Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.80 (Mar 2002)

Alice Carey
Joy Carol
Anne Doughty
Gormley
Bill Long
Chrisopher Morash
Daithi O Hogain
Padraic O’Farrell 2
Diarmaid O Muirithe
Raymonde Standun
Williams
Denyse Woods

On A Clear Day by Anne Doughty
- A chronicle of the progress of a young girl to adulthood, Anne Doughty’s latest novel is again set in the Armagh countryside, a countryside for which the author has a very obvious love. It is essentially the tale of a child growing up in the 1950s against tremendous odds, having lost both her parents at the age of nine. Although her family rallies round to help Clare and her younger brother, William, it is an unsettling time, a time of great sadness and insecurity for the bright little girl whose world has fallen apart. Salvation comes in a strange form when her grandmother dies and Clare decides her place is with her grandfather, Robert, at the old forge. Meanwhile William has gone to live with his Hamilton grandparents and his problematic childhood is a recurring theme throughout the narrative. We follow Clare as she moves from primary to grammar school, as she gradually learns to combine running her grandfather’s house with keeping up with her studies and eventually achieving a scholarship to Queen’s in Belfast. Her adolescence is brightened by her friendship with Jessie, the support of her cousin Ronnie and her developing friendship with Andrew, the son of the local ’big house’ who was, like herself, orphaned at an early age. The inevitable death of her grandfather and the loss of her home leaves Clare temporarily adrift again until she begins to understand that it is people rather than place who constitute a home. This is a slow-moving leisurely novel which dwells as lovingly on the different seasons in Armagh as on the characters who inhabit it.

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Overnight To Innsbruck by Denyse Woods
- Initially offputting, progressively enthralling and ultimately unsatisfying would accurately summarise my feelings about Ms Woods’ novel. The device of employing an eavesdropper as a means of telling the story of Richard and Frances was irritating at first, but any irritation was soon lost in the absorbing way in which the author tells the tale of doubt and missed connections, of assumptions and missed opportunities. Richard and Frances are travelling by train across the Nubian desert in Africa when they become separated through a bizarre series of circumstances, and their subsequent efforts to regain contact form the core of the narrative. Both suffer doubts about the future of their relationship as much as they both suffer from the extremes of the African climate, and both also receive help in their quest from fellow travellers. The relentless heat of the desert leaps off the pages and one almost experiences at first hand the raging thirst of Richard and the heat-induced lethargy suffered by Frances. Far from the deserts of Africa, the train to Innsbruck is where they meet up again, four years after their journey in Africa, and it is where they come to understand that they cannot pick up the threads, that they have both moved on and that, in a cruel trick of fate, each has taken on the perspective of the other in their way of life. Where Frances was the inveterate traveller, she has now opted for a conventional life and is about to be married, while Richard, who had made a career for himself in London and travelled only to keep Frances in his life, has now settled in Egypt. The inevitable parting of the ways is faithfully chronicled in the penultimate chapter and this would have been the perfect point at which to close the narrative. However Ms Woods has added a final chapter in which the eavesdropper appears to have learnt from the story of Richard and Frances, that “the true culprits were time and place”, and thereby ensures that her own life is not similarly afflicted.

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Singing Stone, Whispering Wind by Raymonde Standun And Bill Long
- Raymonde Standun had taken many photographs of the people of Spiddal and the surrounding area when she realized that the subjects of her work would all have an interesting story to tell. The subsequent series of interviews she carried out now form the substance of this book and give an account of life in a coastal village during the early and middle years of the twentieth century. Many of the anecdotes and descriptions overlap, giving a continuity to the chapters, and the importance of folk-memory is emphasized again and again as the interviewees recall stories handed down from their parents and grandparents. Many of those interviewed had much to say on the subject of landlords, with the Killanins being universally loved as much as the Blakes were universally disliked, and both Lord and Lady Killanin have recorded for the authors their memories of Spiddal and Connemara. Most interviews, however, were conducted with people whose families have lived and worked the land in the area for generations, and the length of their pedigree was often the first piece of information given. Schooldays, the abundance of fish in the sea and rivers, fair days, card playing and dances are all frequently mentioned, as are emigration, p=F3it=EDn making and the annual visits of the “Gaeilgeori”. However a darker side to life in the early decades of the last century was the incessant toil, particularly for the women, who were expected to help their menfolk in all the outdoor work as well as rearing the children and providing food. Trips to the market in Galway are a common feature, with Martin Flaherty remembering making his first trip to sell turf at the age of nine. Nora McCluskey used to travel on a sidecar into Galway each Saturday to sell her butter and eggs, but she remembers women who would make the journey on foot carrying heavy baskets. A small number of outsiders now resident in Connemara were also interviewed, including Gertrude and Martin Degenhardt, a German couple who live in a thatched cottage in Spiddal, and Jack Toohey, a Limerickman of Lithuanian descent whose family name was originally Tooch. These add a new perspective to a view of life on the western seaboard “from Barna to Carna” which has been preserved through the expressive black and white photography and vivid colour images of Raymonde Standun, and the editing skills of Bill Long.

