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Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.75 (Oct 2001)
Lost Lives by
David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton
This book is a unique work filled with passion and violence, with
humanity and inhumanity. It is the story of the Northern Ireland troubles
told as never before; it is not concerned with the political bickering
but with the lives of those who have suffered and the deaths which have
resulted from more than three decades of conflict. The authors are award-winning
journalists. Over a seven-year period, they examined every single death
which was directly caused by the troubles. This book traces the origins
of the conflict from the firing of the first shots, through the carnage
of the 1970s and 1980s, to the republican and loyalist ceasefires and
beyond. All the casualties are here: the RUC officers, the soldiers, the
IRA volunteers, the loyalist paramilitary, the Catholic mothers, the Protestant
workers, the new-born baby. Each account is impossible to ignore. As a
reference book, it is indispensable; as a landscape of history painted
in fine detail, it is unique. Originally published in 1999, this new edition
has been revised and updated.
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Rowdy Irish
Tales for Children by Eddie Lenihan
In this book, the well-loved author and storyteller brings to life
stories originally narrated to his son. He preserves the freshness and
immediacy of the spoken word and recreates it on the page. ’The Wake of
Carraig Clancy’ is a tale from an area called Corca Baiscinn, the bare
west of Clare, and Boethius ’Carraig’ Clancy, the self-proclaimed Emperor.
When the great leader chokes to death on a fishbone, in a very undignified
fashion, the wake that follows sees heroes and warriors, singer and scribes
gathered together. Such a wake must surely be a gathering to remember.
And another story tells the story of Irish warfare, Fionn and the Fianna
and the mysterious discovery of the ’brainballs’, When a vast net of brainballs
is left at Tara as a warning to the Fianna, it is time to retaliate. Fionn
and his men set out to find the maker of the brainball and bring him back
to Tara to account for his deeds. These tales are for children of all
ages, from 9 to 90.
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The Children’s
Book of Irish Folktales by Kevin Danaher
These tales are filled with the mystery and adventures of a land of
lonely country roads and isolated farms, humble cottages and lordly castles,
rolling fields and tractless bogs. They tell of giants and ghosts, of
strange happenings and wondrous deeds, of fairies and witches and of fools
and kings. Above all in these stories, there is a sense of the full wonder
of a world where the marvellous and the unexpected can always happen,
and nothing is every quite what it seems. It is a vision of a world forever
young, rich with the promise of perpetual surprise - a world that a child
knows full well, and adults forget all to soon. There is sparkling humour
in these tales, mocking folly with a healing touch rather than a wounding
sting. The special magic of the Irish imagination shines forth in these
fourteen authentic folktales, drawn from the memory of Kevin Danaher,
just as he heard them many years ago.
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Oscar Wilde:
A Certain Genius by Barbara Belford
After William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde is the most quoted of writers.
His epigrams turned conventions upside down, his personality defined an
era. One hundred years after his death, the enduring fascination with
his life remains as constant as ever: his rise to prominence as an unparalleled
playwright, his ego-driven fall from grace, and the trial, played out
in the full glare of the public’s gaze. This book is a biography for a
new generation of readers, portraying Wilde as neither martyr, nor the
self-destructive fop. The author brings a new and fresh understanding
of his life in all its complexity, genius and humanity.
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For the Cause
of Liberty: A Thousand Years of Ireland’s Heroes by Terry Golway
In this book, the author reconstructs the entire thousand-year history
of Irish nationalism, covering each benchmark event in Ireland’s political
evolution and presenting a vivid, epic tale of both the famous and unsung
patriots who changed the course of Ireland’s history. In a chronicle of
unprecedented breadth and authority, the book tells the stories of Ireland’s
heroes - including both men and women, Catholic and Protestant - who enable
the Irish to free themselves from the yoke of colonial oppression. This
engaging and admirable story of how the Irish saved themselves is a peerless
work of scholarship, and it offers a fresh context for the ongoing discussion
of Ireland’s political future.
The Encyclopedia
of Celtic Wisdom: A Shaman’s Sourcebook by Caitlin and John Matthews
The Celtic Tradition is a source of inspiration to many seeking to
discover ancestral spiritual heritage. This superb sourcebook contains
many new translations of seminal Celtic texts, including stories, poems
and prose pieces, some dating from as far back as the seventeenth century.
