Basket]
Angels In My Hair is the autobiography of a modern day mystic, an Irish woman with powers of the saints of old. When she was a child, people thought Lorna was 'retarded' because she did not seem to be focussing on that was around her. Lorna remembers seeing not just the world around her but seeing, equally vividly, angels and spirits. For many years she assumed everyone saw the same. As Lorna tells the story of her life, growing up in a poor family, later working in Dublin, marrying and experiencing family tragedy, the reader meets, as she did, the creatures from the spirit worlds who also inhabit our own - mostly angels of an astonishing beauty and variety, including the prophet Elijah and an Archangel - but also the spirits of people who have died. Today, it is not only the sick and troubled who come to visit Lorna, looking for healing and consolation, but theologians of different faiths and the head of a religious order in Rome travel to see her for guidance and spriritual insight. This remarkable document is the testimony of a woman who sees things at the far end of the spectrum, beyond the range of our everyday experience.
David Trimble: The Price of Peace by Frank Millar
Large Format Paperback with Endflaps; 16 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 260 pages [Add To Basket]
David Trimble Reassessed...Through Ian Paisley's "Reinvention". In the first edition of his book "David Trimble: The Price of Peace", award winning journalist Frank Millar delivered a compelling profile and forensic interrogation in which a revelatory and self-critical Trimble explained how and why he gambled everything to help secure the Belfast Agreement. In this updated second edition Millar also examines Paisley's achievements in the subsequent St Andrews Agreement and explains how Trimble's story became a tale of two bitter adversaries who trod a strikingly similar path and would reach not dissimilar ends. Following Paisley's announcement of his May 2008 retirement date, Millar also sets out the challenges facing the emergent next generation of unionist leaders in Northern Ireland.
Eating Scenery: West Cork, The People and the Place by Alannah Hopkin
Large Format Paperback; 18 Euro / 24 USD / 12 UK; 250 pages [Add To Basket]
You can't eat scenery is an old saying about the difficulty of making a living in beautiful but remote places. West Cork, from Kinsale to the Beara Peninsula and from the Atlantic to the Lee Valley is such a place. No longer an impoverished, rural backwater, this is a popular holiday destination where second homes become main residences. It is remarkable for the many ways people make West Cork work for them: traditional farmers negotiating EU quotas; newcomers setting up restaurants; artists, writers and dot.com millionaires starting ventures to allow them to live where they want. Others work to enhance this unique landscape: from environmental activists on Cool Mountain to the hard-working Shelswell-Whites of Bantry House, wealthy castle restorers like Jeremy Irons and innovative farmers on Beara. Alannah Hopkin discovers a vibrant community of diverse people with compelling stories to tell.
An Emerald Odyssey: In Search of the Gods of Golf and Ireland by Paul J. Zingg
Hardback; 20 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; 192 pages, with black-and-white photos throughout [Add To Basket]
There are many ways to uncover the history and culture of Ireland. Paul J. Zingg was beckoned by the golf courses and finds them a magnificent blend of landscape, history, mythology and mystery. Coastal Ballybunion, Portmarnock and Royal County Down echo Ireland's isolation, and their severe, elemental nature can lead one to invoke heavenly assistance. Near Waterville Golf Links Staigue Fort speaks of early invaders and Penal times are recalled by the mass rock below the twelfth green. It was the Black Watch Regiment who brought golf to Lahinch in 1892, where the goats have acted as a barometer. The Killarney Golf and Fishing Club has the best combination of setting, history and natural history, where the tenth hole is called Heaven s Own Reflex. At Druid's Glen in Wicklow at the twelfth, among a grove of sacred oaks, are the remains of a druid altar. In contrast, Mount Juliet and The K Club represent what money can do to the land. Along the way he encounters the spirit of Eddie Hackett, first Irish golf architect, Christy O'Connor Sr, the caddie Chuckie O'Connell a lost ball is captured by the gods and Pat Ruddy, journalist and course designer. Kinsale's Old Head Links, where the main casualties are adjectives and golf balls, represents the new Irish economy and value system. This journey through Ireland's landscape and culture provides a fresh perspective on golf in Ireland and on Ireland.
The Untouchables: Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau and Its War on Organised Crime by Paul Williams
Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD 10 UK; 300 pages, with two 16-page black-and-white photo inserts [Add To Basket]
The Untouchables tells the extraordinary story of how CAB officers have travelled the world, tracking down the armed robbers, drug traffickers and brothel bosses, who could not be prosecuted in the criminal courts, and hitting them where it really hurts - in their pockets. It discloses the Bureau’s operations against, the Monk, the Cork and Limerick gangs, the Foot and Mouth monster, the former justice minister Ray Burke and top planning officer George Redmond, the respected professionals who aid and abet the criminals and the crime lords legal fight to close the CAB down. The Untouchables exposes the Criminal Assets Bureau’s incredible success story - in its war against some of the most dangerous criminals in the world.
Watching the Door: Cheating Death in 1970s Belfast by Kevin Myers
Paperback; 12 Euro / 16 USD / 8 UK; 274 pages [Add To Basket]
"Watching the Door" is the memoir of an ordinary young man who drifted into a war zone, made it his home and, somehow, emerged unscathed.After Kevin Myers graduated from university in 1969, a chance job application landed him a position as a journalist in Belfast, reporting on the Troubles. There, he was absorbed quickly into the local community. Soon he became privy to the secrets of Protestant and Catholic paramilitaries alike. In his darkly funny account of life on the streets, Myers evokes with searing clarity a society on the brink of civil war. His memoir is a remarkable portrait of those divisions, from the dedicated violence of loyalist gangs and provos to the behaviour of paratroopers, squaddies, Northern Ireland's police force and the wider population.Raw, candid and courageous, "Watching the Door" recalls the bloodiest time in Northern Ireland's recent past. It is a coming-of-age story like no other.
Keys to the Kingdom by Jack O’Connor
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 212 pages [Add To Basket]
When Jack O'Connor took over as Kerry football manager in 2004, he was a relative unknown. Three All-Ireland finals, and two titles, later, he stepped down, having established himself as one of the greats. "Keys to the Kingdom" is his vivid account of those three seasons in the most high-pressure job in Irish sport
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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