Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 433
Irish Fiction
25 November 2008
Memoir of Andrew J. Byrne: Veteran of the American Civil War by Seamus Condon
Hardback; 20 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; 240 pages with two 8-page full colour photo inserts
In 1898, twenty years after he returned to Ireland for the last time, Andrew J. Byrne started writing his memoirs. Published for the first time, these memoirs tell the tale of an extraordinary Irish life and provide a unique contemporary record of pivotal moments in Irish, British and American history. In the author's own words he tells of how he crossed the Atlantic Ocean eight times and accumulated ten years of broken military service in Uncle Sam's army. Wounded twice, imprisoned twice, married twice, twice an enlisted private (Uncle Sam's army and john Bull's militia) Andrew J. Byrne was also a member of the Fenian Brotherhood and worked in the building trade as a bricklayer in Ireland, England and the USA. Contains maps, 5 poems and full colour reproductions of 60 watercolour paintings.
Brian Cowan: The Path to Power by Jason O’Toole
Trade Paperback; 14 Euro / 21 USD / 10 UK; 265 pages with an 8-page full colour photo insert [Add To Basket]
Meet Ireland's new Taoiseach, Brian Cowen. Despite a high profile at the center of Irish political life for more than twenty years, relatively little is known about our new leader. Just who is Brian Cowen? The story begins in the village of Clara, Co. Offaly, where family, local life and the GAA were formative influences. The sudden and unexpected death of his father, Ber Cowen, Fianna Fail TD for Laois Offaly, thrust a twenty-four year-old Cowen into the heart of Irish politics.After an eight-year apprenticeship on the back benches, Cowen was appointed to his first ministerial position by Albert Reynolds and later went on to hold the senior cabinet positions of Health, Foreign Affairs and Finance. By the time of Bertie Ahern's resignation, Cowen's standing in the party was such that his election to the leadership of Fianna Fail seemed inevitable. On 7 May 2008, Brian Cowen became Ireland's eleventh Taoiseach. Here, for the first time, is a portrait of Brian Cowen which follows his remarkable life story, tracing the road to power from early childhood right up to his eventful early months in the office of An Taoiseach.
A Memoir by Tim Pat Coogan
Hardback; Publishers Recommended Price: 28 Euro. Read Ireland Special Price: 20 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; 350 pages with two 8-page photo inserts
Born into a middle-class family in 1930s Dublin, Tim Pat Coogan grew up against a background of highly charged political activity in Ireland. He went on to play a vital role in bringing the IRA/Sinn Fein to the peace talks table, and has always been uniquely placed to comment authoritatively on all aspects of Irish current affairs - as well as providing an understanding of the 'hidden Ireland' of the IRA. Both a bestselling biographer and a legendary journalist, Tim Pat Coogan has long created controversy with his forthright comments. Through the Irish Press, of which he was editor for twenty years, he is renowned for bringing about social and political change to Ireland. His memoir is long-awaited and reveals both the public and private lives of one of Ireland's most influential journalists.
A Restless Life by Leland Bardwell
Large Format Trade Paperback; 18 Euro / 26 USD / 13 UK; 282 pages with a 16-page black-and-white photo insert [Add To Basket]
A Restless Life is a poignant and candid memoir by the poet, novelist and playwright, Leland Bardwell, who tells of her life growing up in Ireland in the forties, her literary life and associates in London of the fifties and her subsequent return to Dublin in the sixties. An Irish Protestant child, Leland, was born in India, her family returns to Ireland when she is five years old, settling ultimately in Leixlip, in County Kildare. She is the youngest of the three children, having an elder sister, Paloma and brother Noll. Although she is an energetic and inventive child she suffers from a desperate shyness which prohibits her from practically any emotional contact with the adult world, consequently she is ignored and positively disliked by her mother, who finds her ugly and unattractive. She and her sister learn their lessons from an impoverished cousin who lives with them while she is studying for her own degree in Trinity - their brother is sent to a boarding school. Leland spends all her free time roaming the fields with her dogs, singing songs, composing poems and later, smoking Woodbines bought with pennies stolen from her fathers pockets. When her older sister Paloma is sent to school Leland is farmed out to a local family to share their daughters