Key ingredients in this rich cauldron of ancient lore include: Shamanic
Memory; Druidic Divination and Prophecy; Shapeshifting, Soul-Loss and
Restoration; Magic and Healing. These ancient tales are accompanied by
detailed commentaries, comprehensive background material and practical
shamanic insights.
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Dublin Libraries:
A Pictorial Record by Sean Lennon
This book is a lavish introduction to Dublin’s most beautiful and interesting
libraries, both private and public, treated with a wealth of Sean Lennon’s
fine illustrations, combined with the artist’s own insights into the role
played by libraries in Dublin’s cultural life.
Running Before
Daybreak by Terry Prone
This novel is a witty, wise and profoundly moving story of a woman
who runs away from her life. Cassie Browne has it all: married to a man
who is famous, funny and rich, she is also a successful cartoonist and
adores the baby she never planned to have. Then she loses not only the
happiness from her life, but her belief in happiness itself. Her is car
is found at the water’s edge 85 so why does her best friend believe she
is still alive, and why is one man determined to find her, if it takes
him the rest of his life? Cassie Browne’s story - with its surprising
turns of fortune - enthrals and delights!
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Spilt Milk by
Lana Citron
Dubliner Murrey Pogue arrives in Chicago determined to forget her
tortured past. Reeling from the disastrous adventures that punctuate her
off-beat world (populated by petty thieves and pimps, gun-toting drug
addicts and crazed religious zealots), her fresh hope arrives in the form
of the suave, sophisticated Manfredi. The unlikely couple become entangled
in a passionate affair more intense than either has ever known. But distance
along cannot obliterate the pain of Murrey’s former live, and she is drawn
back to Ireland and the mother she left behind in a bid to understand
the childhood tragedy that overshadows her life. But in deserting her
new-found life and love, has Murrey come to terms with her past, only
to say farewell to future happiness?
Said &
Done by Annie Sparrow
Working as a legal secretary and swapping office gossip at the coffee
machine hasn’t exactly prepared Emma for the high life. Neither has for
that matter, being married to Tony. Moving to Dublin to help open a new
office seems the perfect way to break the routine. If only the deal didn’t
involve working alongside the acerbic Jack. When Emma finds herself in
a new city with a man looking newer by the day, things suddenly get very
interesting indeed. After all is said and done, there’s only one problem:
she has to go home to England 85 and to Tony.
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No Bones by
Anna Burns
Amelia Lovett is an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances.
Or maybe just an extraordinary girl in ordinary circumstances. It is hard
to tell. It’s hard to tell anything when ordinary is midnight raids on
your home; ordinary is ten-year-olds collecting rubber bullets as keepsakes;
ordinary is schoolgirls bringing guns into schoolyards. Living on an unremarkable
street in a town where violence is absurdly ordinary is so hard that all
you can do is laugh - or die. If Amelia is not only to survive but to
live, it will be a miracle, a miracle no religion in that city is capable
of inducing or sanctioning. But it could happen - it at a price.
The Body Rock
by K.T. McCaffrey
A mysterious suicide in Dublin brings investigative reporter Emma
Boylan home from her honeymoon to try to unravel the truth about hotel
magnate Todd Wilson and his twisted network of friends and family. Todd’s
wife, Maeve, is the much-admired president of a national charity group;
Ethel is the Wilsons’ estranged nanny; Fergus is Maeve’s handsome and
enigmatic colleague - who knows the truth? In this gripping thriller,
Emma traces a thread of betrayal and murder to find out why the Wilson’s
world is falling apart and who’s behind it all. But as she closes in on
the truth, she is drawn into a web of lies until, fearing for her life,
she realises there’s no one she can trust with the truth.
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Unweaving the
Thread by Monica Tracey
Mary Ann Ward - or Marianne Reed, as she is known to her husband Alan
and children in her Muswell Hill home in London - has come back to her
mother’s house in Country Antrim at the height of the Northern Ireland
Troubles. Her instinctive race for home with her new baby has been triggered
by the discovery that Alan, who wanted her to terminate her pregnancy,
has been having an affair with her best friend. As she tries to settle
in a vastly altered Northern Ireland and come again to terms with her
loving but relentlessly driven mother she relives a life less ordinary.
And Mary Ann herself, tender, passionate, and vulnerable, must face up
to the ghosts of her own past before she finds peace.
