Read Ireland Book Reviews, May 2004

Ruth Barton
Ken Bruen
Ken Bruen
W.H. Butler
Anne Chambers
Denyse Devlin
Mildred Dunne
Gabriel Fitzmaurice
Leontia Flynn
Frank Gannon
Ian Gunn
Brian Hanley
Clive Hart
Seamus Heaney
Des Hickey
Neil Jordan
Neil Jordan
Neil Jordan
Paul Larkin
A.P.W. Malcomson
John McDonagh
Eoin McNamee
Robert Emmet Meagher
Cormac Millar
Christopher Morash
Paul Muldoon
Elizabeth Parker Neave
Chris O’Callaghan
Hugh O’Donnell
Barry O’Reilly
Brian Phillips
Hilary Pyle
Mike Salter
Sean Sheehan
Gus Smith
Donovan Wylie

A Very British Jihad: Collusion, Conspiracy and Cover-up in Northern Ireland by Paul Larkin
In April 2003, the Stevens Report provided the first official acknowledgement of collusion between loyalist armed groups and British security forces in the murders of nationalists in Northern Ireland. Yet, as this book demonstrates, such collusion and associated conspiracies have been a central feature of the British response to the conflict in Ireland for more than 30 years. That response, argues the author, amounts to a Holy War, or Jihad, in the name of Protestantism and the British monarchy. That war has been swarthed in secrecy and denial, protected by notions of ‘national security’ that pervade every corner of the legal system and the political establishment of Britain. The author is an award-winning investigative journalist. He made the first of many investigative films for the BBC Northern Ireland’s current affairs programme, Spotlight, in February 1989, about the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane. Since then he has covered other controversial killings, Royal Ulster Constabulary cover-ups, the burgeoning illicit drugs trade, the role of informers and agents, and the notorious Portadown based ‘ratpack’. He has also produced a special investigation into the Dublin/Monaghan bombings for Irish television. The research for these films is the raw material of his book. Building on his investigations, he presents a detailed, revealing and quite frightening account of many aspects of Britain’s ‘dirty war’ in Ireland, and also provides a unique insight into the dangers and political pressures facing journalists who dare to investigate the unsavoury relationships between the intelligence agencies, politicians, the police, the British Army and loyalism.

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John B. (Keane) by Gus Smith and Des Hickey
John B. Keane, playwright, poet and fiction writer, was born in Listowel, Co. Kerry in 1928 and died in his hometown on 30 May, 2002. In this biography, the authors chart the progress and Keane’s drama - and its reception by critics and the public - and explore the man behind his work. John B.’s beloved wife Mary, his family and his many friends in Listowel have contributed their memories and their opinions of one of the great Irish writers of his generation. The highs and lows of John B.’s personal life too play their part, and his sometimes controversial opinions on the issues of the day. (I have one hardback copy of this book remaining in stock, priced at 25 Euro.)

Poems from the Irish edited by Gabriel Fitzmaurice
This book is a dual-language anthology of poetry. Old favourites and cutting edge contemporary poets sit easily together in this dual-language collection of Irish poetry from the seventeenth-century to the present day. Irish originals stand alongside Fitzmaurice’s masterful translations of the work of such poets as Mairtin O Direain, Sean O Riordain, Maire Mhac an tSaoi, Aogan O Rathaille, Michael Davitt and Cathal O Searchaigh.

Primate Robinson 1709-94 by A.P.W. Malcomson
Richard Robinson, archbishop of Armagh, 1765-94, remains an inscrutable figure. His primacy has been associated with a new era in Church of Ireland history, characterized by a greater concentration on ecclesiastical and opposed to political affairs, and by an emphasis on building, improvement and regeneration. In the absence of a surviving Robinson archive, and in the face of a personality which seems to have geared itself to giving as little as possible away, it is difficult to confirm or deny this popular assessment. But Dr. Malcomson, who draws in this book on new evidence not of Robinson provenance, suggests that a reassessment is necessary. He argues that Robinson was not so much a man who stood above politics as a poor politician, and that he failed to give the Church the political leadership that was required of the primate. The author also questions the actual extent of Robinson’s vaunted munificence, the importance of his personal contribution to the building of modern Armagh, and the architectural quality of some of his buildings. The picture that emerges is of a cold, proud and distant figure, conscious of his primatial dignity, jealous of rivalry, and possessive of the material benefits of his situation.

