Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 430
New Irish History
The News from Ireland: Foreign Correspondents and the Irish Revolution by Maurice Walsh
Hardback; 26 Euro / 36 USD / 18 UK; 250 pages
The Anglo-Irish war of 1919-1921 was an international historical landmark: the first successful revolution against British rule and the beginning of the end of the Empire. But the Irish revolutionaries did not win their struggle on the battlefield their key victory was in mobilising public opinion in Britain and the rest of the world. Journalists and writers flocked to Ireland, where the increasingly brutal conflict was seen as the crucible for settling some of the key issues of the new world order emerging from the ruins of the First World War. On trial was the British Empire s claim to be the champion of civilisation as well as the principle of self-determination proclaimed by the American president Woodrow Wilson. The News from Ireland vividly explores the work of British and American correspondents in Ireland as well as other foreign journalists and literary figures. It offers a penetrating and persuasive assessment of the Irish revolution s place in a key moment of world history as well as the role of the press and journalism in the conflict. This important book will be essential reading for anyone interested in Irish history and how our understanding of history generally is shaped by the media.
Connemara: The Last Pool of Darkness by Tim Robinson
Hardback; Publishers Recommended Price 30 Euro. Read Ireland Special Price: 22 Euro / 30 USD / 15 UK; 373 pages [Add To Basket]
The first volume of Tim Robinson's Connemara trilogy, "Listening to the Wind" now available in paperback, covered Robinson's home territory of Roundstone and environs. "The Last Pool of Darkness" moves into wilder territory: the fjords, cliffs, hills and islands of north-west Connemara, a place that Wittgenstein, who lived on his own in a cottage there for a time, called 'the last pool of darkness in Europe'. Again, combining his polymathic knowledge of Connemara's natural history, human history, folklore and topography with his own unsurpassable artistry as a writer, Tim Robinson has produced another classic.
Knock: The Virgin’s Apparition in 19th Century Ireland by Eugene Hynes
Hardback; 49 Euro / 74 USD / 37 UK; 368 pages
In 1879 local people reported an apparition of the Virgin Mary and other supernatural personages at Knock, a poor rural village in western Ireland. In contrast to devotional or dismissive accounts, the author draws on both insiders' views and his training as a sociologist to show how the apparition was related to the local social context including economic, cultural, religious, political and historical dimensions.Drawing on new and neglected sources for evidence, Hynes pays particular attention to the individuals most directly involved including the seers, local clergy, Land League activists, various promoters, and others. The author looks through participants' eyes as much as possible. To understand what those eyes saw, this book examines the local scene for half a century before the apparition. His deep knowledge of the local context enables the author to develop understandings of key persons and events before and around the apparition. Using the Knock case, the author challenges usually accepted explanations of changes in nineteenth-century Irish Catholicism. This book is important for those interested in the links between official and local religion especially in Irish Catholicism, for students of apparitions generally, for anyone interested in bottom-up approaches to social and cultural history, and especially for students of nineteenth-century Ireland.
Great Irish Lives edited by Charles Lysaght
Hardback; Publishers Recommended Price: 20 Euro. Read Ireland Sale Price: 14 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 302 pages [Add To Basket]
For the first time, The Times brings together a unique collection of obituaries of Ireland's most distinguished individuals from the last two centuries. The Irish have richly contributed to the world stage most notably in literature and politics but also in art, dance, music, film, religion, science and sport. The obituaries featured in this collection include: Oscar Wilde James Joyce Lady Gregory Thomas Moore W.B.Yeats Samuel Beckett Charles Parnell Michael Collins Countess Markievicz Eamon de Valera George Best Maureen Potter Eamon Andrews Cyril Cusack The obituaries are reproduced substantially as they were printed at the time. Dubliner, Charles Lysaght, long-time contributor of Irish obituaries to The Times, has selected the subjects for inclusion in consultation with Ian Brunskill, the newspaper's obituaries editor.
