Irish Emigrant Book Review, No.94 (May 2003)

Brendan Barrington
Kevin Bowen
Patricia Boylan
Declan Burke
Kieron Connolly
Donal de Buitleir
Catherine Donnelly
Imelda Foley
Michael Kirby
Cathal Liam
Kieran McCarthy
Fr Tom O’Connor
Dani O’Riley
M.J. Quinn
Stephen Redmond SJ
John P. Rooney
Frances Ruane
Yvonne Whelan

The State of Grace – Catherine Donnelly
The heroine, a caring wife and mother, suddenly finds herself left to rear her children when her husband walks out. With the support of the children and a number of close friends, and resurrecting talents buried under years of household drudgery, she emerges triumphant as a new woman with a new career and newly acquired self-esteem. Thus runs the plot of the average deserted wife novel, but Catherine Donnelly’s heroine is so different, indeed different enough to make us laugh with her as well as to empathise with her difficulties. For Grace’s immediate reaction to being fired from her job in the advertising industry, on top of her husband Lionel’s defection to a newer model, is to take up smoking and to fall off the no-alcohol wagon on which she has perched safely for fifteen years. Her two children are of little help to her since her relationship with both Josh the accountant and Emily the reformed drug addict are a touch dysfunctional, and it is a friend of her estranged husband who is the key to her eventually reaching firm ground again. Ms Donnelly’s characterisations are excellently drawn, with Grace alternating between the guilty mother and the just as guilty but also exasperated daughter. Her father, dealing heroically if a touch idiosyncratically with his wife’s Alzheimer’s, her two children whom she barely knows, and her colleagues in the frenetic world of advertising all contribute to the manic life of Grace. But it is Olga, the Russian woman who arrives as a friend of her husband’s and finishes as the catalyst for Grace’s reclamation of her life, who is the larger than life counterpart to Grace’s hesitancy. It is through Olga that Grace is brought to an understanding of her two children but the serious undertones are so overlaid with the manic pace of Grace’s life that they never become sententious. This is a hugely enjoyable story which gallops along and comes to a fitting, if slightly unusual end.

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Skelligs Calling - Michael Kirby
This is a gem of a book, written by a man in his mid-nineties in what is his second language. Michael Kirby’s knowledge of his native Ballinskelligs is legion, a knowledge acquired over a long lifetime of observation. But these are not the disjointed reminiscences of an old man, they are clearly set out details about the abundant wildlife with which he has become familiar through his work as a fisherman and his rambles about his native place. Written in a style which combines erudition with poetry, Michael Kirby’s narrative underlines his almost personal relationship with the inhabitants of the sea and air, the delicacy of the cod’s palate and tongue when made into soup, the formidable aspect of the mullet, and the individual characteristics of so many seabirds. At times he digresses to relate a story, such as the close encounter he and his father had with a shark while fishing off Bolus headland. He recognises, however, that man has not yet uncovered all the secrets of the world of wildlife for, he says, “Modern technology and communications stop short at the turnstile to the animal kingdom”. But more than wildlife occupied the thoughts of those living on the shores of Ballinskelligs Bay, and there is a wonderful description of beachcombing, of finding uses for everything that the ocean washed up. One of the tricks was to elude the Customs men, though in later years local members of the police force would collude with the recovering and selling of a number of precious items. The story of Paddy, Jamesie and the cask of rum is a prime example of the way in which such escapades could quickly turn to farce. Not everything that came ashore was beneficial to the local community, however, for a number of mines, both Allied and German, were also washed up and had to be dealt with. The author has not spent his entire life on the south-west tip of Ireland, for he lived in the US for a short period, but his arrival there coincided with the Wall Street crash and it was but a short interlude in his life. However short it was, he brings to its description the same eye for detail as had served him so well at home, from the seven-day voyage across the Atlantic to his work on the railroad. Fate brought him home to Ballinskelligs where his life as a farmer has been enlivened by his storytelling, painting and poetry. Perhaps one of the greatest legacies contained in “Skelligs Calling” is his recording of the traditional Irish place names along the Skelligs shore and his listing of the Irish names for all the birds to be found in his own locality. And ultimately, who could resist a book with a chapter entitled “Observations of a Fish-Gutter”?