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The Burial at Thebes: Sophocles’ Antigone translated by Seamus Heaney
Commissioned to mark the centenary of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2004, The Burial at Thebes is Seamus Heaney’s new translation of Sophocles’ great tragedy, Antigone, whose eponymous heroine is one of the most sharply individualized and compelling figures in western drama. Faithful to the ‘local row’ and to the fierce specificity of the play’s time and place, The Burial at Thebes honours the separate and irreconcilable claims of its opposed voices, as they enact the ancient but perennial conflict between family and state in a time of crisis, pitching the morality of private allegiance against that of public service. Above all, The Burial at Thebes honours the sovereign urgency and grandeur of the Antigone, in which language speaks truth to power, then and now. (First editions available at normal price for a limited time!)

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Brendan Kennelly: A Host of Ghosts by John McDonagh
Brendan Kennelly is one of Ireland’s most important poets whose prolific output extends to over forty volumes of poetry since the publication of his first poetic work in 1959. This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the broad corpus of his writing. Kennelly’s work relies principally upon his unflinching desire to unmask the ideologies that underpin many aspects of Irish life. He does this by adopting a series of narrative voices, his collections combing contemporary Irish society to find the important connections between language and identity, history and national character, and the individual and the collective consciousness. At all times Kennelly aspires to clarity of thought, memory and image and his poetry consistently retains an accessibility and expression that appeals to an ever-increasing audience.

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A Guide to Irish Military Heritage by Brian Hanley
In the twentieth-century alone, Irish men and women fought in two world wars, a revolution and a civil war in Ireland itself, in the armies of Britain and the Commonwealth, the United States, and on both side in the Boer War and Spanish Civil War; additionally they engaged in numerous peacekeeping missions with the United Nations. This guide is designed to assist those who wish to know more about this dimension of Irish history. It lists archives and libraries and institutions that hold source material, and provides contact details. It also catalogues the museums, heritage sites and battlefields that are accessible to the public. It also contains a comprehensive bibliography of Irish military heritage and a guide to Irish military sources on-line.

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Granuaile: Ireland’s Pirate Queen by Anne Chambers
Over 400 years ago, Granuaile became a legend. As both Pirate Queen and Gaelic Chieftain, Granuaile (or Grace O’Malley), challenged the accepted ideas of sixteenth century Ireland. She manipulated the turbulent political environment, ignoring cultural conventions, to become one of the most powerful leaders in the country. The invading English also talked about this ‘most famous feminine sea captain.’ The meeting of the two Queens, Granuaile and Elizabeth I, ensured that the legend grew until Granuaile became celebrated as one of the most notorious Irishwomen in Elizabethan England. Using State papers and manuscripts of the period, the author reveals the woman behind the legend and the unique contribution she made to Irish history.

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Midlife Irish by Frank Gannon
Immigrants Bernard and Annie Gannon never talked about their Irish past. So when Francis Xavier Gannon was growing up in 1950s New Jersey, his parents’ native land was but a dim, distant mystery. Today Frank Gannon is a middle-aged, irreverent Catholic who prefers Bruce Springsteen to Celtic Moods, can’t dance a jig, and hates eating potatoes. Does that make him a bad Irish-American? Or a typical one? With both parents dead, there’s only one place Gannon could go to answer this question and find the missing pieces of his own heritage - Eire. In a moving and uniquely entertaining memoir, the author uncovers a 21st century Ireland full of beauty and paradox. And he offers a stirring, poignant yet often hilarious look at the bonds of family, and - from the Garden State Parkway to the wave-battered cliffs of the Emerald Isle - the ties of home.

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Dictionary of Irish Quotations by Sean Sheehan
This book contains a highly enjoyable and varied selection of interesting, informative, intriguing, infuriating - and sometimes just witty - remarks made by Irish people on a number of topical subjects. The quotations range from the fifth century to the present day.

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James Joyce’s Dublin by Ian Gunn and Clive Hart
‘Ulysses’ is one of the most realistic novels ever written. Commentary on it has often focused on its important place in the history of modernism, its break with narrative convention, its exploration of the dilemmas of life in the twentieth century. In this book, published on the centenary of the novel’s action, the authors examine instead the importance of its basis in physical fact. The characters, many of them Dubliners appearing under their own names, visit shop and pubs that can be precisely located in the streets of Dublin. Despite refurbishment of the city in recent decades, some of those establishments remain. This book offers a full account of them all and analyses their significance in the narrative. The book includes an analysis of Joyce’s use of Thom’s Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; an account of the characters’ movements episode by episode; an alphabetical list of the postal addresses of characters and places; a timetable of corresponding events; a note about unresolved problems; a detailed set of maps based on originals from early in the twentieth century; and a selection of historical illustrations, mainly of places and monuments that no longer survive.