governess. She is a smart pupil, who loves to write but constantly misbehaves and gets sent home in disgrace. This itinerant lifestyle becomes the template for her future existence. After a few years in school and a series of jobs very often with horses, as by then she is an expert rider she has a hopeless love affair with an older cousin, who goes off to England leaving her in an emotional wilderness. She gets pregnant with an unknown man and runs away, hiding her pregnancy from her father, gets a job in England at an aircraft factory in Birmingham. It is the last terrible year of the Second World War a derelict and worn out time, and using all her energy and strength in her lonely isolation she manages to have the baby adopted and goes to London to seek a new life. With her natural intelligence, her self education through libraries and her obsession with writing this compelling memoir charts her scattered life via Kilquhanity Free School with drop-outs from the terrible war in Scotland, marriage, children, Paris in Orwellian poverty, back to London, Bohemian Soho, and finally home to Ireland and a flat in Dublin, myriad relationships and more children. It is an odyssey of bedlam, heartbreak, struggle, financial difficulty yet great camaraderie, with literary folks, such as Patrick Kavanagh, John Jordan, and many young and upcoming poets of the time. Around this solitary woman is a fascinating interweaving of different communities writers, poets and painters in Soho as well as her own parents relationship amplified with her father s letters to her mother writing from the trenches in the First World War Made all the more interesting by her Protestant Irish background and the difficulties it imposed on her in the new Catholic Free State.
Taking a Stand: Memoirs of an Irish Priest by Joe McVeigh
Trade Paperback; 20 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; 290 pages, with an 8-page black-and-white photo insert [Add To Basket]
'I suppose one of the big lessons I learned in my life as a Catholic is that Christianity is a reminder that you cannot sit on the fence - that is, if you care about the way your sisters and brothers are treated and if you care about what is happening to the planet earth. 'Moving from his childhood in 1940s Fermanagh, through his experiences as a defender and upholder of civil rights in Northern Ireland, Joe McVeigh takes the reader on a journey through his eventful life. For McVeigh, Christian faith involved not just going to Mass and doing charitable works but also required a sensitivity towards those who were marginalised and felt excluded. Joe McVeigh's politics and theology had been influenced, not just by the Second Vatican Council and his studies in Maynooth but mainly, by his early life experiences growing up in Fermanagh. This book, by a priest who has challenged both civil and clerical authority, is a memoir of years of violence and bloodshed, sadness, sorrow and also of hope. Honest and open, it gives an insider's account of some of the most difficult years in our recent history.
Would the Real Gerry Ryan Please Stand Up by Gerry Ryan
Large Format Paperback; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 258 pages [Add To Basket]
A manifesto of sorts from Gerry Ryan - one of Ireland's best, best-known and most popular broadcasters. Gerry Ryan on life, the world, the universe - and a few things besides. Here are his experiences, stories and opinions drawn from nearly thirty years of talking to the nation. It's a sharp, punchy read all told in his no-nonsense, irreverent, straight to the bone style. It's the best, the worst, the funniest, the most outrageous. And threaded through it's the story of coming of age as a broadcaster at the same time as Ireland became a truly modern country. A smart, sassy and wildly entertaining read.
Joe Dolan: The Official Biography by Ronan Casey
Hardback; 22 Euro / 30 USD / 15 UK; 350 pages with two 16-page full colour photo inserts [Add To Basket]
Growing up in poor circumstances in the midlands town of Mullingar might seem an unlikely start for a musical superstar, but that's exactly the journey Joe Dolan travelled in his amazing life. Not only that, Joe never forgot his roots and loved Mullingar to the day he died. From losing his father at a tragically young age, to his bold decision while still a teenager to throw in a good job and pursue his dream of playing music for a living, to early stardom with The Drifters and conquering the USSR, to his later re-emergence for a new generation of fans as the iconic Man in the White Suit - the amazing, mad, bad and funny stories behind the legendary career will be told for the first time. It is a colourful, life-affirming, revealing and hugely entertaining biography that is a fitting tribute to such a beloved performer.