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Gaps of Brightness – Patricia Boylan
Many more people are now living in to their nineties but not many of them, I suspect, could set down their memoirs with such clarity and humour as Patricia Boylan. From her early years as one of twelve children growing up in Coalisland and Dungannon she observed those around her, and two short stories incorporated into the narrative depict characters in her native Tyrone. A clue to Ms Boylan’s independent and inquisitive character may be deduced from her decision as a young child to pay a visit to a house where a death had occurred, a visit which necessitated mitching from school for the day. In a similar fashion after the family had moved to Belfast, and while Patricia was still at the Dominican convent, she dressed up in her older sister’s navy serge suit and posed as a reporter in order to work her way into the Opera House where the Abbey Theatre company was playing. Although she trained and qualified as a nurse, following her older sister to Leeds, the author’s main ambitions lay in the world of theatre and it is her association with the Abbey and with Radio Eireann that affords much of the interest of this book. At the Abbey she met, or at least rubbed shoulders with, many of the legendary names of Irish theatre, including W.B. Yeats, Lennox Robinson, Cyril Cusack and F.J. McCormack. Writing for the Irish Press paid her fees at the Abbey, and Ms Boylan has successfully threaded some of her pieces into the narrative to throw a further light on her experiences. Patricia Boylan’s work with The Dublin Verse-speaking Society, whose chairman was the poet Austin Clarke, her marriage to a senior member of the radio authority and the years spent establishing themselves and their four children into suitable accommodation, make up the final chapters of this entertaining memoir. Beginning at a time when the author’s mother was a dominant influence on her life, the book closes with her mother’s death more than forty years ago. Ms Boylan is at present at work on a third book and one hopes that at some time she will share with her readers more memories of her life over the past forty years.

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Home Turf – M.J. Quinn
M.J. Quinn’s novel is full of surprises. When it begins with Tommy McDermott being informed that his father’s body has been found on Magilligan Strand in County Derry on the other side of the Atlantic, we are all set for a thriller taking in the present political situation in the North. When he makes the journey from his New York base, however, he discovers that his father died of natural causes, and that particular mystery is solved. But this is no run-of-the-mill story of an Irish-American finding his roots, for the McDermott family and their relatives, the Finneys, have a particular gift which gives an insight into their family history that few others possess. Tommy’s encounter with his myriad relations (and the huge cast of characters is a bit confusing to the reader) and his connecting with the life his father led before emigrating to the States gives him a new perspective on his New York life as a journalist. A convincing comparison is drawn between the constant deadlines and meetings of the New York office and the peace and tranquillity of his father’s Irish home, not to mention the welcoming relatives. However M.J. Quinn is clever enough not to allow Tommy to plunge straight into rural life and give up his New York life forever. The introduction of Marnie, a family friend who lives across the water in Donegal, promises some kind of continuity but again the author resists the temptation to offer a happy-ever-after ending. Instead there is a gradual realisation on Tommy’s part as to where his future lies and the narrative comes to an optimistic end without being too predictable. On the whole M.J. Quinn has successfully conveyed the tenor of life in rural Derry and Donegal, though his style is somewhat didactic, perhaps aimed at those who have little prior knowledge of Ireland. In Tommy McDermott he has created a believable character even if some of the events stretch the reader’s credibility.

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There is a House – Kieron Connolly
Kieron Connolly’s novel of writers block, incipient alcoholism and dysfunctional relationships is redeemed from total darkness by his sense of humour. Dubliner Paul Conlon has embarked on that most difficult of exercises for a moderately successful writer, the second book, and his novel is a book about writing a book, which becomes the book itself. For the only words on page one of his new work are “There is a house” and the narrative rambles backward and forwards from his childhood through his awkward adolescence to eventual love and fatherhood. The characters in his life, his former partner Caroline, his agent Tim and his neighbour Kate inhabit the past present and future in a sometimes bewildering procession of events, and Paul guides us through it all with a quiet fatalism. The house of the title becomes the house of his lowest point as well as the house of hope for the future, and the story of Paul’s turbulent life is told with a deadpan humour that carries the reader along to the final ironic sentence.

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The Dublin Review – Summer 2002 – ed. Brendan Barrington
The 11th edition of the review contains contributions from poet John Montague with an extract from a forthcoming memoir which deals with his time at Berkeley University during the 1960s, and a description by author Hugo Hamilton of a summer spent at a pea-processing plant in England. Molly McCloskey writes of a High School reunion which reveals the way in which our memories can mislead us, while Christina Hunt Mahony examines the portrait of the Irish as seen through Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York”. Other contributors include Roy Foster, Edna Longley, George O’Brien, Sydney Lea and Aine Ni Mhaonaigh.

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Where Glory Dwells – Stephen Redmond SJ
This is an enjoyable ramble through the places of worship which have been associated with Stephen Redmond from his baptism in St Andrew’s, Westland Row to the Holy Family Church in Aughrim Street which is his parish church in his retirement. In between he takes us on a journey through his Jesuit life and all the foundations of the order with which he was associated. His “Sanctuaries I Remember” include primitive places of worship in Africa and the more ornate buildings of Rome, and it is here that the profane creeps into his description of the sacred. In St John of the Latin Gate, where he stood “soaking in the centuries”, he waited to be uplifted by the music of the organ. Instead the organist launched into “’Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy’ from the ’Nutcracker’ suite, played with a few wrong notes”. Written in a conversational tone and including the people he met on his journey through the sacred places, Stephen Redmond’s book is both a personal recollection and a sharing in prose and verse of those places which have had special meaning in his life.