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The Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland by J. Stirling Coyne with drawings by W.H. Butler
This fine edition of a classic work, first published in 1842, traces a journey through Ireland and reveals not only the beauty and grandeur of the Irish countryside at that time, but also depicts, in wonderfully detailed engravings, a wealth of fine architectural and historical landmarks.

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Yeats: Portrait of an Artistic Family by Hilary Pyle
From the foreword: ‘Since the middle of the nineteenth century the Yeats family have contributed on a virtually continuous basis to the cultural life of Ireland, in writing, theatre, painting and printing. Thanks to the generosity of the Yeats family and other individuals and corporations, the National Gallery of Ireland today possesses the most comprehensive collection of artworks by the family, embracing paintings, watercolours, drawings, sketchbooks, embroidery and other media. This book has been compiled to provide the visitor with a commentary on the collection, providing a detailed analysis of the oil paintings, watercolours and drawings together with more concise accounts of other material. The text is complemented by a visual survey of the collection.’

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The Maze by Donovan Wylie
The Maze prison in Northern Ireland was a model of repetitive and systematic architecture. Its primary function was to contain and isolate. Opened in 1976 at the height of the Northern Ireland conflict, it held both republican and loyalist prisoners in its eight H-blocks. Through its history of protests, hunger strikes and escapes, the Maze prison became synonymous with the Northern Ireland Troubles. After the peace negotiations, it was finally closed in October 2003. Donovan Wylie, renowned photographer, over the period of a year, spent almost 100 days photographing the inside of the prison. Gradually he came to understand the psychology of the architecture and its ability to distort and diminish. His photographs are a testimony to that experience.

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A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000 by Christopher Morash
This account of Irish theatre, newly published in paperback, winner of the Theatre Book Prize 2002, traces an often forgotten history leading up to the Irish Literary Revival. He then follows that history to the present by creating a remarkably clear picture of the cultural contexts that produced the playwrights who have been responsible for making Irish theatre’s worldwide historical and contemporary reputation. The main chapters are each followed by shorter chapters, focusing on a single night at the theatre. This prize-winning book is an essential, entertaining and highly original guide to the history and performance of Irish theatre.

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Irish National Cinema by Ruth Barton
This account of Irish film, from the silent era to the present day, shows how, in a country where the modern has long been regarded as a source of suspicion, cinema has occupied a fraught position within Irish society. Attacked by the Catholic Church for its detrimental influence on the faithful, regarded by the left as a tool of capitalism and by the Republican movement as a weapon of imperialism, it provided the battleground for the competing discourses within the emergent State during the early years of the twentieth century. At the same time, for the emigrant Irish, particularly in Britain and America, the cinema articulated, responded to and fashioned their experiences of departure and arrival. In this book the author argues that, in order to understand the unique inheritance on which contemporary Irish filmmakers draw, definitions of Irish culture and identity must engage with the cinema of the diaspora. In her discussion of contemporary Irish filmmaking, she further reflects on questions of nationalism, gender, and the representation of the Troubles and of Irish history, as well as cinema’s response to the legacy of the ‘Celtic Tiger’.

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Ancient Ireland: An Explorer’s Guide by Robert Emmet Meagher and Elizabeth Parker Neave
This is a splendid guidebook to Ireland’s stunning antiquities - its passage tombs, ring forts, castles, Neolithic settlements, and monastic sites. With its witty and erudite explorations of Irish mythology, history, literature, archaeology, and architecture, this book makes an excellent companion on a journey around Ireland. Along with fascinating overviews of prehistoric, Celtic and early Christian, and early medieval times, the authors give the visitor concrete help in finding the most captivating sites that preserve that history today.

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The Courthouses of Ireland compiled by Mildred Dunne and Brian Phillips
This book details an important aspect of Irish living and working heritage. The court buildings themselves represent a study over time of how Irish society sees itself in the matter of the administration of justice, providing both a functioning ‘working machine’ and forum for seeing that justice is being done. For this reason alone they have a heritage value, as well as in many cases, being simply beautiful and important examples of architectural skill and imagination. The book is intended for all those interested in Irish architectural heritage and the administration of justice and its reflects the determination of all three bodies involved to conserve those buildings of historic and architectural importance and to record for the future an accurate record of the fabric of the Irish courts system.

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The Castles of Leinster by Mike Salter
This book is a comprehensive guide to castles, fortified houses, bawns and town defenses in the twelve counties of the eastern and south-eastern parts of Ireland which make up the province of Leinster. An introduction describing the development of castellated buildings of stone in Leinster, dating from the late 12th century to the mid 17th century, is followed by twelve gazetteers describing the history and architectural features of over 350 such buildings in the counties of Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow. The gazetteers are illustrated with many plans, drawings and photographs, and there is a map showing the location of surviving buildings. Lists at the ends of the gazetteers provide summary information on 300 other buildings, and also sites of lost castles.

