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Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.84 (July 2002)
The Killing
Of The Tinkers by Ken Bruen
- Ken Bruen’s second Jack Taylor book is fast moving and immensely readable.
Peopled with many of the same characters as “The Guards”, the story is
again set in a very recognisable Galway, though a knowledge of the city
is not essential to the enjoyment of this tale of love, violence and death.
Added to Taylor’s alcoholism is a coke habit picked up in England and
the two combine to leave him in a state of physical debility and acute
loneliness through much of the narrative. In his capacity as a failed
guard turned private detective he is asked to help solve the murders of
a number of young travellers, cases which the Galway guards are pursuing
with less than due diligence. Told in the first person, the story touches
on Taylor’s relationships with women - wife, mother and girlfriend and
with those whom he calls his friends. They inevitably become caught up
in the spiral of intrigue and violence which Taylor seems to attract.
Once again it is Brendan Flood, another ex-guard, who inadvertently leads
Taylor to the solution, though not before a series of gruesome episodes
leads to the killing of a man who is not innocent, but is innocent of
the murders with which he is charged. An incongruous note is struck with
the introduction to the plot of Jeff and Carol’s baby, Serena May, who
is born with Down’s Syndrome. Though this is a subject dear to the heart
of the author it does not seem to progress the narrative or be of particular
relevance to the plot. The intertwining of actual people and events with
fiction is not always successful, but an exception is to be found in “The
Killing of the Tinkers” with the true story of the violent attack on the
Claddagh swans, which melds perfectly with the violence inherent in Bruen’s
novel.
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On Dublin’s
Doorstep by Christopher Moriarty
- Subtitled “Exploring the Province of Leinster”, Dr Moriarty’s book sets
out fifty-two different expeditions taking from an hour or two to half
a day, and all to be enjoyed within easy reach of the capital. This is
more than a mere guidebook, however, as the author’s knowledge of geology
and botany leads him to provide much more detail than is usual about the
locations he has chosen. Mountain and river, seashore and park constitute
many of the al fresco attractions of the province, while our unreliable
climate is catered for in the entries for great houses and museums. We
begin with historic sites such as Glendalough and Newgrange, and these
are followed by excursions to the mountain areas of Wicklow, where Dr
Moriarty explains the formation of the different rock types and the flora
and fauna to be found there. He is particularly informative about the
birds at the various locations and the reasons for their choosing a particular
site. He is not uncritical of the way in which some of the places have
been encroached on by man, for example he talks of the “major interference
of the ESB” at the Wicklow Gap. At the same time he is quick to give credit
where it is due as in the chapter on the Botanic Gardens in which he praises
the restoration work carried out by the Office of Public Works. The museums
of Dublin city are listed, as are houses such as Russborough and Castletown,
but the author is happiest describing the natural world and my favourite
would have to be his excursion to Island’s Eye. It is only a short boat
ride from Howth but, in the author’s own words, the island “makes a fair
bid for first place among the treasures of the wilderness”. Each short
chapter is illustrated with a black and white photograph and is followed
by details of how to get there, the availability of refreshments or picnic
areas, its suitability for dogs and the amenities for buggys and wheelchairs.
I found it striking, however, that so few places provide total access
to those in wheelchairs, with only about one third of the places mentioned
being totally wheelchair-friendly. Although Dr Moriarty’s book is confined
to Leinster, as the site of our capital city it is an area which everyone
will visit at some time, and thus the book becomes a valuable resource.
It is a format that might perhaps be adopted by authors equally familiar
with the other three provinces.
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The Fall Of
Light by Niall Williams
- Some stories seem tailor-made for transfer to the screen but no film
could do justice to the images engendered by the lyrical prose of Niall
Williams’ third novel. Described by the author as “a story that has been
passed on”, it tells of the family of his great-greatgrandfather, Teige
Foley, their meetings and their partings, and the overwhelming importance
of the galaxies in influencing the course of their lives. When Francis
Foley and his wife, Emer, have a disagreement it leads to a fracture in
the family which is never fully mended, but a fracture which is ultimately
healed by the legacy of stargazing passed on by Emer to her husband and
her children Tomas, the twins Finan and Finbar and, above all, her youngest
son Teige. The father’s vision of a home in the west of Ireland is only
partially achieved after a series of misfortunes and encounters which
scatter his sons through Ireland, Europe and Africa. A series of chance
meetings brings some of them together on Scattery Island in the Shannon,
where they begin to make their home, but even this stability is broken
by the departure of Tomas for America. Williams succeeds in seamlessly
intertwining the strands of stories, Finbar on his journey through Europe
with the gypsies who had rescued the boys from the Shannon, Finan on his
quest for spiritual peace in Africa and Tomas on his journey across America.
The only missing piece in the jigsaw is Emer, whose presence nonetheless
pervades the narrative and whose final homecoming is one of the more moving
passages in the book. The knowledge and legend of the stars which she
has passed on to her family ultimately bring them to an understanding
and a connectedness which crosses the oceans and reunites them in spirit.
