Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.85 (Aug 2002)

Jill Blee
Barra [Ó Cinneide]
Gordon Jarvie
Mary Lavin
Marisa Mackle
Pete McCarthy
Conall Mac Ciunn[eagháin]
Dempsey & O’Clery
Joan Ussher Sharkey

The Liberator’s Birthday by Jill Blee
- Using the Joycean device of compressing all the action into one day, Jill Blee has presented a view of life in nineteenth-century Australia as experienced by a group of Irish immigrants. Clothing fact with a cloak of fiction, her third novel examines the way in which first- and second-generation Irishmen and women are affected by the slump in the economy and the increasing power of the church. The story is told through the eyes of Tommy Farrell, the son of an immigrant couple who have prospered in the goldfields of Ballarat, a prosperity that Christy is enjoying but that has left his wife, Martha, over-ambitious for her family. The day which begins at eight o’clock for Tommy is a special day in the history of Ballarat for it is the centenary of the birth of Daniel O’Connell, and the town sets about celebrating it with some gusto. The action rarely leaves the interior of the Farrell’s bar, The Globe, where the cast of characters include the drink-sodden O’Hehir who spends the day ’conversing’ with the Liberator, his eye fixed on a point between two whiskey bottles high on a shelf. While some disruption is caused by the workers and the unemployed who frequent the bar, by far the most disruptive influence is the Dean, the archetypal late nineteenth- century priest who presumes the right to order each and every part of the lives of his parishioners. His relentless demand for donations even manages to alienate the socially ambitious Christy, but his bigotry has a far graver outcome for other members of the community. Through dialogue the author contrives to relay the deeds of Daniel O’Connell and much of the history of Ireland during the nineteenth century, while at the same time maintaining the thread of the Farrell family story with its sibling rivalry, conceit, its secret ambitions and disappointments. An unusual mix of fact and fiction, “The Liberator’s Birthday” succeeds in portraying the precariousness of life and love in the years following the Australian gold rush.

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The Road To McCarthy by Pete McCarthy
- A series of anecdotes, some hilarious, others extraordinary, a few deeply moving, have been gathered by the author during a journey in search of Irishmen which led him from Gibraltar to Morocco and on to New York, from Tasmania to Montserrat and Butte, Montana, arriving back in Ireland after a sojourn in Alaska. Much of the narrative concerns members of his own clan, in particular the McCarthy Mor, a man from Dunmurry in Belfast now living in Morocco who has managed to alienate the Irish government and has been relieved of his title of clan chief. While his descriptions of both places and people are rich with humour, McCarthy does not baulk at introducing a serious note and this is particularly apparent in his search for the Tasmanian sites associated with Francis Meagher and William Smith O’Brien. Even more solemn is his decision to refrain from describing the most recent horror to be associated with the island, the massacre of thirty-five people in 1996. In his peregrinations Pete McCarthy intertwines his interest in the McCarthy name with his admiration for the Young Irelanders in a way which unifies what might otherwise seem to be a rather unstructured series of impressions and character sketches. Thus on his way to Alaska he stops off in Montana to pay tribute to Meagher, whose career after his escape from Tasmania led him to the position of governor of that State. Similarly a further journey leads him to the courthouse in which Meagher, John Mitchel and Smith O’Brien received their sentences. While McCarthys both living and dead crop up in all kinds of different places, there is only one town on his itinerary that bears the name, and this a remote settlement at the end of a disused railway track in Alaska where a flourishing mining town once stood. Here the author eventually discovers a photograph of the McCarthy for whom the town was named, a James McCarthy who had mined in the area in the early years of the twentieth century. And again Pete McCarthy unites two far distant locations by returning to the Beara peninsula in West Cork from where so many of the copper miners emigrated, to try to trace the origins of this man who left his mark on a dot on the Alaskan map. Although at times there seems to be a formlessness about this work, lacking as it does the unifying theme of “McCarthy’s Bar”, the author’s powers of observation of both landscape and character maintain the levels of interest and enjoyment and, as with his first book, Pete McCarthy can still make me laugh out loud.

