Irish Emigrant Book Review: Issue No. 21 (April 1997)

Growing up in a Divided Society: The Influence of Conflict on Belfast School children by Sean Byrne
Sean Byrne describes the results of a study of the political development of thirty-five Protestant and Catholic schoolchildren between the ages of eleven and sixteen attending integrated and non-integrated secondary schools in Belfast. The research maps Belfast schoolchildren’s images of political violence, political authority figures and their views about the possibility for peaceful change. All four age groups insisted that violence is a “way of life” in Northern Ireland, as small bands of terrorists perpetuate the conflict. One of the most important differences between the schools is that fifth-year pupils at the integrated school overwhelmingly supported the expansion of integrated education in Northern Ireland as an important peace-building instrument. As one child said, “Integrated education is the next step toward peace”.

A Guide to the Ancient Monuments of Inishowen, North Donegal by Sean Beattie
- “A Guide to the Ancient Monuments of Inishowen, North Donegal” by Sean Beattie has a two-fold purpose. While it will be useful for anyone interested in our heritage, it can also be used as a text book for second level students of heritage and tourism studies. After a brief introduction to the geology and history of the area, the author takes us through the various types of tombs, stone circles and promontory forts. The Carndonagh monastic complex is included in his study of the Christian era, and among the later fortifications listed are Carrick-a-Braghy Castle on the Isle of Doagh and Inch Castle. The booklet is well illustrated with both photographs and drawings and is an easy to follow guide to the area.

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City of the Tribes by Walter Macken
- Launched this week in the Taibhdhearc Theatre in Galway was a volume of 18 previously unpublished short stories by Walter Macken. Retrieved by Ultan Macken from a university in Germany where they had been sent by the author’s wife, the stories have been gathered together under the title “City of the Tribes”. All based in Macken’s native city of Galway, the stories let us experience the noise and colour of a fair day in Eyre Square, the loneliness of an old Claddagh fisherman whose boat is broken up, the innocence of a countryman visiting the city for the first time in Race Week and the strange intermingling of the present with the Spanish past of the Long Walk. Although many of the stories feature what might be termed “characters” of Galway, two show us the city as seen from a non-human eye. Perhaps the more successful of the two is “Homing Salmon”, which, with its eye for detail, is reminiscent of that other great Galway storyteller, Liam O’Flaherty.

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Honey From Stone by Chet Raymo
Chet Raymo, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, has presented us with nine meditations, loosely based on the mediaeval Book of Hours with each chapter headed as one of the canonical hours - Matins, Lauds, Tierce. In contemplating the possibility of conventional religion in the world of today, Raymo ranges from deep inside the rocks under his feet to the furthest galaxies in space. One section is devoted to Skellig Michael, the setting for the author’s novel “In The Falcon’s Claw”, and we climb with him up the treacherous 600 steps to the beehive huts where the monks lived. Perhaps the most affecting chapter is that which deals with his father’s struggle to keep death at bay by cataloguing the minutiae of his daily life.

Stones of Aran: Labyrinth by Tim Robinson
- The second volume of Tim Robinson’s writings on the Aran Islands, “Stones of Aran: Labyrinth”, has just been published in paperback. The universally acclaimed work looks at the interior of the largest of the three islands, Inismor, at its flora and fauna, geology and geography and brings its every detail to the eye of the reader.

Gender Perspectives in Nineteenth Century Ireland: Public and Private Spheres edited by Margaret Kelleher
- A collection of essays exploring the significance of gender in the forming of public and private life during a time of extreme change has been issued under the title “Gender Perspectives in Nineteenth Century Ireland: Public and Private Spheres.” Edited by Margaret Kelleher, lecturer in English at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth and James H. Murphy, lecturer in English at All Hallows College, Dublin, the essays cover a wide area, ranging from an examination of the inequality of schooling between the sexes, by John Logan of the University of Limerick; a study, by Brian Griffin of Bath College of Higher Education, on the effect the Royal Irish Constabulary code of practice had on the lives of members’ families; a commentary by Mary Ellen Doona, Associate Professor at Boston College, on the diary kept by Sister M. Joseph, (Isabella Croke), while she was nursing the wounded of the Crimean War; and Jan Cannavan’s exploration of the role of women in the Young Ireland movement of the 1840s.

A Pocket History of the IRA by Brendan O’Brien
- For anyone like myself with a rather hazy view as to how the original revolutionaries of 1916 became the contemporary IRA, “A Pocket History of the IRA” is the answer. Here the author progresses steadily through the Rising, the Civil War, the dormant years, the Border attacks of the 50s, the start of the present conflict and the ceasefire of 1995. Each chapter covers a set number of years with helpful sub-headings, and Mr O’Brien concludes with the view that more than three-quarters of a century on from 1916, the movement still feels it has an uncompleted mission to fulfil.

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