Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 425
New Irish History
The Civil War in Kerry by Tom Doyle
Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 350 pages
Kerry was the scene of some of the bloodiest and most protracted fighting during the civil war. When Free State troops landed dramatically by sea, taking the anti-treaty forces by surprise, the initial fighting was intense. Soon resistance by large groups became rare and the sides settled into a prolonged period of guerrilla conflict.The Civil War in Kerry builds an insightful picture of the conflict and its principle participants. Looking at both sides and their motivations, their challenges and also their similarities, it draws a complete picture of the county during this troubled period.By following events to the general election in 1923 when a degree of normality returned, it also shines a light on how the noncombatants of Kerry judged the conflict and how the war shaped the future of politics in the county for decades to come.
The Battle of Tourmakeady: A Study of the IRA Ambush and Its Aftermath by Donal Buckley
Hardback; 20 Euro / 29 USD / 14 UK; 144 pages [Add To Basket]
On 3 May 1921, the IRA's South Mayo Brigade Flying Column, commanded by Commandant Tom Maguire, ambushed an RIC/Black and Tan resupply patrol in the village of Tourmakeady, in order to destroy the patrol and to cause the closure of Derrypark RIC Barracks, seven miles to the south. Following the ambush the Flying Column took to the nearby Party Mountain and was subsequently engaged by British troops from the Border Regiment. The IRA commander said that the Flying Column was surrounded by up to 600 troops and that they fought their way out, inflicting up to 50 casualties and suffering 3.A Border Regiment Company Commander says that he shot the three IRA casualties and that he was the only British soldier wounded in the encounter. Was this a major success for the South Mayo Brigade IRA as is now generally accepted? Was it a minor action for a platoon from 'C' Company, 2 Battalion, The Border Regiment? What really happened? This book studies the available evidence in detail and for the first time puts into place the actual sequence of events surrounding the ambush and the Battle of Tourmakeady.
IRA Internments and the Irish Government: Subversives and the State, 1939-1962 by John Maguire
Large Format Trade Paperback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 274 pages
This book examines a neglected period in the history of the IRA and looks at the acceptability and success of internment as an expedient in the Irish government's ongoing struggle with republican subversive organisations during both the Second World War and the border campaign. The book looks at the reasons for the subsequent drift away from the use of this measure, despite its previous successes in containing the IRA threat to the Irish State. It draws extensively on previously unavailable primary source material in various archives in both Ireland and Britain. The oral testimony of many surviving contemporaries is supplemented by an in-depth examination of the files of the Irish government, thereby presenting a detailed political assessment of the events under consideration.In addition, the voluminous records relating to the Lawless Case held in the Attorney General's Office have been particularly valuable in documenting, for the first time, the unprecedented domestic legal proceedings in this landmark action.
The book considers the overall impact of the Lawless Case in influencing the future direction of Irish counter-insurgency policy and the subsequent drift away from the use of internment as an acceptable expedient in the State's ongoing struggle with subversives.
Divine Right?: The Parnell Split in Meath by David Lawlor
Large Format Trade Paperback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 266 pages [Add To Basket]
This unique account of the dramatic events of the Parnell split in Meath challenges the accepted view that Irish priests could lead their people only in the political direction that they wished to go. Meath people were devoted to Charles Stewart Parnell, who had entered Westminster as their MP in 1875. The loyalty of many of them was unaffected by the divorce court revelation in 1890 of his adultery with Katharine O'Shea, which caused the split that continued even after his death in 1891. However, Bishop Thomas Nulty preached that no Parnellite voter could 'continue a Catholic' but then claimed election results as political victories. David Lawlor's research shows how Dr Nulty broke the power of local Parnellites over their refusal to vote for a nun as matron of Navan workhouse. The bishop then nominated Michael Davitt, founder of the Land League, to unseat North Meath's Parnellite MP, Pierce Mahony (who is commemorated in the name of Navan's GAA club).While the Parnellites successfully petitioned the courts to have Davitt's election - and that of Patrick Fulham, his colleague in South Meath - annulled because of 'undue clerical influence', new anti-Parnellite candidates narrowly won the ensuing by-elections. However, clerical interference in Meath politics provided damaging evidence of 'Rome rule' to Tories and Unionists opposing Gladstone's second Home Rule bill, which was lost in the Lords in 1893.