Ireland and Irish America: Culture, Class and Transatlantic Migration by Kerby A. Miller
Large Format Paperback with Endflaps; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 410 pages
Between 1600 and 1929, perhaps seven million men and women left Ireland and crossed the Atlantic. Ireland and Irish America is concerned with Catholics and Protestants, rural and urban dwellers, men and women on both sides of that vast ocean. Drawing on over thirty years of research, in sources as disparate as emigrants' letters and demographic data, it recovers the experiences and opinions of emigrants as varied as the Rev. James McGregor, who in 1718 led the first major settlement of Presbyterians from Ulster to the New World, Mary Rush, a desperate refugee from the Great Famine in County Sligo, and Tom Brick, an Irish-speaking Kerryman on the American prairie in the early 1900s. Above all, Ireland and Irish America offers a trenchant analysis of mass migration's causes, its consequences, and its popular and political interpretations. In the process, it challenges the conventional 'two traditions' (Protestant versus Catholic) paradigm of Irish and Irish diasporan history, and it illuminates the hegemonic forces and relationships that governed the Irish and Irish-American worlds created and linked by transatlantic capitalism.
Decoding the IRA by Tom Mahon and James J. Gilroy
Trade Paperback; 17 Euro / 24 USD / 12 UK; 350 pages [Add To Basket]
Newly decoded secret documents reveal the mindset of the IRA between 1920 and 1960.Historian, Thomas Mahon, with the aid of cryptologist and code breaker, Jim Gillogly, has spent the past few years breaking the IRA's secret communications code, used to pass messages back and forth between Ireland and America from the 1920s until the 1960s - the results are explosive.From discussions about mundane matters to considerations of deals with the USSR and China, the IRA letters delve into just about every matter conceivable for a paramilitary organisation. Some of the ideas are mundane discussions about money and the likelihood of infiltration but others, like the proposal to source gas for use in Ireland, are a dangerous and unnerving insight into how the organisation saw itself and conducted its business in secrecy.With the eye of a historian and the tools of a professional code breaker, Thomas and Jim have together created a wonderful and engrossing read.
We Declare: Landmark Documents in Ireland’s History by Richard Aldous
Hardback; Recommended Price: 25 Euro. Special Read Ireland Sale Price: 20 Euro / 30 USD / 15 UK; 220 pages, with black-and-white photos throughout [Add To Basket]
"Great Irish Documents" presents the most momentous and stirring documents in the history of Ireland. From St Patrick's confession, via the harrowing reports of the Famine Relief Commission, the dramatic Proclamation of the Republic and the controversial 1921 Anglo-Irish treaty, to the road to peace and the Good Friday agreement, here is a unique overview of over 1500 years of Irish history. The transcript of each document is preceded by an introduction, written by Professor Richard Aldous, that places the text in its historical context and explains its significance, as well as by iconic images of the documents and their creators. Presented chronologically, this anthology provides a remarkable insight into the story of Ireland.
In the Wake of the Great Rebellion: Republicanism, Agrarianism and Banditry in Ireland After 1798 by James G. Patterson
Hardback; 70 Euro / 100 USD / 50 UK; 202 pages [Add To Basket]
On Monday 19 September 1803, the most significant trial in the history of Ireland took place in Dublin. No legal precedent was set, nor was the question of guilt or innocence ever really in doubt. At the dock stood a twenty-five year old former Trinity College student and doctor's son. His name was Robert Emmet and he was standing trial for heading a rebellion on 23 July 1803. The iconic power of Robert Emmet in Irish history cannot be overstated. However, while Emmet looms large in republican narratives of the past, the rebellion, which he led, remains to be fully contextualized. Patterson's book repairs this omission and explains the complex process of radical politicization and revolutionary activity extending from 1791 through 1803 and beyond. He details the radicalisation of the grass roots, their para-militarism, and engagement in secret societies. This book draws on an expansive and intriguing range of sources, including the Rebellion Papers of the Irish National Archive, the correspondence of government officials, military officers, informers, and the gentry, as well as sizable Home Office Papers and secret communications between the Irish executive in Dublin Castle and their counterparts in Whitehall. Patterson offers a comprehensive insight into a relatively neglected period of Irish history. This work is of particular significance to undergraduate and post-graduate students and lecturers of Irish history. Those in the general public with an interest in Irish history will also find this study useful.