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I’ll Know It When I See It by Alice Carey
- This quest for home, written with humour, depth and honesty, is a sort of “Angela’s Ashes” in reverse. Alice Carey grew up in a coldwater flat in New York with an abusive father and a mother, known as Big Alice, who constantly strove to improve their lives. Part of Big Alice’s dream was to bring her daughter home to Ireland, and “home” was a recurring thread in her conversation. But the life from which Alice and Denis Carey escaped to New York was not one which she wanted her daughter to know, and her attempts to discourage Little Alice from reading books about a poverty-stricken Ireland only served to confuse the child. The opportunity to work for a distinguished director gave the two Alices the means to make the journey back to Kerry, a visit which was to have a lasting and negative effect on their relationship. The young Alice was accepting of the deprivation of life on the Kerry farm, but her view of her parents’ home place was soured by the behaviour of her mother’s brother, Uncle Bob, who was a priest in the almost too-familiar role nowadays of molester. The narrative swings from New York and Kerry in the mid-20th century to Fire Ireland and County Cork in the 1990s, when Alice and her husband Geoffrey make the decision to sell up their home on Fire Ireland, where they have befriended and finally cared for many AIDS sufferers, and buy a home in Ireland. A 19th-century house with adjoining stables is chosen near Bantry and the process of restoring the stables and of selling the house on Fire Island invoke memories both good and bad of the author’s parents, her childhood and the friends who made her education possible. Her contentment is tinged with both fear and sadness prompted by external events, the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, the Omagh bombing of 1998 and the death of Princess Diana. However the dominating presence of Big Alice is as strong in life as in death and it is she who affirms that her daughter has at last come “Home”. Alice Carey has lifted her book from the normal run of “unhappy childhood” sagas by concentrating on the good things that happened to her and by minimizing the hardship and physical brutality. This has the effect of making “ I’ll Know It When I See It” a more positive experience for the reader, an experience leaving a desire to read more.

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Archaeological Objects From County Fermanagh by Williams & Gormley
- Brian Williams and Sarah Gormley have produced a remarkable work which catalogues every artefact found within County Fermanagh over the last one hundred and fifty years. Set out in two sections, the first covers finds made by antiquarian surveys, in dredging or farming operations or random finds, while the second part is concerned solely with artefacts uncovered during archaeological excavations. The type, location, date and map reference are given in each case, with readers being directed to reference material on each find. Where either the date or present whereabouts is uncertain this also is stated. This is by no means a dry list of artefacts, however, for the authors have included an overview of the archaeology of Fermanagh, which has been inhabited since the Mesolithic era, augmented by a number of maps and a series of illustrations.

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A History Of Irish Theatre, 1601-2000 by Chrisopher Morash
- Christopher Morash has chosen an interesting format for his history of the theatre in Ireland, with the chronological narrative interspersed with descriptions of particular, and notable, days and nights in theatres in Dublin and Derry. In the early years of Irish theatre there was a strong relationship between the court and the theatre, with one providing finance while the other provided an opportunity for display. As theatre became a stronger force the plays began to reflect the realities of both Irish and English life, a fact which led to many of the incidents of objections from the audience. The author gives an example of such a reaction in a description of the trouble that broke out during and after a performance in Smock Alley in 1754 which resulted in wholesale destruction being perpetrated on the theatre itself. The introduction of touring theatre, which eventually took in the United States, and the establishment of the national theatre in the early years of the 20th century are among landmarks noted, with audience reaction to J.M. Synge’s “Playboy of the Western World” an obvious choice for one chapter of “A Night at the Theatre”. The author concludes with an account of the diversity of Irish theatre at the beginning of a new century which owes its existence and its diversity to the procession of actors and theatre people over the last four hundred years.

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Irish Surnames by Padraic O’Farrell
- lists the more common surnames to be found in Ireland, including variations. For example details for the name Smith include Goan, Gow, Gowan, McCona, Mac Gabhann, Magough, O Gabhan, O’Gowan and Smyth. The general location for each name is given as well as a few examples of famous bearers of that particular name.

Irish Saints by Padraic O’Farrell
- gives a short biography of some of the lesser-known saints as well as those with whom we are all familiar, such as St Brendan, St Colmcille and St Patrick. The author has also included some interesting but not always entirely believable anecdotes associated with the saints, and finally a Litany of the Saints of Ireland.

Irish Superstitions by Daithi O Hogain
- is divided into four sections focusing on superstitions to do with the human body, those concerning our physical world, beliefs connected to the animal and spirit world, and those which ruled the actions of daily life. According to the author such superstitions, though they may appear to be far-fetched, “always have something to tell about our attitudes towards life and towards the world around us”.

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Irish Words & Phrases by Diarmaid O Muirithe
- includes the familiar, keening, currach and jackeen, with the more unusual words such as fushion, meaning nourishment; gudget (glutton); and alfraits (a scoundrel). Here also the entries are categorized, in this instance into Anglo-Irish, Ulster Irish and Hiberno-Irish sections, and the derivation and geographical location for each word is explained.

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Finding Courage by Joy Carol
- Joy Carol, who is currently a spiritual director and workshop leader, has gathered together a series of testaments to personal courage in a range of situations from terminal illness to internment in a concentration camp. The book opens with three stories from people caught up in the attack on the World Trade Center giving their reactions to the destruction, danger and personal loss. More personal tragedy is experience by Noreen Hill, the widow of one of the victims of the Enniskillen bombing, and Anna, who was the only member of her family to survive the holocaust. Racial prejudice in South Africa is revealed through the testimony of Anglican priest Alan and his wife Jenny, while its counterpart in the US is the subject of Betty’s contribution. The series concludes with a contribution from the author who is herself facing serious illness. She also writes a short introduction and conclusion to each chapter, outlining the troubles faced and examining the way in which healing has been achieved through courage.

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