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Newgrange: Temple to Life A Re-Interpretation by Chris O’Callaghan
Despite the accepted fact that Newgrange is one of the most advanced Neolithic constructions designed and built to manage the rays of the sun, many writers persist with the 300 year old classification that Newgrange is merely a passage grave, or burial chamber. In this book the author challenges that claim, proposing that this commonly coined ‘passage grave’ description seriously misrepresents what the leaders, astronomers, architects, engineers, artists, builders and hundreds of workers achieved on the Newgrange ridge over 5000 years ago.

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Living Under Thatch by Barry O’Reilly
This book is a wonderfully illustrated celebration of traditional thatched buildings in Ireland (with a special emphasis on those in County Offaly). It explores the history of thatch, together with its future in a modern Ireland and examines the problems and joys of living in one of Ireland’s most recognizable icons - the thatched house.

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Shade by Neil Jordan
Nina Hardy has been murdered. She died in the house where she grew up, killed by George, her childhood friend. But her body is never found, and she remains, a silent shade, watching the events of her own afterlife. She watches her half-brother Gregory as he arrives to bury her, after some thirty years away; and Janie as she attempts to elicit a confession from George, her brother. Through them Nina will relive their lives together, and somehow begin to make sense of the people they all became. This is a story of imaginary friends and hayrides, of plays and school dances, of a seemingly idyllic childhood by the mudflats of the River Boyne. But the outside world cannot be kept at bay, and the fragile balance of their friendship is soon interrupted. Ultimately they will be torn apart by the outbreak of war, brought together again only to find that each other has changed almost beyond recognition. This novel is at once an unforgettable portrait of childhood, a powerful story in its many forms, and a moving tragedy of lost innocence. Written with astonishing insight and perception, it confirms Neil Jordan as one of the most mesmerizing voices in contemporary Irish fiction. (First Editions Available at Regular Trade Price for a limited time only)

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Sunrise with Sea Monster by Neil Jordan
Originally published in 1994, this is a lyrical and tender book, written with tremendous sensitivity. In the blinding morning sunlight, Donal Gore stands in a monastery courtyard. He travelled to Spain to fight in the Civil War. Captured and awaiting execution, time now slows for him. And he is haunted by memories of his childhood, from setting fish lines in the sea with his father, to the moment of his mother’s death. His was a life of piano lessons, or a growing passion, and of betrayal. And soon he will realise that this story has yet to find its end.

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Night in Tunisia by Neil Jordan
First published in 1976, this collection of highly original short stories won the Guardian Fiction prize and marked the debut of an outstanding writer. In the seaside towns of Ireland, within the tiled Victorian walls of Kensal Rise Baths, in Dublin on the day de Valera is buried, powerful rites of passage take place - the end of childhood, the moment of death, the end of a love affair. Each in turn reveals the extraordinary imagination and insight that characterises both the fiction and films of Neil Jordan.

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An Irish Solution by Cormac Millar
Seamus Joyce has got a few things on his mind. He has just been appointed Acting Director of iDEA, the Irish Drug Enforcement Agency. His wife is in hospital, dying of an unidentified ailment. And he is starting to question the purpose of his own existence. It’s a tricky time at iDEA: an ambitious new Minister for Justice is anxious to secure a few big scalps in the Dublin drugs trade, and Joyce is expected to put himself on the front line of the fight. Soon he begins to suspect that the police, in league with the Minister, are bending the rules - and he still doesn’t quite understand what the rules are. Why is money being paid into his bank account from an unnamed source in Liedhtenstein? Why are his phones being tapped? Andy why are a troubled schoolgirl and a diminutive nun accusing him of being at the heart of a lethal conspiracy? This debut novel is a sly and sophisticated work that establishes its author as one of the more interesting crime writers to emerge recently.

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The Ultras by Eoin McNamee
This novel is set in the 1970s when the covert war in Ireland was at its height. Intelligence and military agencies competed for assets along the Border, and their proxy assassins prowled the night. At the centre of events was the mythic figure of Captain Robert Nairac, the Special Forces operative who disappeared while on active service in 1977, never to be found. Twenty-five years on and Blair Agnew, ex-Sergeant with a damaged past, looks back and tries to separate fact from fiction in a bid to lay his own ghosts to rest. But it is his teenage daughter who fully comprehends the deadly allure of the hidden. This startling novel, based around the compelling figure of Robert Nairac, once again drives at the complex heart of post-war Ireland. A thrilling evocation of the world of men who find themselves operating in the dark and clandestine margins of society, an exploration of ideas of perception, corruption, and murder.

