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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.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Read Ireland
Read Ireland Book News - Issue 308
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1972: A Novel of Ireland’s Unfinished Revolution by Morgan
Llywelyn
(Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 33.00 USD / 18.00 UK; 365 pages)
The Irish Century series is the narrative of the epic struggle
of the Irish people for independence through the tumultuous
twentieth century. Morgan Llywelyn's magisterial multi-novel
chronicle of that story began with 1916, continued in 1921 and
1949 and now continues with 1972.
In 1972, Morgan Llywelyn tells the story of Ireland from
1950-1972 as seen through the eyes of young Barry Halloran, son
and grandson of Irish revolutionaries. Northern Ireland has
become a running sore, poisoning life on both sides of the Irish
border. Following family tradition, at eighteen Barry joins the
Irish Republican Army to help complete what he sees as 'the
unfinished revolution'.
But things are no longer as clear cut as they once were. His
first experience of violence in Northern Ireland shocks and
disturbs him. Yet he has found a sense of family in the Army
which is hard to give up. He makes a partial break by becoming a
photographer, visually documenting events in the north rather
than physically taking part in them. An unhappy early love
affair is followed by a tempestuous relationship with Barbara
Kavanagh, a professional singer from America. Events lead Barry
into a totally different life from the one he expected, yet his
allegiance to the ideal of a thirty-two county Irish republic
remains undimmed as the problems, and the violence, of Northern
Ireland escalate. Then Barry finds himself in the middle of the
most horrific event of all: Bloody Sunday in Derry, 1972.
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Barefoot in Mullyneeny: A boy’s Journey Towards Belonging by
Bryan Gallagher
(Hardback; 20.00 Euro / 26.00 USD / 14.00 UK; 230 pages)
Barefoot in Mullyneeny is Bryan Gallagher's evocative tale of a
childhood remembered through the people and landscape of
Fermanagh, near the beautiful shores of Lough Erne in Ireland.
Bryan chronicles a time when all the big boys went to school in
bare feet and secretly watched the Saturday night bands and
dances in halls lit by Tilley lamps; where it was known to be
nothing less than the biblical truth that if you put a
horse-hair across the palm of your hand when you were about to
be punished at school, the cane would split in two.
Gallagher's writing will touch the hearts of those who long for
the innocence of childhood and the simplicity of an era long
past. Whether relating tales of murderous bicycle chases through
the darkened streets of Cavan, of ghosts and fairy forts or the
anguish of emigration, this remarkable memoir vividly recreates
life in rural Ireland in the 1940s and 50s.
For those who thought that life in Ireland was one of the
poverty and misery of James Joyce or Frank McCourt, Barefoot in
Mullyneeny offers a view of the Ireland of yesteryear that
combines the touching, homely nostalgia of Nigel Slater's Toast
and Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie with a humorous optimism that
is unmistakably Ireland at its best.
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Utterly Monkey by Nick Laird
(Trade Paperback with endflaps; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 10.00
UK; 345 pages)
Danny Williams is a young litigator in a top city law firm. He
is talented, home-owning, in the process of becoming single, and
thoroughly sick of his demanding job and his boss. Work's only
consolations are glimpses of the beautiful trainee Ellen and the
neurotic behaviour of his colleague Albert. One average
Wednesday night an old schoolfriend Geordie Wilson arrives at
the door of his stylish flat. On the run from a loyalist
militia, whose funds he has nicked, Geordie brings everything
that Danny thought he had left behind and dumps it on his smart
London doorstep.
Taking place over an intense and gripping five-day period – set
in both London and the fictional town of Ballyglass – the novel
deals with love and sex, violence and friendship, the
estrangements of the modern workplace and the inflated cost of
jelly beans in posh hotels.
Utterly Monkey is a wonderfully touching, hilarious and
ultimately redemptive novel about aspirations, belonging,
loyalty and, most importantly, getting the girl.
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A Game with Sharpened Knives by Neil Belton
(Trade Paperback; 15.00 Euro / 18.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 325 pages)
In 1939, the life of an Austrian physicist was saved by a
revolutionary whose own sentence of execution had been commuted
almost twenty years earlier. The physicist was Erwin
Schrödinger, charismatic winner of the Nobel prize for Physics
in 1931, forced to flee when the Nazis entered Austria; the
revolutionary was the Irisch Fuhrer, Eamon de Valera. These are
the extraordinary facts behind this extraordinary fiction.