Set against the wars and famines of the nineteenth century, as well as
the opening up of America, “The Fall of Light” encompasses the hunger,
evictions and emigration of Ireland during the Famine and the horror of
the coffin ships, as well as the endeavours of a troop of soldier engineers
to find a route for the railway across America. But above all the novel
chronicles the story of Teige, the boy who can talk to horses and who
suffers both love and loss as he grows to manhood. This is a book to be
savoured, a story that will stay with the reader long after the last page
has been turned.
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Confessions
Of A Shanty Irishman by Michael Corrigan
- Irish emigration to San Francisco rather than to Boston or New York
is the first indication that this family memoir is going to be a bit different
from the usual run, and the revelation in the prologue that the author’s
parents “had married twice; both times, it was a disaster” immediately
catches the interest of the reader. Michael Corrigan was reared by his
father and his paternal grandparents after his mother left when he was
three years old, but she made intermittent appearances over the years
and left him unsure of his feelings towards her. He was much more influenced
by his grandparents Thomas and Agnes, both of their histories shrouded
in mystery but both passing on their own sense of Irishness. This mystery
leads to the inclusion by the author of a short story outlining what might
have been the truth of his grandparents’ meeting, in the mining town of
Butte, Montana, a not wholly satisfactory digression. Corrigan’s book
is not, therefore, a simple family memoir, rather it is a ramble through
a period of time that saw changes both personal and cultural, the twin
influences of popular culture and the family curse of alcoholism having
a deep effect on the author’s life. The emergence of James Dean and Elvis
Presley liberated the adolescent Michael, and his introduction to the
mysterious world of women is marked by excitement, love and tragedy. His
ultimate rejection of the Catholic faith, held so dear by his grandfather
and father, forms an important part of his coming to manhood, in the same
way that his love of literature and his first attempts at writing help
him to develop, though not mature. However a question mark lingers over
the dividing line between truth and fiction, for as he himself admits,
“I had kept a journal and often embellished my adventures”. The piecing
together of the stories of his family, some of whose early and alcohol-induced
deaths seem somehow inevitable, the extraordinary death of his mother,
and his own eventual arrival at some sort of stability, make Michael Corrigan’s
work interesting, if somewhat confused in the telling.
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Enough Religion
To Make Us Hate by Victor Griffin
- The author takes his title from an observation made by his predecessor
as Dean of St Patrick’s in Dublin, Jonathan Swift, to the effect that
“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make
us love one another”. Victor Griffin looks at the relationship between
religion and politics in Ireland from the point of view of a member of
the Church of Ireland who has advocated the benefits of a pluralist society
from his days spent ministering in the city of Derry. In this work he
examines the way in which two different traditions within the same Christian
religion have polarised into a position of intolerance on both sides.
Added to this polarisation is the way in which religion in both parts
of Ireland has at times become inextricably linked with politics, as with
the special position of the Catholic Church included in the Constitution
of the Irish Republic, and the use of the Church of Ireland church in
Drumcree as a starting point for an annual political confrontation. In
a chapter assessing the gradual progress being made towards ecumenism,
Dean Griffin suggests, “Instead of being divisive, St Patrick can be a
focus of unity, accepted and honoured by all”. The Dean looks towards
a future when a declining Protestant population in the North will lead
to a shift in the balance of power, while a decline in church allegiance
in the South will lessen the degree to which Irishness is associated with
Catholicism, resulting in “the final withering away of the cruel sectarian
divisiveness which prompted Swift to pen those terrible words”.
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Roger Casement
In Death by W.J. McCormack
- The recent confirmation, following forensic tests, that the Black Diaries
of Sir Roger Casement are genuine, is the starting-point for this examination
of the Forgeries Theory by Professor McCormack, who commissioned the latest
investigation. The denial of Casement’s homosexuality, as evidenced in
the diaries, was necessary if he was to take his place among the pantheon
of Irish heroes, and the campaign drew to itself many prominent names
including W.B. Yeats, the minor English poet Alfred Noyes, George Bernard
Shaw and Shane Leslie. It was not entirely successful, however, as the
author points out when he comments rather dismissively, “His reputation
was preserved at the level of popular folklore rather than through official
celebration. Gaelic football clubs were named after him”. The part played
by the mysterious W.J. Maloney, the author of the 1936 publication “The
Forged Casement Diaries”, forms a major part of the work, with McCormack
going to great lengths to establish the true facts of this Scots-born
Irish republican and former British soldier, whose own accounts offer
differing versions of his life. McCormack also expended considerable time
and energy in tracing the origins, without ultimate success, of Armando
Normand, the brutal overseer of a rubber plantation in Putumayo, South
America where Casement observed the terrible working conditions of the
local people. The “forgery theorists” accepted that the diaries were indeed
written by Casement, but that they represented copies of diaries belonging
to Normand and were records of his activities rather than those of the
British diplomat. Professor McCormack is given to some excruciating wordplays
- he refers to Eamon de Valera’s non-involvement in one particular controversy
as “a storm without a Taoiseach”; and in examining the literary circles
inhabited by Armando Normand’s possible antecedents he refers to “gilt-by-association”.
Such touches, however, bring to a scholarly work a lightness which increases
both accessibility and enjoyment.
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