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Riverdance, The Phenomenon by Barra =D3 Cinn=C9ide
- Barra =D3 Cinn=E9ide, who has published a number of papers on the Riverdance factor, has here set out to examine its origins, the influences that led to its conception and growth, and its significance in the expansion of both the Irish economy and the perception of Ireland on the international stage. Beginning with an examination of the differences between tradition and culture, the author moves on to an overview of the role of dance in Irish society before focusing on the incredible explosion of interest in dance following the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. =D3 Cinn=E9ide sees the roots of the Riverdance phenomenon in both the Seville Suite, composed by Bill Whelan for the World Fair held in Seville in 1992, and the “Mayo 5000” event, which again featured a Bill Whelan composition and in which both Michael Flatley and Jean Butler featured, though they were not dancing together on that occasion. When Moya Doherty, therefore, was given the task of providing the interval entertainment during the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest and chose the innovative route of a dance sequence, she knew immediately that Whelan, Flatley and Butler were the people she wanted to work with. The author describes the seven-minute dance routine as “an entertainment version of a free sample being sent to millions of people”, and gives credit to Moya Doherty and John McColgan, neither of whom had much experience of live theatrical performance, for their courage in taking the financial and professional risk associated with the extended stage version. He expresses his admiration for their enterprise in not only managing to expand a seven-minute presentation into a two-hour show, but also in adapting it to suit an international audience. Not least of their achievements was the later survival of the show when both Michael Flatley and Jean Butler left the cast. The effect on the world of traditional Irish dance was immediate, with some traditionalists condemning the new sexuality and freedom of movement apparent in Riverdance while dancing teachers suddenly found themselves inundated with new pupils. Dancing suddenly acquired an entirely new image and opened up a professional career other than in teaching. The entrepreneurial aspects of Riverdance, with its spin-offs Lord of the Dance, Feet of Flame and Dancing on Dangerous Ground, have given, according to =D3 Cinn=E9ide, enormous potential for Ireland’s future. He talks of the way in which the dance shows have helped to establish a “brand” for Ireland and cites the opportunities for incorporating dance into tourism ventures, emphasising that the worlds of culture and commercialism are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Although there is one reference to a 2001 article, =D3 Cinn=E9ide’s work has a curiously dated air, as though the text, with its references to the Celtic Tiger and the now defunct Boyzone, was completed some time before publication. This, and the over-use of exclamation marks, detracts only slightly from a far-reaching and interesting study of an Irish success story which has been universally acclaimed.

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Mr Right For The Night by Marisa Mackle
- It is difficult not to be immediately aware how this story will end, but the author has made the telling sufficiently interesting and entertaining to offset this fact. Marisa Mackle’s first novel is in the “Bridget Jones” genre, dealing as it does with the trials of a thirty-year-old Dubliner in the world of romance. But what Anna is seeking is not primarily a life-partner, though he would also be acceptable. No, her immediate need is for a man to bring to a school reunion, a man who will measure up to what she feels will be the standard set by the school bully, who is throwing the party, but who is not so attractive that he will be lured away by one of the other guests. This scenario gives the author the opportunity to lead Anna through a series of romantic or just plain sexual adventures with a variety of men, none of whom seems to fit the bill exactly. Her adventures are contrasted with the humdrum life of her friend Claire, who has gone the path of early marriage and a baby and is feeling increasingly depressed about her situation. Marisa Mackle has a greater facility for rounding out her female characters, a certain inconsistency being apparent among the males, particularly Claire’s husband, Simon, whose “road to Damascus” conversion from ambition-driven executive to conventional family man seems a touch unlikely. In the time-honoured tradition of so many romances, the heroine travels far and looks further, but finds her true love on her own doorstep. The author has nicely captured the limbo in which Anna is perceived to be living by her own family, with her grandfather telling her she’s no “spring chicken” and her mother being disconcerted when she arrives home unannounced, and seems familiar with the milieu in which Anna’s story takes place. Marisa Mackle has joined the growing ranks of Irish women writers who have made the 21st century Irish social scene their own.

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In A CAF=C9 by Mary Lavin
- TownHouse have reissued their 1995 collection of the stories of Mary Lavin, chosen by her daughter Elizabeth Walsh Peavoy. In his foreword Thomas Kilroy acknowledges the debt he owed to the author when, as a young man setting out on a career as a writer, he began to visit her home in Bective. He pinpoints her recurrent theme of materialism versus passion, acted out against a backdrop of family and small community in Ireland, and admits that his own favourites from the collection are those which deal with Mary Lavin’s widowhood, the time when he first met her. The author’s daughter sheds light on the autobiographical aspect of the stories, leading us through the life of her mother from her arrival in Ireland from the States to her widowhood “In the Middle of the Fields”. And then we are left to savour the stories themselves, all more or less familiar except for one previously unpublished work, “The Girders”, which captures the paradox of an emigrant’s yearning for home while knowing that his adopted home has become just as precious. “In the Middle of the Fields” portrays the young widow whose house is an island surrounded by a sea of grass, an island of loneliness which is momentarily invaded by another lonely person. The tension within families is a subject with which Mary Lavin has a sure touch; Sophie and her mother in “A Cup of Tea” have a relationship coloured by their different attitudes to Sophie’s father; the antagonism between sisters Agatha and Rose in “A Gentle Soul” is paralleled in the greater depth of understanding between Veronica and Mabel in “Chamois Gloves”. Beyond all, this theme is evident in “The Will”, the story which Thomas Kilroy tells us Mary Lavin felt was “the finest expression of her art”. This is small-town Ireland revealed, family members agree to help the dispossessed sister who is deemed to have lowered the family tone and has been left out of her mother’s will. The recalcitrant Lally refuses the help offered by her siblings but is convulsed by the thought that she might be the cause of her mother’s suffering. Inheritance problems also permeate “The Little Prince”, in which Mary Lavin’s expertise in delineating character is perhaps most strongly shown. Here also the older member of the family tries to order the life of a younger sibling, and the author combines manipulation with a softness in the character of Bedelia which makes her completely credible. To those of us familiar with the short stories of Mary Lavin this collection will give renewed pleasure, while those who have encountered her work only as an exam text have a wealth of enjoyment before them.