Clannad: Moments in a Lifetime by Barbara Bennett
Large Paperback; 25 Euro / 36 USD / 18 UK; 96 pages, full colour and black-and-white photographs throughout [Add To Basket]
It is often wisely quoted that to truly understand the present one needs to reflect on the past. 'Clannad - Moments in a Lifetime' does just that, and traces the story of an international musical phenomenon. The author explores the traditional heritage and subsequent career of the international award-winning musical group Clannad. On this journey we will see the family ascend from their Tory Island roots through the rolling Donegal countryside to the majesty of the world stage. These are moments from the lifetime of a versatile clan as they appear on television screens, major motion pictures and ultimately the Grammy podium. As the story of Clannad unfolds through photographs and history it becomes evident why they are Ireland's most successful international ambassadors of the Gaelic language.
Sister Kate: Nursing Through the Troubles by Kate O’Hanlon
Trade Paperback; 12 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK; 150 pages, with black-and-white photos [Add To Basket]
'Running Casualty is really very simple: you have to love everybody, you have to listen to everybody; and when in doubt you do just what Sister O'Hanlon tells you' - Mr William Rutherford, A & E Consultant. When Kate O'Hanlon started work at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, the people brought in to the A & E department were suffering from medical emergencies or were victims of road traffic accidents and Saturday night scuffles. So when the telephone rang on 26 June, 1966 with the news that there had been a shooting in Malvern Street, no one in the department believed it. Soon such incidents became daily occurrences and the Royal went on to treat more victims of the Troubles than any other hospital. Kate spent sixteen years as sister in charge of A & E, working through many of the darkest days of the Troubles. Told with her trademark blend of warmth, compassion and humour, this is her fascinating and extraordinary story of nursing on the front line.
An Ordinary Soldier by Doug Beattie
Trade Paperback; 14 Euro / 21 USD / 10 UK; 316 pages [Add To Basket]
On 11th September 2006 - exactly five years after the attacks on the Twin Towers - a modern day Rorke's Drift was played out in the town of Garmsir, known as the Taliban gateway to Helmand Province. 40-year-old Capt. Doug Beattie of the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment was charged with the mission to help retake Garmsir from the Taliban. His commanders said it would take two days; it actually took two weeks of exhausting, bloody conflict in which at times he would be one of only three men up against a ferocious enemy in impossible conditions. His wife thought he had taken a desk job - instead he was leading from the front, fighting for his life, trying to stand firm against an overwhelming onslaught. For his repeated bravery Doug Beattie was decorated with the Military Cross. This thrilling, modern war story is alternately shocking, thoughtful, even humorous, but always unflinchingly candid. Beattie never shrinks from portraying the horrors of war and his role in them, but the maturity of voice and heartfelt honesty sets this book apart from other military memoirs.A N ORDINARY SOLDIER offers an extraordinary insight into the mission in Afghanistan and, crucially, the relationship between British troops and the Afghans they serve alongside. Above all, it's Beattie's personal story of being what he modestly calls 'an ordinary soldier' - someone who balances being a loving father and husband with that of fighting in the world's most hostile place. It demands to be read.
Living Off the Land: Women Farmers of Today in Ireland by Josephine Russell
Trade Paperback; 17 Euro / 24 USD / 12 UK; 210 pages, with endflaps [Add To Basket]
Based on extensive interviews with twelve varied and representative women farmers in County Kerry, Josephine Russell s text provides a unique insight into farming women of all ages and types: dairy, sheep, organic from the four corners and the three peninsulas of Kerry. Some remember the old life of physical work; others are as familiar with the computer as the animals. All the stories are engaging and entertaining. Lily Lenihan, an emerging Kerry photographer, has photographed each woman in black and white, lingering on interesting features and adding to the insight of the text.
Condemned: Letters from Death Row by Ray and Sean O Riain
Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 224 pages [Add To Basket]
Ray has been convicted of killing a man, a crime he committed as a young man and that freely admits and regrets. For Ray his sentence is death and what he seeks is not a pardon or pity or freedom. Simply he hopes that his sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment without parole. For most of us to hope for something so bleak seems unimaginable but for Ray this is the focus of his appeals. Seán Ó Riain has been writing to Ray for two years or more and, while Seán s careful letters are featured somewhat, it is the simple and heartfelt descriptions of life on death row by Ray that form the bulk of the book s content. From 2000 to spring 2008 over 500 people have been executed in the 36 states that still have the death penalty in the US.