The Month of
the Leopard by James Harland
A woman’s disappearance, the drop in value of an Eastern European
currency and a cold yet fanatical financier. How do these three things
relate to each other - and to the destruction of the world’s financial
markets? Tom Bracewell is an economist for an investment bank - when he
comes home to find his Estonian wife, Tatyana, has vanished, leaving him
a note, his world turned upside down. As Tom investigates Tatyana’s disappearance,
he comes to wonder if he ever knew his wife - there are trips to Europe
and massive Swiss bank accounts of which he had no knowledge. This thriller,
written by a leading financial journalist, mixes high adventure with the
fascinating machinations of the financial markets.
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Entertaining
Ambrose by Deirdre Purcell
This novel is the story of the loveable May who bears life’s burdens
so lightly, tending to others’ needs before her own. But when her criminal
husband absconds, leaving orders he should not be contacted, for once
she decides to fight. Step by step, through the small comedies and grisly
tragedies that follow, she is accompanied by Ambrose, a quixotic but protective
angel who has an agenda of his own, yet whose subtle intervention proves
pivotal. Witty and finely observed, this is a spell-binding tale of a
very unusual friendship and of a courageous and unique woman.
Frames: Athena,
The Book of Evidence and Ghosts by John Banville
This collection of three interlocked novels displays one of Ireland’s
pre-eminent writers at the height of his powers. In The Book of Evidence,
Freddie Montgomery has committed two crimes. He stole a Dutch master from
a wealthy family friend, and he murdered the chambermaid who caught him
in the act. The latter act made perfect sense to him, but his motives
for the former are rather mystifying. In Ghosts, Freddie, having served
his time in prison, has come to rest on a sparsely populated island with
only the enigmatic Professor Silas Kreutznaer and his laconic companion,
Licht, for company. A sort of uneasy calm is operating in this world,
but then a party of castaways arrives with disquieting results. And in
Athena, Morrow is at a loose end when, on two occasions, he is beckoned
up the stairs of an empty Dublin house. The first time this happens he
is offered a dubious kind of work. The second time is even stranger.
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Gallows Speeches
from Eighteenth-Century Ireland by James Kelly
This book collects the ’gallows speeches’ of over 100 offenders from
late 17th and early 18th century Ireland. In these, a series of fascinating
and ill-documented life histories emerge from an under-explored era in
Irish history. They cover the full range of ages, social class and crimes
committed. This collection presents the texts of those speeches that survive
in the holdings of the main research libraries in Ireland, Great Britain
and the United States.
Four Roads
to Dublin: A History of Rathmines, Ranelagh, and Leeson Street by Deirdre
Kelly
In ancient times, four roads led into Dublin from the south-west,
and what is now Rathmines and Ranelagh was then a dangerous no-man’s land
between the walled city and the Wicklow Mountains. Fear of the ’mountain
enemy’ inhibited settlement until the eighteenth century when the tiny
villages of Rathmines, Cullenswood and Ranelagh began to develop. Intense
growth over the following century created on of the most exciting and
attractive areas in Dublin. Famous writers and artists, including James
Joyce, Sarah Purser, Jack Yeats, Katherine Tynan, Frank O’Connor and Walter
Osborne lived there. This book describes the area - streets, buildings,
people and its part in Irish history.
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West Cork:
A Sort of History, Like 85 by Tony Brehony
Journalist, short-story writer and broadcaster Tony Brehony looks back
down through the swirling mists of history, fable, myth and tale which
all makes up the glorious heritage of his native West Cork. In this book,
which he himself hesitates to call a history, he takes the reader back
on a fascinating tour of the principal towns and villages of West Cork
recalling many forgotten incidents and recording little known anecdotes
about their origins, growth and development.
The Grand Tour
of Kerry compiled by Penelope Durrell and Cornelius Kelly
This book is County Kerry, Ireland, as seen through the eyes of over
sixty visitors. For centuries, travellers have been visiting County Kerry
and writing about its legendary beauties. This anthology brings together
their impressions - from Giraldus Cambrensis in the 12th century to Robert
Mitchum nearly 800 years later. In between, William Wordsworth, George
Bernard Shaw, Kate O’Brien, Brendan Behan, J.P. Donleavy, and numerous
others take to the highways and byways of the Kingdom. They regale the
reader with their adventures, share their impressions of the area, and
provide a vivid picture of Kerry and its inhabitants. Illustrated with
historical photographs, etchings and portraits, this book is both a journey
through the county and a trip back in time.