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Eight True Maps of the West – Kevin Bowen
The worlds of Vietnam and Ireland combine to provide the themes for the poems of American-born Kevin Bowen, the Vietnam to which he was conscripted when he dropped out of school and the Ireland of his grandmother which he has rediscovered. He tells us of the futility of war, the “hollow speeches of empty men” and the “Good men and women who try to speak up and are silenced”. Bowen also records the small forgotten kindnesses of war, the old woman who lifts the body of a dead soldier though “No one was there to take your picture for the important books of war.” The colours of both countries, and the relentless rain are recurrent themes in this collection, which also touches on the personal in poems about his brother and father. The title poem is a lengthy examination of the conditions which forced his grandmother’s emigration, with verses expanded by the letters written for help for his parishioners by the local parish priest in the 1880s. Here the poet revisits the old homes in Carraroe and the island where his ancestors took shelter, and tries to imagine himself into the life of his grandmother as she went “to wash in the cold waters one last time, that night of her leaving.” This newest collection includes work from “Playing Basketball with the Vietcong” and “Forms of Prayer at the Hotel Edison”.

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The Girls in the Big Picture – Imelda Foley
Through interviews with four Ulster playwrights the author sets out to examine the importance of gender in Northern Ireland theatre. Using as a starting point the Ulster Literary Theatre, established more than one hundred years ago, Ms Foley demonstrates the predominance of the male and patriarchal influence on theatre, before taking as the starting point of a radical shift in attitude, the establishment of the Charabanc Theatre in the 1980s. Set up to counteract the perceived lack of roles for women, it was particularly focused on “presenting plays which represent Northern Ireland society”. From this beginning developed Dubbeljoint, whose aim was to link the two parts of Ireland in content and direction. The main focus of Ms Foley’s work concentrates on an examination of the way in which the roles for women developed through the works of Marie Jones, Christina Reid, Anne Devlin and Frank McGuinness which, she asserts, “reinstates the ideology of the ULT in contemporary terms”.

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Reinventing Modern Dublin – Yvonne Whelan
Yvonne Whelan has taken as her subject the way in which the streetscapes and statuary of Dublin reflect the changing history of the capital city, how our surroundings define our attitudes to the political situation at a given time and the change from the Imperialist street names and monuments to those expressing the independence following the Easter Rising and the establishment of an Irish government. A number of interesting plans and lists are included, showing the vision of a future Dublin expressed by those at the birth of the new nation, and the fate of a number of statues which once adorned Dublin. Ms Whelan has made good use of contemporary documents to give a flavour of the thinking behind many of the changes wrought. An example is the saga of the statue of Queen Victoria, which once stood in front of Leinster House before being put into storage and which was donated in 1987 to the city of Sydney to celebrate its bicentenary. Though its removal had been urged from the 1920s, on the grounds that it was an affront to the ideals of the new State, by the time of its eventual removal some were calling for its retention in the light of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the two traditions. The extensive research undertaken in the writing of this book, and the detailed notes and bibliography, attest to its origin as a PhD thesis, but in the transformation from thesis to published book Ms Whelan has succeeded in transforming the appeal from the academic to the general reader.

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Bottling It Up – John P. Rooney
John P. Rooney’s story could only have been written by a Belfast man, who can introduce a note of black humour into the carrying out of paramilitary-style beatings and general threatening behaviour. His hero, Paul Fox, is one of a group of architects working on government housing projects who changes his lifestyle after a health warning from his doctor. This change in attitude to his job, when he will no longer “bottle up” his real feelings, opens a can of worms that leads to threats from rival factions. Coupled with an ongoing estrangement from his wife and difficulties in his work relationships, this evolves into a story of intrigue and humour of the darker kind. The book takes on a serious note at times, for example in the situation in which foreman Danny finds himself, which is at odds with the general tenor of the narrative. However despite this unevenness “Bottling It Up” successfully pokes fun at a number of aspects of the Northern establishment.

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Discover Cork – Kieran McCarthy
One of the O’Brien City Guide Series, this guide to Cork is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the history of the city and the second giving a guide to the main attractions. However Kieran McCarthy has not kept rigidly to this division and the book benefits from this decision. For while it is important to give an overview of the city to aid appreciation, it is impossible to describe present buildings and amenities without in some way referring to the past. The historical section includes a variety of illustrations, photographs, maps and drawings, and a number of colour photographs of different aspects of Cork divide the two sections. A numbered map precedes the descriptions of notable areas and buildings in Cork, including the Butter Market and St Finbarre’s Cathedral, with less easily recognised landmarks such as the well of the Franciscan Abbey at the North Mall also featuring in this useful guide to Ireland’s second city.