No Job for a Woman by Sandra Mara
Trade Paperback; 14 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 330 pages [Add To Basket]
Ireland's first ever female private investigator lifts the lid on the secret life of the nation. Sandra Mara solved her first case at the tender age of nine. That gave her a taste for intrigue, and she went on to become one of the top private investigators in the country, even winning International Investigator of the Year at the World Association of Detectives. In No Job for a Woman, for the first time she opens her case file to reveal some of the most enthralling and outrageous cases she has worked on throughout her career. Stories included are: Patricia the Stripper, the Man United footballer and the IRA; the Thai Hooker and the Irish Diplomat; the Case of the Blackmail Cops; the Antwerp Diamonds and the Beit Robbers; the Clairvoyant who Never Saw it Coming; and Has Anybody Seen our Jumbo Jet? As well as these stories, Sandra provides a fascinating insight into the secretive undercover world of the private investigator a world of bugging, surveillance, cold nights and very real danger.
Ma, I’m Getting Meself a New Mammy by Martha Long
Large Format Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 316 pages [Add To Basket]
Aged thirteen, Martha is rescued by the courts from the clutches of her evil stepfather, Jackser, and her feckless mother, Sally. After numerous arrests for shoplifting, a judge rules that she is to be sent to a convent school with the instruction that she is to get an education. Her initial relief at escaping the abuse and neglect she suffered at home is, however, short-lived, as she soon realises that there are many forms of cruelty in this life. As she says, 'You can have a full belly, but your heart can be very empty'. Ostracised by the other children for being a 'street kid' and put to back-breaking work by the nuns, she leads a lonely existence, her only joy coming from the books she devours and her mischievous sense of humour. Desperate for love and a little place where she feels she belongs, despite all that she has suffered Martha retains her compassion for others and still continues to hope for a brighter future when she will be free to make her own way in life.
Nobody Heard Me Cry: An Irish Boy Sold on the Streets, a Life Shattered by Abuse by John Devane
Large Format Trade Paperback; 14 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 280 pages [Add To Basket]
Nobody Heard Me Cry is the harrowing and painfully honest story of one young boy whose childhood was destroyed by sexual abuse. At the age of eight, John Devane was called from the street into the home of a trusted neighbour. There he was brutally raped, the beginning of four years sustained, secretive abuse at this man's hands. A few years on still not a teenager, he turned to a pair of trusted older friends for help. It would be to his cost. Instead of help, he soon found himself pinped on Limerick's Dock Road. The remaining years of his stolen childhood would see him used as a pawn by paedophile rings in Limerick and Dublin, initiated into sex parties where paedophiles from all walks of life serially abused and raped him and other young boys. Fatherless and with a violent, alcoholic mother and a family in chaos, John had nowhere to turn. And nobody heard him cry. here for the first time, he shares his remarkable story - of a lost childhood, of alcoholism and the devastation of abuse, and of a pivotal moment that would change everything when, years later, a practicing solicitor, he came face to face with a past abuser. Nobody Heard Me Cry is an unforgettable story of survival, and hope in the bitterest of circumstances.
Where’s Your Mama Gone by Kay O’Gorman
Large Format Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 398 pages [Add To Basket]
It would have been easy to say that she just continued the cycle of her own neglect and abandonment, but Kay thought that too easy an excuse. It would be easy to place the blame on her own traumatic childhood, on the early death of her mother, on her domineering but charismatic father. To escape this background, she married early but, like many such marriages, it was not a happy union. She hoped that children would change things, but they did not. Her circumstances grew ever more desperate. Kay fled. She formed a new relationship, but her sense of guilt at having abandoned her children oppressed her to the point that she herself developed problems with alcohol. It took a long time, but finally she sorted out her life. In "Where's Your Mama Gone?", she writes with unflinching truth about her past and the motivations for her actions. It recalls an Ireland of casual cruelty, all-powerful authority figures, sexual ignorance and non-existent choice.
U2 by U2 edited by Neil McCormick
Paperback; 12 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK; 456 pages, with full colour and black-and-white photos throughout [Add To Basket]
'There are no shortage of books about U2 and many of them aren't worth the paper they're written on. This is different because the cod psychology is abandoned and the boys simply tell their story -- and tell it well.' Irish Independent. 'This book is a brilliantly realised concept, dense in its factual content with many rare photos.' Mail on Sunday (Ireland) 'It's a shame every band can't make a book like this.' Record Collector 'This book is more like an experience with U2 and is an essential piece of memorabilia for any fan of the band. It's so alive it almost has a pulse and you genuinely feel that U2 have put their heart and soul into this as much as they would a new album.' The Irish Post.
