Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 443
14/15 March 2009
Irish History
Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland by Piras Beaslai
Hardback, Two volume Set - The general edition is limited to 1,000 sets superbly bound in green buckram, with a medallion portrait embossed in gilt on the upper covers, and in slipcase. 120 Euro / 180 USD / 90 UK.
A new introduction by Brian P. Murphy, O.S.B. With two portraits in full colour by Sir John Lavery, and other illustrations to each volume. This major work on Michael Collins is by one of his closest friends.
Michael Collins (1890-1922), was born at Woodfield, Clonakilty, Co. Cork , the son of a small farmer. Educated locally, and at the age of sixteen went to London as a clerk in the Post Office. He joined the IRB in London . During Easter Week he was Staff Captain and ADC to James Connolly in the GPO. With The O'Rahilly he led the first party out of the GPO immediately before its surrender. Arrested, imprisoned and released in December 1916.
After the victory of Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election and the establishment of Dáil Éireann as the Irish parliament he was made Minister of Home Affairs and later Minister for Finance, and organised the highly successful National Loan. A most capable organiser with great ability and physical energy, courage and force of character, he was simultaneously Adjutant General of the Volunteers, Director of Organisation, Director of Intelligence and Minister for Finance. He organised the supply of arms for the Volunteers and set up a crack intelligence network and an execution squad nicknamed Twelve Apostles. He was for a long time the most wanted man in Ireland but he practically eliminated the British Secret Service with the Bloody Sunday morning operation.
Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland is the official biography of a great soldier-statesman and the first authentic history of the rebirth of a nation. Written with inner knowledge by an intimate friend and comrade-in-arms who served with Collins on Headquarters Staff and who shared in many of his amazing adventures and hairsbreadth escapes.
This is arguably one of the most eagerly awaited Irish books for many years.
(There is also a limited edition of 175 sets in full green goatskin gilt with a medallion portrait and signature of Collins also in gilt. Housed in a fine slipcase. It includes a list of subscribers. Priced at 600 Euro each).
The Curious Case of the Mayo Librarian by Pat Walsh
Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 220 pages [Add To Basket]
The office of Mayo County Librarian was hardly a crucial post. It was little more than a routine appointment, yet it escalated into a conflict that had national consequences. It set Church against State, County Council against Government Department and even members of the same political party against each other. In July 1930 Miss Letitia Dunbar Harrison, a graduate of Trinity College, was appointed to the post of Mayo County Librarian. Her appointment set in motion a chain of events that resulted in a full scale political crisis. Mayo priests and politicians attempted to have her removed, and organized an effective boycott of the Library Service. 'The Mayo library row' as it was commonly known became news far outside the confines of the county. Not only had it made headlines in Ireland, it had caught the attention of newspapers in places as far away as Boston and London. Why would such a seemingly unassuming appointment drive a government to the brink and clash church and state against each other so heavily? Letitia was a Protestant. Looking at the background to the dispute uncovers many of the fault-lines of the newly formed Free State. Examining the anatomy of the crisis lays bare the tensions of society in 1930s Ireland as it moved away from colonial rule.
Coolacrease: The True Story of the Pearson Executions by Paddy Heaney et. al
Paperback; 30 Euro / 39 USD / 20 UK; 472 pages
At the end of the Irish War of Independence, two brothers were shot in Coolacrease, Co. Offaly, and their houses were burned. The people who carried out the shootings were not Black and Tans, but IRA; and the victims were not Irish rebels or uninvolved civilians. They were loyalist Protestants who had chosen to take up arms against the forces of the democratically elected Irish government. The IRA command ordered their execution.
The Wicklow Military Road: History and Topography by Michael Fewer
Large Format Paperback; 20 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; 214 pages, with full colour photographs throughout [Add To Basket]
The Wicklow Military Road, built 200 years ago, provides today a cross-country route for light commerce, commuting and touring. It proceeds from Rathfarnham, Co Dublin for over 60 kilometres, through a rich variety of terrain, including city suburbs, woodland, moorland, an upland village and high mountain passes, to come to an end at the hamlet of Aghavannagh in Co. Wicklow. This book deals with the landscape, the intervention in that landscape by man, and the stories that intervention tells. It examines the history of the road and the topography of the areas through which the road passes, using it to access and explore its natural and local history.
Fall of the Gaelic Lords, 1534-1616 by Patricia Kilroy
Hardback; 30 Euro / 40 USD / 20 UK; 205 pages, with full colour photographs throughout
No period in Irish history is quite so full of drama, heroism and tragedy as the eighty-odd years from the mid 16th to the early 17th centuries: the age of the fall of the Gaelic lords. This intriguing and moving narrative recounts the passing of Gaelic Ireland when the Tudor Crown sought to subdue the island and the Irish chiefs defended their ancient territories and way of life. Beginning in 1534 with young Silken Thomas' defiant stand at the gates of Dublin Castle , it tells the story of Red Hugh O'Donnell's capture and escape, the rise of the Great Hugh O'Neill and the bloody Nine Years War culminating in the Battle of Kinsale, and finally, the Flight of the Earls. Animated with details from The Annals Of The Four Masters and other contemporary accounts, Fall Of The Gaelic Lords is a lively intelligent book aimed at both the historian and general reader.