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The Irish in
Australia: 1788 to the Present by Patrick O’Farrell
Originally published in 1986 in Australia, this is a new and revised
edition of a highly successful and influential book. It was awarded both
the New South Wales Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction and the Ernest Scott
Prize for Australian History. Since the first fleet of 1788, the Irish
have been going to Australia. They were the beginning of a central, colourful
and profoundly influential element in Australia’s evolution into a nation
different and separate from Britain. Commencing with Irish convicts, feared
and despised, following free Irish immigrants and settlers into the often
hostile texture of colonial life, they came to see themselves as patriotic
Australians, integrating into all levels and facets of national life and
character, many occupying the highest positions in the land in government,
law and commerce. This edition features an important revised final chapter,
which deals with the changing relationship between Australians, new Irish
and Irish Australians. In examining these changes, the author considers
the effect of major government initiatives associated with the policies
of multiculturalism introduced in Australia from the 1970s.
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The Celtic
Empire by Peter Berresford Ellis
Subtitle: The First Millennium of Celtic History, 1000 BC - AD 51.
The Celts were the first European people north of the Alps to emerge into
recorded history. Their civilisation, now 3000 years old and confined
to the islands and peninsulas of north-west Europe, may soon disappear
for ever. In this book, a classic originally published in 1990, the author
examines the first millennium of Celtic history up until the time of Christ.
During this period, the Celts dominated the ancient world - from Ireland
in the west to Turkey in the east, from Belgium in the north, south to
Spain and Italy, where they sacked Rome itself in 390 BC. This was the
’Celtic Empire.’ But it was an empire without an emperor or central government,
made up instead of independent tribes who moved across Europe, imposing
their distinctive culture and social values on other peoples. The Celts
are surrounded by an aura of romance. They have been described as a race
of ancient mystics and the genius of their artistic craftsmanship has
been marvelled at for centuries - yet they have been reviled for their
barbarism and ferocity. In this lucid and expert account, the author accords
the Celts their proper place in the history of ancient Europe.
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Children of
Belfast: Reclaiming Their Place Among the Stones by Tom Quinn Kumpf
This book, with heartfelt prose and powerful photos, reveals the soul
of the children of Belfast coming of age during the Troubles. Through
his perceptive photography, the author has got under the skin of Ireland
and its people, north and south. He combines an awareness of the issues
in Northern Ireland with an understanding of their effect on its children.
Racism and
the Politics of Culture: Irish Travellers by Jane Helleiner
The Irish travelling people constitute of gypsy-like minority population
in Ireland that has been a long-standing target of racism and assimilative
state settlement policies. Using archival and ethnographic research, the
author’s study documents anti-Traveller racism in Ireland and explores
the ongoing realities of Traveller life. Through analyses of constructions
of Traveller origins, local government records, the provincial press,
and debates of the Irish parliament, a history of local and national anti-Traveller
discourse and practice in the independent Irish state is revealed and
linked to the legitimation and reproduction of other social inequalities,
including those of class, gender, and generation. The author research,
conducted in the course of long-term residence in a Traveller camp, supports
her historical analysis with an examination of how travelling, work, gender,
and childhood become sites for the production and reproduction of contemporary
Traveller collective identity and culture even as they are shaped by oppressive
forces of racism. These phenomena are located within political struggles
at local, national and European levels.
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Thicker Than
Water: Irish Stories edited by Gordon Snell
This anthology contains a kaleidoscope of stories about coming of
age in Ireland and America, by twelve Irish and Irish-American writers
who in their different ways succeed brilliantly in conveying the universal
longing of the young to grow up, to find love, and to start a new life
as an adult. Freshly commissioned by Gordon Snell, these memorable stories
range from the uproariously funny to the macabre, from the gently humorous
to the tragic, and from the reflective to the bittersweet. They are told
in powerfully individual voices by Vincent Banville, Maeve Binchy, Marita
Conlon-McKenna, June Considine, Shane Connaughton, Peter Cunningham, Ita
Daly, Emma Donoghue, Tony Hickey, Chris Lynch, Helena Mulkerns, and Jenny
Roche.
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