A Nation of Extremes: The Pioneers in Twentieth-Century Ireland by Diarmaid Ferriter
Large Format Trade Paperback; 23 Euro / 30 USD / 15 UK; 290 pages
This book explores the extraordinary relationship the Irish have with alcohol from the point of view of the group who were intent on reducing alcohol consumption through membership in the Pioneer Total Abstinence of the Sacred Heart. The Pioneers was formed in 1898, by the mid 1950s the association was to claim a membership of nearly half a million, identifiable by the wearing of a pin, the outward expression of an internal and deeply personal piety. It was a startling figure for such a small country but the stereotype of the Irish as a nation of heavy drinkers continued unabated, aided by vast expenditure on alcohol. As the century progressed two diametrically opposed cultures - abstinence and heavy drinking - were lying alongside each other. Ferriter makes use of previously unpublished sources, examines the Irish temperance movement in the context of Irish society as a whole and attempts to tease out some of the intricacies and ambiguities associated with these two cultures.Although the leaders of this temperance crusade insisted that it was primarily a religious movement, given the pervasiveness of the Irish drink culture it was inevitable that in their desire to transform attitudes they would have to involve themselves in the wider, and more material debates about the role of drink in Irish society.
The fact that the movement was founded at a time of intense cultural nationalism gave these debates an added potency, particularly as it had often been contended that increased sobriety was essential for any self-respecting self-governing nation. After Independence, the quest for sobriety and an initially robust Catholic crusade ultimately led to confrontation and confusion.
The Civil Service and the Revolution in Ireland, 1912-1938 by Martin Maguire
Hardback; 70 Euro / 100 USD / 50 UK; 260 pages [Add To Basket]
The training of the civil service is intended to produce an unquestioning loyalty to the State. What happens when that State is subject to revolutionary struggle and a new regime comes to power? Invited to shake the 'blood-stained hands' of the revolutionary leadership and to serve the new State, how does the civil service respond? This book is a history of the Irish civil service and its response to revolutionary changes in the State. Beginning with the introduction of the third Home Rule bill in 1912, it examines the response of the civil service to the threat of partition, World War, the emergence of the revolutionary forces of Dail Eireann and the IRA through to the Civil War and the Irish Free State.Questioning the orthodox interpretation of evolution rather than revolution in the administration of the State, it throws new light on civil service organization in British-ruled Ireland, the process whereby Northern Ireland came into existence, the Dail Eireann administration in the War of Independence, and civil service attitudes to the new Irish Free State under Collins, Cosgrave and de Valera.
Based on a wide range of new sources in Britain and in Ireland, the book is of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of Irish, Imperial and Commonwealth history and of post-colonial, governance and political studies as well as a reader with an interest in the role of the State in the process of decolonisation in the 20th century.
Oxford Guide to Literary Britain and Ireland edited by Daniel Hahn and Nicholas Robins
Large Format Hardback; 45 Euro / 60 USD / 30 UK; 370 pages, with full colour photos throughout [Add To Basket]
First published in 1977, this classic reference work is a gazetteer of almost 2,000 places - villages, towns, cities, and landscapes - in Britain and Ireland detailing their connections with the lives of famous writers. It invites the reader to explore the places where their favourite writers - from Jane Austen to Philip Pullman - were born, lived, were educated, worked, and drew inspiration. The entries elegantly interweave information with anecdote and quotation, to build a vivid picture of the day-to-day lives of the writers. The Guide is the ideal resource and companion for any literay pilgrimage in Britain or Ireland, and for the armchair literary traveller. New to this edition are special feature entries on writers particularly associated with places, including the Brontes, Walter Scott, and James Joyce, contributed by high-profile authors including Margaret Drabble and John Sutherland. The Guide also provides an index of author names, with mini biographies, enabling the reader to track down all the places associated with their favourite writers. It is stunningly illustrated throughout, with colour plates, contemporary black-and white photographs, and beautifully illustrated maps of major literary cities such as Bath, Edinburgh, Dublin, and London, and boasts a fresh new design.