An ‘Antiquarian Craze’: The Life, Times and Work in Archaeology of Patrick Lyons RIC (1861-1954) by Maire Lohan
Large Format Paperback; 20 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; 191 pages, with black-and-white photos throughout [Add To Basket]
Born in 1861, Sgt. Patrick Lyons, 'The Antiquarian Policeman' , served with the Royal Irish Constabulary from 1886 - 1920. While stationed in the West of Ireland, he developed a keen interest in documenting the field-monuments he noticed on his patrols. His discovery of four ogham stones led to a correspondence with Hubert Knox, a renowned Mayo Antiquarian; Lyons provided Knox with important descriptions of field monuments, contributing to 19 published papers. Out of modesty, and fear that the R.I.C. would frown on his 'antiquarian craze', he preferred not to be acknowledged by name, although he was much admired for his fine mind and dedicated antiquarian 'policework' by those few with whom he shared his interest.
To bring to light his remarkable work, this book draws on Lyons ' own notes and photographs (preserved by N.U.I. Galway and the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland), archived local newspapers and an overview of the social and political history of his times.
A quiet, unassuming man, Lyons died in 1954 and lies buried in an unmarked grave in his native Clonmel. His major contribution to Irish archaeology deserves to be acknowledged in print at last.
The Irish Famine by Gail Seekamp and Pierce Feiritear
Paperback; 6 Euro / 9 USD / 4.50 UK; 48 pages [Add To Basket]
In 1845 the potato crop in Ireland was struck by a devastating blight. The event was a disaster for the country’s poor who lived almost entirely on potatoes. Over the next six years, a million people would die and two million more would emigrate.
This concise, informative and well-researched account of the Irish Famine is an excellent pocket history that will appeal to both children and adults alike. In the format of easy-to-read information bites, it gives a thoughtful account of the historical events that changed Ireland forever. The book includes original source material and contemporary graphics from The London Illustrated News.
Historical Association of Ireland: Life and Times New Series
John Mitchel by James Quinn
Paperback; 17 Euro / 24 USD / 12 UK; 108 pages [Add To Basket]
John Mitchel (1815-75) was born at Camnish, near Dungiven, Co. Derry, the son of a Presbyterian minister. After qualifying as a solicitor, he became a leading contributor to the Nation newspaper and the most militant of the Young Irelanders. Sentenced to 14 years' transportation for attempting to incite rebellion in Ireland in 1848, in captivity he wrote his famous "Jail Journal", which starkly expressed his hatred of the British empire and had an immense influence on later nationalists. Escaping to America after five years, he became a strong supporter of slavery and the Confederate States, and two of his sons died fighting for the South.The harshness of his views, especially his violent hatred of Britain and support for slavery, does much to explain Mitchel's neglect in recent decades. He was, however, one of the most powerful polemical journalists of the nineteenth century and a central figure in the revival of militant Irish nationalism. His portrayal of the famine as deliberate genocide became central to nationalist orthodoxy, and his hatred of British rule and contempt for parliamentary politics did much to inspire Fenianism.This new biography attempts to discover the origins of Mitchel's views, to examine their influence, and to place his anglophobia in a more general critique of the age in which he lived.
Thomas Kettle by Senia Paseta
Paperback; 17 Euro / 24 USD / 12 UK;116 pages [Add To Basket]
Thomas Kettle: political activist, journalist, orator, poet, essayist, lawyer, nationalist MP, professor, recruiter, soldier and casualty of war. Born on 9 February 1880, he was killed in the opening minutes of the allied invasion of Ginchy on 9 September 1916, having insisted on leading his men into battle. A leader of the younger generation of constitutional nationalists in his own time, he was all but forgotten as a result of the radicalisation of Irish politics after 1916. His memory was largely kept alive by studies of Ireland's participation in the Great War and by his final poem, written for his daughter Betty, which has appeared in several collections of War poetry. But Thomas Kettle was more than a soldier and recruiter.Although he did not always choose the 'right side', Kettle in fact had a hand in nearly every major political struggle in early twentieth-century Ireland. His struggles with alcoholism and depression overshadowed his great promise, ensuring that his biography is as much a story of wasted potential as it is of great achievement.
Denis Guiney by Peter Costello
Paperback; 17 Euro / 24 USD / 12 UK; 124 pages [Add To Basket]
Denis Guiney (1893-1967) was one of the most remarkable Irishmen of his generation, who exerted through his business career a significant influence on the development of the economy and lifestyle of modern Ireland. As a draper, he rose from working in small country shops to become the owner of one of the country's biggest enterprises, the largest private company then in Ireland, the successor to part of a commercial empire created by a series of earlier Irish entrepreneurs, which he transformed to serve the ever-increasing and ever-changing needs of the population of a new kind of Ireland. He is one of those whose lives have materially contributed to the creation of the country's modern prosperity. Many talked airily of a 'New Ireland'. Denis Guiney helped create it.
New Updated Edition:
Michael Collins: The Man Who Won the War by T. Ryle Dwyer
Paperback; 13 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 250 pages [Add To Basket]
In this completely revised and updated book, T. Ryle Dwyer, offers a fresh perspective on Collins' activities. With new information about his role in organizing the IRB in London in his youth right through to his death in 1922, Dwyer's analysis supports the case for Collins as the chief architect of the Irish victory over the British Empire.Michael Collins co-ordinated the sweeping Sinn Fein election victory of 1918 and put structure on the organization of the IRA. He was the prototype of the urban terrorist and the architect of the war against the Black and Tans. While many have questioned whether Collins ever fired a shot at an enemy of Ireland, he did order the deaths of people standing in his way, and he even advocated kidnapping a US President.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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