Murder is in the air, and on the sea beyond the mouth of the
river Liffey. German bombs are dropping, accidentally it is
reported, on Dublin. In 1941, Ireland is a country not truly at
peace, either with Germany, or with its neighbour across the
Irish sea, or in fact with itself. Erwin Schrödinger, bohemian
intellectual and emotional enigma, is living in cramped exile in
the village of Clontarf on the outskirts of Dublin, with his
wife, his lover and their child.
A Game with Sharpened Knives is the story of a man foundering on
his own desires, a man who often finds it easier to say nothing,
for no one in the tense and impoverished city of Dublin is quite
what they appear. The first language of this country, as Erwin's
Irish lover tells him, is silence.
From the winner of the Irish Times prize, a first work of
fiction, and a truly magnificent novel.
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New in Paperback This Week:
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From Dun Sion to Croke Park: The Autobiography of Micheal O
Muircheartaigh
(10.00 Euro / 13.00 USD / 7.00 UK; 260 pages)
One day in 1949, Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh took part in a
competition at Croke Park for an Irish-language commentator’s
job. He was just eighteen and had never seen a hurling match in
his life, but he got the job, and the rest is broadcasting
history. In From Dún Síon to Croke Park, Micheál tells the story
of his life and sporting times in his own words. Whether
describing the farm where he grew up, the school where he
learned to play Gaelic football, the majestic technique of
Christy Ring, or the form of one of his greyhounds, Micheál’s
prose shimmers with his legendary wit, grace and precision.
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A Bit on the Side by William Trevor
(10.00 Euro / 13.00 USD / 7.00 UK; 244 pages)
A Bit on the Side is William Trevor’s first collection of
stories since the award-winning The Hill Bachelors was published
in 2000.
Tender, touching and beautifully humane, the dozen new stories
contained here explore the subject of adultery, and tell of
secret passions, domestic infidelities, office romances, and the
broken and unbroken rules of love.
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Dublin by Edward Rutherford
(10.00 Euro / 13.00 USD / 7.00 UK; 820 pages)
Edward Rutherfurd's great Irish epic reveals the story of the
people of Ireland through the focal point of the island's
capital city. The epic begins in pre-Christian Ireland during
the reign of the fierce and powerful High Kings at Tara, with
the tale of two lovers, the princely Conall and the ravishing
Deirdre, whose travails echo the ancient Celtic legend of
Cuchulainn. From this stirring beginning, Rutherfurd takes the
reader on a graphically realised journey through the centuries.
Through the interlocking stories of a powerfully-imagined cast
of characters - druids and chieftains, monks and smugglers,
merchants and mercenaries, noblewomen, rebels and cowards - we
see Ireland through the lens of its greatest city.
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Highlights from the Previous Issue:
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Read Ireland Book News - Issue 307
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Dead Men Talking: Collusion, Cover-up and Murder in Northern
Ireland’s Dirty War by Nicholas Davies
(Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 15.00 USD / 7.00 UK; 225 pages)
Following the revelations of the secret conspiracy between
British Military Intelligence and the gunmen of the Ulster
Defence Association in Ten-Thirty-Three, Nicholas Davies now
dramatically reveals the evidence and facts that the Sir John
Stevens Enquiry is still trying to establish regarding links
between the security services and loyalist terrorist groups. In
Dead Men Talking, Davies exclusively details the covert killing
operations planned, organised and carried through by the RUC
Special Branch and MI5, as well as by the British Army's covert
intelligence organisation, the Force Research Unit. He provides
new information on a number of these killings, which were
authorised at the highest level of MI5 and the British
government. Of great interest will be Davies' revelations
regarding the work carried out by the agent codenamed 'Steak
Knife' and the secrets he passed to British Intelligence during
his 30 years at the epicentre of the Provisional IRA's command.