The Road to the Somme: Men of the Ulster Division Tell Their Story by Philip Orr
Trade Paperback; 20 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; 340 pages, with black-and-white photographs throughout [Add To Basket]
When the Ulster Division left Picardy after the Battle of the Somme in July 1911, they had lost over two thousand men, and more than three thousand had suffered injuries. Their tragic story, and great bravery, has since become iconic in Ulster Protestant tradition and mythology. This new updated edition of Philip Orr's definitive book traces the events that led up to the Somme - from the birth of the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1912 to the division's formation, training and journey to France - to the battle itself, and its aftermath, when local newspapers were filled with the long lists of victims and the Twelfth parades were replaced by a five-minute silence across Ulster at noon. Based on Philip Orr's interviews with Somme veterans, this is the soldiers' story, told in their eloquent voices, exposing the reality of that bloody summer and its devastating and far-reaching impact on a close-knit community.
Shadows of Doubt by Noel Redican
Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 222 pages [Add To Basket]
Ireland in 1928 was a place of conflicted loyalty, changing politics and intense subterfuge. When Civic Guard Sean Harling shot dead Timothy Coughlan, a known IRA member, in mysterious circumstances his former friends in the Republican movement cried foul. Cleared of wrong doing by the investigation and subsequent inquest, he was still forced to give up his job and to flee the country.During the war of independence Sean had worked closely with the government of the first Dail including Eamon De Valera. It was only during the Civil War, with few financial options to hand, that Sean joined the Free State police force as an intelligence officer. There are suggestions however, that Harling's role was as a double agent, one so secret even his former friends thought of him as a turncoat.Though he eventually returned to Ireland, his family suffered from years of rumour and suspicion. In the 1930s with Fianna Fail in power following the 1932 election, Harling waged a campaign to have his War of Independence efforts acknowledged and his work rewarded by a pension as with many of his former colleagues, but the legacy of the Coughlan killing frustrated his efforts.
Maynooth Studies in Local History Series:
Tallaght, 1835-50: A Rural Place by Sean Bagnall
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; [Add To Basket]
Tallaght has undergone dramatic change in the past forty years. Immense changes to the physical landscape in that time make very difficult any attempt to visualise the rural character and culture of the place when it was a farming parish outside the urban area of Dublin. A look at its population over an extended period illustrates this. In 1821 the population of the civil parish of Tallaght was 4,348. It grew to 4,921 in 1841. But one hundred and ten years later in 1951 it was still just 4,470 persons and rose to 4,565 persons in 1961. This was a long period of relatively little change.The development of Tallaght started in about 1969. This book sets out to give an idea of the totally rural character of Tallaght in the 1830s. It draws on various sources to give first-hand descriptions of the lives of the people, the extent of poverty, the probable livelihoods, the housing conditions, the health service available, church attendance and education. It describes a rural area little influenced by the adjoining city and with many of the socioeconomic characteristics of provincial Ireland. But it also describes an area that was saved from some of the worst effects of the Famine by the proximity of Dublin and the availability of work and support from the city.
Print Culture in Loughrea, 1850-1900: Reading, Writing and Printing in an Irish Provincial Town by Bernadette Lally
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK [Add To Basket]
This study examines the demand for and supply of print in Loughrea in the second half of the nineteenth century. Literacy levels grew steadily throughout the period and print became an integral part of business and social life. But what were people reading? This study looks at the access to reading facilities provided by reading rooms and the books available through the education system. Loughrea had a printing tradition going back to the middle of the eighteenth century and was unique in the later nineteenth century in having the only literary and local affairs journal published in the west of Ireland."The Loughrea Illustrated Journal" was published between 1857 and 1884. The bulk of the content was literary extracts from external sources but it also contained local literary works, news and comment and advertisements from local businesses. It provides a unique insight into the town throughout its long publication run. The journal was published by Thomas Kelly and later by Michel S. Kelly, the family printing and publishing business that supplied much of the printed material for Loughrea during this period and well into the twentieth century.