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St Anne’s, The Story Of A Guinness Estste - Joan Ussher Sharkey
- The land comprising St Anne’s estate in Raheny/Clontarf area of north Dublin was acquired by members of the Guinness family and at its height the estate covered an impressive five hundred acres. Joan Ussher Sharkey has set out to chart the history of the estate from its beginnings when Benjamin Lee Guiness built a new house on land acquired by himself and his brother Arthur Lee Guinness in Clontarf. This she has accomplished with a commendable thoroughness, giving details of the numerous acquisitions of land and property and paying due credit to the major part played by Sir Arthur Guinness, later Lord Ardilaun, in the development of St Anne’s. The house and estate reached its highest point under his guardianship and after his death and that of his wife, Lady Olive, St Anne’s passed to his nephew, Benjamin J. Plunket, Bishop of Meath. At some time in the 1930s and ’40s, and here the author’s research proved inconclusive, the estate was acquired by Dublin Corporation. The house itself was damaged by two fires but the Corporation set aside more than two hundred acres for what is now known as St Anne’s Park, with its Arboretum and Rose Garden, the latter perhaps its best-known feature. Joan Ussher Sharkey’s work, amply illustrated, is very obviously the result of intensive research and attention to detail which has not prevented her from bringing to life the members of the Guinness family who left such a legacy to the people of Dublin.

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Glencolmcille, A Parish History by Conall Mac Ciunneag=c1in
- When at the end of Chapter Two of this work we have only reached the period of the megalithic tombs the reader might well be daunted by the material still to be covered to bring the story of Glencolmcille up to the present day. However the pace quickens thereafter as we are introduced to the saints associated with the area, no less than five, and we move into the many territorial and clan battles that characterised the Middle Ages in Ireland. Less than halfway through Conall Mac Cuinneag=E1in’s detailed study we enter the nineteenth century and the arrival of the first government officials to Glencolmcille. The author chronicles the improvement in lifestyle brought about by the gradual provision of roads and bridges and the establishment of the first national school in the parish. Interestingly his account of famine covers a great deal more than the Great Famine, though in telling this part of the parish’s history he pays due tribute to the work carried out over many years by James Hack Tuke of the Society of Friends. A striking aspect of this history is the proprietorial use of the phrase “our area” and “our parish”, underlining the author’s love for the corner of Ireland which is the subject of this book. He continues the story up to the time of Father McDyer, the pioneering priest who fought beauracracy to stem the flow of emigration from his parish. On the way Mac Cuinneag=E1in covers the turbulent years of the War of Independence and the Civil War, giving brief portraits of some of those from the area who were heavily involved. This history, which has been thirty years in progress, includes a wealth of detail as well as a number of atmospheric photographs, both colour and black and white, and a series of maps of south-west Donegal from earliest times. Although confined to a small part of the country it can stand for many parts of Ireland in giving an insight into how life was lived, or endured, in Ireland through the centuries.

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Irish Folk And Fairy Tales ed. Gordon Jarvie
- The imaginative illustration by Barbara Brown on the cover of this collection is enough to spark the imagination of any child and the selection of William Allingham’s “Up the Aery Mountain” as the first item is a fitting introduction. Familiar names will be encountered among the thirty-seven stories and poems, including Thomas Crofton Croker (Daniel O’Rourke), William Carleton (Frank Martin and the Fairies) and Standish O’Grady (The Coming of Finn). The first six sections have been categorised by type, whether they be leprechauns, witches or the sidhe, while the final section is a collection of Celtic legends and traditional stories so old that their origins have been lost in pre-history.

The Complete Guide To Ireland’s Birds by Dempsey & O’Clery
- Eric Dempsey and Michael O’Clery first published their guide to the bird population of Ireland nine years ago and this new edition, which will be issued on September 17, has maintained the high standard in presentation and detail set by its predecessor. Every single bird with a presence in this country is included, with photographs and drawings, details of habitat, call and diet, and a map indicating where and in which season each species may be sighted. A separate section lists those species which are rare visitors to Ireland, including the Little Crake, the Honey Buzzard and the Stone Curlew, and a series of useful addresses for the bird enthusiast is also included.

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