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Governance and Policy in Ireland – ed. Donal de Buitleir & Frances Ruane
Eleven people were asked to contribute to a collection of essays which would be a tribute to Miriam Hederman O’Brien, and the range of subjects covered bear testament to Ms Hederman O’Brien’s wide-ranging influence over the last five decades. Pat Cox MEP, President of the European Parliament, naturally focuses on the enlarged Europe; Paul Haran, Secretary-General of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, discusses the ways in which the civil service is adapting to change; and Fr Peter McVerry SJ writes on the topic of homelessness, a field in which he has worked for the past twenty-five years. Other contributors include Ruth Barrington, Peter Cassells, Peter Feeney, John Kay, Dermot Keogh, Sir Brian Kerry, Thomas Mitchell, Patricia Quinn and the editors.

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Eight Ball Boogie - Declan Burke
Harry Rigby is a struggling private detective (independent researcher) who dabbles in a little journalism to pay the bills. His relationship with his girlfriend is on rocky ground and he has a son whose parentage is in dispute. Safe to say his private life is a little unstable. When the wife of a local politician is murdered on her doorstep things get worse for Harry. He is drawn into an ever more violent series of events involving bent cops, drug traffickers, crooked politicians and paramilitaries, the usual cast of characters to be found in any midsize Irish town. Set in Sligo, the home of the author, this is a fast paced thriller written with a nod in the direction of those old detective movies where the protagonist is a down-at-heel loner with a tough attitude, a fondness for the drink and a bag full of pithy one-liners. This constant dry wit seems more than a little corny at first but when you get used to the style of the writing it becomes quite enjoyable. The book reads at a blinding pace throughout but rarely, if ever, delves beneath the surface. It is one-dimensional but this doesn’t detract from the story, as it has no pretensions to be anything but a good yarn. As for the relevance of the title to the book, the author makes an attempt to tie it in to the plot but it remains unclear at the finish. Despite a slightly convoluted plot Eight Ball Boogie is an enjoyable read, a good first novel. (Review by Eoghan Ferrie)

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Forever Green – Cathal Liam
Subtitled “Ireland Now and Again”, Cathal Liam’s book looks both backwards and forwards, back to an Ireland of heroic rebellion and sectarian strife, an Ireland of turf fires and traditional values, and forward to an Ireland where old shops have been replaced by “plastic” pubs, where co-operation between the two factions in the North may eventually lead to the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. The collection of essays and poems would seem to be aimed primarily at an Irish American audience, and Mr Liam does a good job in explaining the ongoing difficulties with the peace process. His choice of words in describing the British colonisation of Ireland, however, give some idea of the basis of his political beliefs. He talks of life in Ireland at the turn of the 20th century “with the ever-present threat of the Stranger’s lash lurking overhead”. In an extract from his historical novel, “Consumed in Freedom’s Flame”, his young hero Aran Roe O’Neill is “outraged and incensed at the Saxon Stranger’s seven-hundred-year-plus dominance of his homeland”. However he has a commendable grasp of the events of the past five years in the North as well as an obvious love for Ireland which emerges in his descriptions of Galway city, of Croagh Patrick and of a day on the bog in the Irish midlands. (St Padraic Press, <www.cathalliam.com>

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Turoe & Athenry – Fr Tom O’Connor
In this detailed description of a number of ramparts in Galway, in the Turoe and Athenry area, the author sets out his argument for relocating the legendary seat of the High Kings of ancient Ireland from Tara in Co. Meath to Turoe in Co. Galway. His main premise is that Athenry, far from being merely a Norman town, held great importance during the Iron Age and was the Regia based in Connacht that features in Ptolemy’s map of the first/second century. As his sources Fr O’Connor uses the Dindsenchas, described as legendary history dating from the 11th century, as well as the importance of place names and the oral tradition. This latter aspect is one of the most interesting since he is able to draw on the memories of people now dead whose parents and grandparents told them of traditions and names associated with local landmarks. While the author makes considerable use of the conditional ’may’, ’might’ and ’probably’, his arguments do bear weight, particularly in the proliferation of place names which point to a considerable settlement having existing in the Athenry/Turoe area in the Iron Age.

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The Eyes of Ireland – Dani O’Riley
Dani O’Riley has travelled the length and breadth of the country to record some of the many fine craftsmen and women at work. As she says in her introduction, “not to include everyone was difficult”, but those she has included she has served well. Not only are full contact details given for each artist, including directions on how to find the studio, but each entry is enhanced by a number of fine photographs which give a feel for the work being carried out. The directions are particularly appropriate as many of the studios are off the beaten track and not easily accessible otherwise. The book is divided into eight chapters covering the whole of the country and would be a useful addition to the more traditional guidebook of the country.

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