Heads: A Day in the Life by Gerry Anderson
Trade Paperback; 15 Euro / 22 USD / 11 UK; 245 pages [Add To Basket]
In 1972, Gerry Anderson was the bass guitarist with a band called 'Brown and O'Brien', a fairly dispirited bunch of musicians making a half-hearted stab at recapturing the glory and popularity previously enjoyed by showband singers Billy Brown and Mike O'Brien. That he and the other members of the band didn't much care one way or the other was indicative of a period when the decade-long wave of inexplicably popular showbands, which broke only in Ireland, was receding rapidly. During the course of twenty-four hours spent with this odd collection of people, the author reflects on his general disillusionment with a certain degree of pride and a sense of accomplishment. He also reflects on his past life and the current downward trajectory of his career. He recalls incidents of which he is not proud, encounters with idiots, and offers solutions to important issues that need not have concerned him. This memoir is not like the others.
Inside Man: Life as an Irish Prison Officer by Philip Bray
Trade Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 216 pages with an 8-page full colour photo insert [Add To Basket]
Philip Bray joined the Irish prison service in 1977, working in Limerick Prison. At the time prisons were places where pillows, blankets and even food were scarce. Most prisoners were illiterate and luxuries such as television and books were unheard of. Philip's story of the changes in the prison service charts Ireland's first female high-security prison in Limerick, a place where wealthy Englishwoman-come-IRA-operative Rose Dugdale's pregnancy went unnoticed, while Limerick Prison's cells were filled with leading Republican figures and later notorious feuding Limerick families and the 'Dublin Mafia', whose imprisonment fuelled a violent protest. Philip offers a bridge between the Ireland of yesterday and the Ireland of today in this intriguing account of life in the prison service in one of the most turbulent eras in recent history.
All Kinds of Everything by Dana Rosemary Scallon
Large Format Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 290 pages, with two 8-page photo inserts [Add To Basket]
In May 1970 the eighteen-year-old singer from Derry won the Eurovision song contest. Her career since has seen her host her own television series in the US, meet Presidents Ford, Reagan, Clinton and Bush, and sing for the Pope on several occasions. In 1997 she shocked the Irish political establishment by gaining 15 per cent of the popular vote as the first-ever independent candidate for the Presidency, and two years later was elected as a Member of the European Parliament.
The Devil in the Red Dress: The Sharon Collins Story by Abigail Rieley
Trade Paperback; 12 Euro / 18 USD / 9 UK; 260 pages, with an 8-page full colour photo insert [Add To Basket]
This summer, Ireland has been gripped by the story of a housewife from County Clare who, when her millionaire partner refused to marry her, googled a hitman and arranged to have him killed. Over the course of almost two months, the story of Lyingeyes and Hire_hitman unfolded in a flurry of emails. The website, hitman.us, might have looked amateurish and carried a disclaimer but it attracted serious interest. One person who was interested was Sharon Collins, the 'devil in the red dress'. Desperate to get her hands on a share of her partner's fortune, she took drastic action. She turned to Google to solve her problem. A Mexican marriage certificate was obtained but wasn't enough.On 8 August 2006, she contacted Hitman.us and started to arrange the hit. This is one of the most bizarre stories to ever appear before an Irish court. Filled with intrigue, betrayal, sex, money and would-be murder, it has all the ingredients for a best-selling thriller. This book will prove to its readers that truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction.
Sophie’s Story by Susan McKay
Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 200 pages with an 8-page black-and-white photo insert [Add To Basket]
In 1995, Sophia McColgan's father was sentenced to prison for the serial rape and abuse of his children over many years. He had first raped Sophia when she was only six. It had taken immense courage on the part of Sophia and her family to bring the murky, hidden world of family child abuse to the public gaze. Then, in 1998, Susan McKay published Sophia's Story, one of the most acclaimed Irish books of modern times. It records a triumph of the human spirit in the face of the most degrading and destructive betrayal of trust. Sophia McColgan, who now lives abroad, was Irish Person of the Year in 1998. Joseph McColgan served less than nine years in prison - less than half the time he spent raping and terrorising his own children.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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