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This site includes the postings from the Irish Aires email list. This includes a listing of Irish/Celtic events in the Houston area and other information that the Irish Aires radio program posts.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Read Ireland
Read Ireland Book News - Issue 306
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A History of Fastnet Lighthouse by James Morrissey
(Trade Paperback; 17.00 Euro / 22.50 USD / 11.00 UK; 110 pages,
with full colour illustrations throughout)
This book provides a detailed account in words and pictures of
how this architectural gem was constructed in one of the most
hazardous sites in Europe and under perilous conditions.
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This Human Season by Louise Dean
(Trade Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 368 pages)
It is December 1979. Kathleen's son Sean has been convicted of a
crime on behalf of the IRA and sent to Long Kesh prison - newly
renamed the Maze. John Dunn has just taken up a job as a prison
guard after leaving the army.
Both will be shocked at what they find. Both will try to do the
right thing, and fail. Neither will ever be the same again.
Louise Dean's sensational new novel deals with one of the most
explosive and morally complex incidents in recent British
history. THIS HUMAN SEASON is a powerful, confronting, humane,
and blackly funny examination of the lives of ordinary people
when placed in the vice of history.
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Was Ireland a Colony?: Economics, Politics and Culture in
Nineteenth-Century Ireland edited by Terrence McDonough with an
afterword by Terry Eagleton
(Trade Paperback; 30.00 Euro / 36.00 USD / 20.00 UK; 360 pages)
The nineteenth-century history of Irish economics, politics and
culture cannot be properly understood without examining
Ireland's colonial condition. Recent political developments and
economic success have revived interest in the study of the
colonial relationship between Britain and Ireland that is more
nuanced than the traditional nationalist or academic revisionist
view of Irish history. This new approach has arisen in several
fields of historical investigation, notably culture, economics
and political history.
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Twists of Fate: Stories Behind Irish Battles and Sieges by John
McCormack
(Trade Paperback; 16.50 Euro / 20.00 USD / 11.00 UK; 232 pages)
This book brings the reader behind the scenes in the heroic
defence of Strongholds such as Drogheda, Limerick, Derry, Dunboy
and others against the besieging armies. The battles of
Clontarf, Faughert, The Yellow Ford, Benburb and others are
brought vividly to life with little-known and fascinating
details that are not usually found in history books.
How did Cromwell seem to lose his head at the siege of Clonmel?
What order given by Hugh O’Donnell at Kinsale caused all his
foot soldiers to flee in panic?
In what famous battle did the leader swap clothes with his
General so that he would be less conspicuous?
How did William of Orange come close to losing his life just
before the battle of the Boyne even began?
Read how during the siege of Derry, a certain fat gentleman
fancying that several of the garrison were looking at him with
hungry eyes hid himself away for two days!
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Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl by Kate McCafferty
(Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 15.00 USD / 7.50 UK; 210 pages)
This novel is the story of Cot Daley, a young Irish girl
kidnapped from her home in Galway and shipped out to Barbados
where more than fifty thousand Irish sold as indentured servants
to the plantation owners of the Caribbean and worked the land
alongside African slaves.
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Towpath Tours: A Guide to Cycling Ireland’s Waterways by John
Dunne
(Paperback; 13.50 Euro / 17.00 USD / 9.50 UK; 374 pages)
For cyclists, the towpaths of Ireland’s waterways are a perfect
amenity, a treasure trove of tranquil settings, constantly
changing scenery and glimpses of our past. They afford a safe,
fume-free environment without the access problems of our hills
and mountains. Availing of the paths once used by horses to pull
barges along canals and canalised rivers, the author documents
and maps 29 recommended off-road tours along some of Ireland’s
most scenic and historic waterways.
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Foreign Affections: Essays on Edmund Burke
(Paperback; 30 Euro / 36.00 USD / 24.00 UK; 280 pages)
These essays are dominated by Edmund Burke and by the accounts
of the ways in which he and some of those that he influenced
understood the revolutionary changes that produced the modern
world. The issues of liberty and empire, faction and revolution,
universality, equality, authority, sectarian vice and democratic
virtue are central here. Dominating them all is the question of
how traditional feeling and affection can be retained within the
revolutionary and colonial worlds that emerged at the close of
the eighteenth century. The answers to this question emerge from
the different interpretations of the American and French
Revolutions that were to be so influential for generations after
Burke. In addition, he posed the colonial question in Ireland
before it was posed more generally. Was liberty compatible with
colonial rule? Ultimately, Burke secured his position by his
condemnation of colonial as well as revolutionary violence. But
in those others dealt with here, especially in Tocqueville and
Acton, colonial atrocity is condoned or supported while
revolutionary violence is condemned out of hand. This, it is
argued here, is constitutive of the European anti-revolutionary
position which Burke helped to create but to which he
nevertheless remains alien.
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Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy by Peter De Rosa
(Paperback; 20.00 Euro / 26.00 USD / 14.00 UK; 480 pages)
At the dawn of the Third Millennium and with the death of
PopeJohn Paul II, this acclaimed international bestseller is the
dramatic and terrible story of the papal abuse of power in the
first two thousand years.
A resident of Ireland and former priest, the author calmly plays
Devil's Advocate. The book has everything we never wanted to
know about the supreme pontiffs - cruelty, simony, nepotism,
despotism and sex.
The book is a powerful and somber study; a disturbing but
important book.
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New in Paperback:
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The Irish Round Tower: Origins and Architecture Explored by
Brian Lalor
(20.00 Euro / 26.00 USD / 14.00 UK; 250 pages, with black and
white illustrations throughout)
The remains of over 70 round towers survive in Ireland, the only
form of architecture unique to Ireland. Many are in association
with surviving monastic settlements in some beautiful and
historic sites. This fully-illustrated study outlines their
architectural design and construction, their function, their
landscape setting and the uniqueness of each round tower site.
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Available Again:
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The Tailor and Ansty by Eric Cross
(Paperback; 11.00 Euro . 15.00 USD / 7.50 UK; 224 pages)
The Tailor and Ansty was banned soon after its first publication
in 1942 and became the subject of much bitter controversy. It
has become a modern Irish classic, promising to make immortal
the Tailor and his irrepressible wife, Ansty. The Tailor never
travelled further than Scotland, yet the breadth of the world
could not contain the wealth of his humour and fantasy. All
human life is here – marriages, inquests, matchmaking, wakes –
and always the Tailor, his wife and their black cow.
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Civil War in Connacht 1922-23 by Nollaig O Gradhra
(Paperback; 13.00 Euro / 17.50 USD / 9.00 UK; 186 pages)
Very little has been written about the Civil War in Connacht. In
this book Nollaig Ó Gadhra draws extensively on notes compiled
by J. J. Waldron of Tuam, placing them in a national context. He
gives a breakdown of the IRA command in 1922 and a remarkable
description of the stand-off during the summer of 1922 when the
British left their barracks and the rival pro- and anti-Treaty
forces competed for possession of the vacated buildings.
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Irish CD of the Week:
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Magic Time by Van Morrison
(20 Euro / 25.00 USD / 14.00 UK)
Four decades on from enjoying his first hits with Them, Van "The
Man" Morrison returns to the fold with Magic Time, a brand-new
studio album featuring thirteen songs - ten of them brand-new
Van Morrison compositions and a further three, interpretations
of classic jazz standards.
Track Listing: Stranded, Celtic New Year, Keep Mediocrity at
Bay, Evening Train, This Love of Mine, I’m Confession (Exclusive
to this release), Just Like Greta, Gypsy in My Soul, Lonely and
Blue, The Lion This Time, Magic Time, They Sold Me Out, Carry On
Regardless
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