Troubled Waters: Shipwrecks and Heartache on the Irish Sea by Patrick Ferguson
Large Format Trade Paperback; 17 Euro / 24 USD / 12 UK; 156 pages, with black-and-white photos throughout [Add To Basket]
Few, today, are aware of the untold horrors that have occurred along the Irish coastline, from Carlingford Lough to the Tuskar Rock. The first of its kind, the stories in this book are accompanied by photographs and images of the ships to help visualise the scale of the disasters. Pat Ferguson recounts the days before sea-faring technology, when ruthless ship owners sacrificed their men in the pursuit of profit. This unique work recounts the many untimely deaths which have occurred under the unrelenting force of the sea. Never before has there been a catalogue of such accounts of bravery and misadventure on the Irish Sea. The numerous fearsome tales which span over a hundred years provide detailed accounts of the fates of the RMS Leinster and the Seahorse whilst also referring to Lambay Island and the disasters at Tuskar Rock. "Troubled Waters" provides detailed recounts of the dangerous associated with the Irish coast. It includes a foreword by Eamon Gilmour TD, Labour Party Leader.
The History of the Galway Races by Francis P.M. Hyland
Hardback; 40 Euro / 60 USD / 30 UK; 445 pages, with full colour photographs [Add To Basket]
Revived at Ballybrit, about three miles from Galway city, in 1869, the Galway Races has grown from a small country meeting into the fourth largest horse racing festival in the World. Its feature races, the Galway Steeplechase Plate and the Galway Hurdle, have a rich history and owners, trainers and jockeys love to have winners at Galway, where in those brief few minutes after the victory they all enjoy 'one crowded hour of glorious life'.This book contains an account of the origin and development of the Galway Races and people and horses that were part of this amazing story. Fred Cullen's feat of training all five winners on the card, the first English-trained winner at the meeting in 1904, the panic in Galway when the Government announced the centralisation of racing during the Great War and the U-turn that followed when it was realised that the economy of the city depended on the races. The great Galway trainers, including Harry Ussher, Maxie Arnott, Dermot Weld and Noel Meade, the leading owners, Charles Blake, Pansy Croft, Michael Smurfit, and the famous riders, including Gary Moore, Tommy Beasley, Joe Canty, and Michael Kinane all feature in this book.Events are also covered, like the winner of the Galway Hurdle that was disqualified because the owner did not pay the entry fee; the angry weather that caused the abandonment of the old Tuam programme when run at Galway for the first time and the changing face of Ireland in the early sixties, which caught out the Race Committee.
On tSeanam Anall: Scealta Mhici Bhain Ui Bheirn by Micheal Mac Giolla Esabuic
Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 228 pages [Add To Basket]
"On tSeanam Anall - Scealta Mhici Bhain Ui Bheirn" is a collection of folklore stories from Co. Donegal in the northwest of Ireland. The stories were collected from the storyteller Mici Ban O Beirn, a fiddler, poet and storyteller from Cill Charthaigh in Donegal, by local school mistress Brid Ni Bheirn in the year 1930. Realising that the culture of storytelling was in decline, and that the Irish language was also threatened, Brid set about documenting the rich stories of Mici Ban for future generations to enjoy. They have now been presented to the public in this book containing 25 folklore stories as well as some other materials collected from the storyteller. The book is in Irish.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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