The Fishery of Arklow, 1800-1950 by Jim Rees
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK [Add To Basket]
Surprisingly few Irish coastal communities have looked to the sea for their economic well-being. Arklow, Co. Wicklow was one of those exceptions. In 1836 it was listed as one of only six ports whose fishermen were constantly engaged in fishing, that is having no other means of livelihood. These men and their families, whom the local rector described as 'a race distinct', occupied an area which was known as 'The Fishery'. It is not an official place-name, and now it is heard less and less with each passing year. But just what was The Fishery? Where was it? How did it come into being and what brought about its demise? This study investigates the 150-year lifespan of this town-within-a-town. It not only looks at the community's economic resources, but also examines how their work patterns, uncertain finances and the dangers they faced in following their profession coloured their general approach to life, such as their attitude to secular and religious authority. Finally, it explores the vital role of the remarkably independent women in the survival - and paradoxically the demise - of this once vibrant community.
The Diocese of Lismore, 1801-69 by RB MacCarthy
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; [Add To Basket]
The diocese of Lismore covers not only most of Co. Waterford, but also a substantial part of Co. Tipperary - (e.g. Cahir & Clonmel), in fact the area of the ancient territory of the Deise. This short book covers the diocese in the last phase of the establishment - from the union to disestablishment; it gives a snapshot of all that W.E. Gladstone thought was wrong with the Church of Ireland and also shows the efforts which the established church made to cope with the rising tide of resurgent Roman Catholicism. The study summarizes the small number of mostly town located churches with which the church entered the 19th century and goes on to describe and explain the wave of rural church building which was such a feature of the 19th century history of the establishment. There are chapters on the bishops and the clergy; both nepotism and non-residence are fully explored, while the administrative history of the cathedral is the subject of another chapter.Although the architecture of the churches is referred to, this is primarily an administrative history which aims to show how the Church of Ireland operated on the ground in a not un-typical area of southern Ireland.
The Downfall of Hagan: Sligo Ribbonism in 1842 by Jennifer Kelly
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; [Add To Basket]
This study looks at the Ribbon secret society in Sligo town and county in the early nineteenth century. Comprising well over 3,000 members throughout the county by the early 1840s, the Ribbon society maintained an intricate web of social and economic networks among the lower trading and labouring strata of Co. Sligo and the surrounding counties of Leitrim, Longford and Roscommon. With a lodge present in almost every parish in the county by 1842, the Ribbon society also provided important social benefits for some of its members, helping to maintain a social pecking order among men of the lower ranks of society.The arrest of James Hagan, one of the most powerful Ribbonmen in Sligo, and his subsequent decision to turn informer against his Ribbon comrades, not only led to the exposure of the society in Sligo, but also resulted in the arrests and transportation of men throughout Connaught and Ulster and as far afield as Glasgow and Liverpool. "The Downfall of Hagan in Sligo in 1842" provides a rare insight into the nature and extent of Ribbonism in early nineteenth century Ireland at a local, regional and national level.
The Murder of Major Mahon, Strokestown, County Roscommon, 1847 by Padraig Vesey
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK [Add To Basket]
On 2 November 1847, Major Denis Mahon was murdered by an assassin near his home at Strokestown House. The murder sent shock waves through Ireland. Some saw it as part of a Catholic plot to execute Protestant landlords that would soon spread out of Roscommon into other parts of Ireland. Others saw it as revenge on a rapicious evicting landowner. This short book penetrates Mahon's dilemma of trying to recover a bankrupt estate in a grossly overpopulated part of pre-Famine Ireland. Together with his agent he implemented a reform programme that created tensions among his tenants and these problems were exacerbated by personal disagreements with the local parish priest. The result was a series of events that changed not only the world of Roscommon forever but had repercussions to the Vatican and beyond.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
Gregory Carr, Independent Bookseller
Read Ireland
392 Clontarf Road
Dublin 3
Ireland
Tel + Fax: +353-1-853-2063
Customer Services Comments, Criticism and Questions
Subscribe to Read Ireland Book News - Our Free Weekly Email Newsletter