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The Dramatist by Ken Bruen
This is the fourth Jack Taylor novel. The impossible has happened: Jack Taylor is clean, sober, even the cigarettes are but a trace of smoke. He’s dating a mature woman, and if not yet a citizen, he’s dancing close to the illusion. Rumor suggests he’s even attending Mass. The accidental deaths of two students appear random, tragic events. Except that in each case a copy of a book by Synge is found beneath the body. Jack begins to believe that ‘The Dramatist’, a calculating, ruthless killer, is out there, enticing Jack to play. An old case, the swan killer, re-surfaces, distracting Jack’s attention. An urban myth, the Pikemen, may be the cover for a lethal band of vigilantes. The past, far from buried, is about the strike with a ferocity to claim the one decency Jack has clung to. The city of Galway, Jack’s refuge, source of renewal and torment, now demands a sacrifice of the only love he’s maintained. This book is ‘Irish noir with humour and guts.’

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Dispatching Baudelaire by Ken Bruen
Throughout his life accountant Mike Shaw has played it safe, kept his head down, and avoided risk. His girlfriend, Brenda, is a secretary and their idea of a night on the town is to visit the local pizza parlour. But when Mike meets Laura in a bar off The Strand, their lives are irrevocably changed. Small, smart, sexy -and utterly dangerous - Laura instantly spellbinds Mike and leads him into a world of moral depravity, dominated by the sinister presence of her powerful and rich father, Harold Benton. Dressed in safari suits, dining in West End restaurants, Benton drinks only the best of wines and whiskies, imitates Richard Burton, and quotes French poet Baudelaire at every opportunity. He is also without conscience, on a hell-bent mission to mould others to his likeness. This book is about what can happen to the blandest of men when seduced by money, power and sex. As the reader follows Mike on his journey into the heart of darkness, he comes to discover that there are few more dangerous animals than an Englishman off balance. Set against the paranoia of the early 1990s post-Thatcher London, this is yet another addictive page-turner from the prolific Irish author.

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The Catalpa Tree by Denyse Devlin
When Jude is orphaned at fourteen her late father’s best friend, Oliver, is all she has. It is a tough break for both of them. Jude always adored Oliver, but that was before he became her guardian. And Oliver cherished spirited young Jude to, but being responsible for her -especially when she has known so much heartbreak - is a burden he could have lived without. Over the years that follow, Jude tests Oliver in ways neither could have expected. In time she learns to grieve for her past, looks to a brighter future and even finds happiness with a man, though it may not be the lasting kind. Through it all - despite it all, maybe - their unique bond grows strong. When faced with one hard call too many, however, Jude and Oliver must discover just how strong that bond it - and if it can ever be broken.

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11 Emerald Street by Hugh O’Donnell
Until the moment when his head gets hurt in the crush at a hurling match, Robbie leads an ordinary enough life for a young Dublin boy. Twenty-a-side soccer in the street, adventures with his dog Bobby, daily battles with Clicky Kelly’s gang, sins of the flesh and of the mind … His injury changes everything. When he returns to consciousness, he believes that God has given him the power to perform miracles. At first Robbie contents himself with winning the spot-the-ball competition in the newspapers, but when he is sent to the orthopaedic hospital for ‘observation’, Robbie comes into his own. The other boys there are much sicker than he is - polio, thalidomide, haemophilia - but he swears to himself that he’ll cure them all. Then tragedy strikes closer to home and Robbie needs all his powers, miraculous or perhaps just the fruits of a fertile imagination, to keep his world intact. With a voice as real and Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke, Robbie is an enchanting character, and the world in which he lives, particularly the hospital with its heart-rending inmates and lascivious nurses, is brilliantly created. This book marks the debut of a formidable new Irish writer.

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Moy Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon
Winner of the Pulitizer Prize for Poetry 2003. This ninth collection finds the poet working a rich vein that extends from the rivery, apple-heavy County Armagh of the 1950s, where he was brought up, to suburban New Jersey, on the banks of a canal dug by Irish navvies, where he now lives. (One First Edition Hardback Remaining In Stock - Priced at 60 Euro)

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These Days by Leontia Flynn
This collection represents on the most strikingly original Irish poetry debuts in recent years. A Gregory Award winner, the poet - still in her twenties - writes about Belfast and the north of Ireland with a precision and tenderness that is completely fresh.

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