Life
b. Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford; sister of Colm Tóibín; author of The Rising (Dublin: New Island Press 2001), 284pp., dealing with the period between the fall of Parnell and the 1916 Rising.
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Commentary
Vincent Banville, reviewing The Rising (Dublin: New Island Press 2001), 284pp., in The Irish Times [Weekend], 27 Oct. 2001), calls it ‘muted, even underplayed rendering of how the great historical event affected the citizens of her native Enniscorthy’. The novel concerns a tenant farmer Michael Carty who settles in the town after the death of his Fenian father, marries Margaret Dempsey (dg. merchant family (who dislike the marriage), and their three sons of whom Michael joins the Irish Volunteers and is arrested for removing recruitment posters in 1914, later becoming a member of the force that takes the town over in 1916 and is afterwards deported to Frongoch but released Christmas Eve, with the others. Captures the snobbishness of small-town life and keeps the bloodshed off stage.
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