In addition, Davies uncovers the true story of the murder of
Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane and the subsequent murder of
UDA gunman William Stobie. Dead Men Talking exposes the massive
cover-up operation which began when Brian Nelson, the UDA's
chief intelligence officer, was arrested and persuaded with a
massive bribe to plead guilty to conspiracy to murder. The
sensational facts surrounding Nelson's apparent sudden and
unexpected death in the spring of 2003 are also revealed.
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Stand Up and Fight: When Munster Beat the All Blacks by Alan
English
(Paperback; 13.00 Euro / 17.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 274 pages)
When it comes to rugby union, one team has always stood a lock
forward taller than the rest. To their opponents of the 1920s
they were 'the Invincibles', to generations of British and Irish
players they were literally indomitables - to the rest of the
world they're simply the All Blacks. So when Graham Mourie's
team left New Zealand in 1978 for the northern hemisphere no one
believed they could be beaten. And then they lost. Not to the
Wales of J P R Williams or to a Barbarians' select XV, but to a
ragged provincial team from the south of Ireland: Munster. More
than one hundred thousand people claim to have been there when
Munster beat the All Blacks 12-0 at Thomond Park, Limerick, even
though the ground could hold only 12,000.
The New Zealanders would go on to won 17 of their 18 matches on
tour, but against Munster they were, in their own words, 'lucky
to get nil'. Munster's win remains the best and most unlikely
result ever achieved by an Irish rugby team - and arguably by
any rugby team in the world. Only a few minutes of grainy
footage of the match survive, captured by a single handheld
camera, but it has long since passed into legend. Now Alan
English tells us the real story of what happened that day in
October 1978, through the eyes of those who there and those who
made it happen. The day Munster beat the All Blacks is now part
of rugby mythology, yet the truth is more compelling than the
fiction.
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Gaelic Sports Championship 2005 by Damian Cullen
(Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 14.00 USD / 7.00 UK; 250 pages)
The GAA All-Ireland championships in hurling and Gaelic
football, which run from May to September, constitute the
biggest and most popular event in the Irish sporting year.
Boasting over a million members, the GAA regularly fills its
80,000-seater showpiece stadium, Croke Park, and commands more
public support than any other sport in Ireland. Now, Penguin
Ireland presents the only authoritative guide to the
championship: a GAA fan's bible containing statistics, fixtures,
predictions and more.
---------------------------------
Notes from a Coma by Mike McCormack
(Trade Paperback; 14.00 Euro / 19.00 USD / 10.50 UK; 200 pages)
Rescued from the squalor of a Rumanian orphanage, and adopted by
the rural community of west Mayo, the child that is named J. J.
O'Malley should have grown up happy. The boy has no gift for it,
though, and his new life has a brutal way of giving him plenty
to be unhappy about. After a sudden tragedy, J. J. suffers a
catastrophic mental breakdown. Unable to live with himself, he
volunteers for an improbable government project which has been
set up to explore the possibility of using deep coma as a future
option within the EU penal system. When his coma goes online the
nation turns to watch, and J. J. is quickly elevated to the
status of cultural icon. Sex symbol, existential hero, T-shirt
philosopher - his public profile now threatens to obscure the
man himself behind a swirl of media profiles, online polls, and
EEG tracings- Five narrators - his father, neighbour, teacher,
public representative, and sweetheart - tell us the true story
of his life and try to give some clue as to why he is the way he
is now: floating in a maintained coma on a prison ship off the
west coast of Ireland.
Brilliantly imagined and artfully constructed - merging science
fiction with an affectionate portrait of small town Ireland -
Notes from a Coma is both the story of a man cursed with guilt
and genius and a compassionate examination of how our identities
are safeguarded and held in trust by those who love us. (Also
available in Hardback, priced at 25 Euro)
-----------------------------------
Endurance: Heroic Journeys in Ireland by Dermot Somers
(Paperback; 18.00 Euro / 25.00 USD / 12.00 UK)
Kidnap, jailbreak, power, faith, murder, betrayal, scholarship,
survival and above all, sheer endurance -- all are themes in
Dermot Somers' stories of heroic and historic travels from the
mythic legends of prehistory to the dawn of modern Ireland.
With the aid of maps and photographs, Dermot Somers --
mountaineer, Gaelic scholar, TV presenter, and writer -- follows
in the footsteps of these epic journeys, revealing the people,
the cultures, the times, the places and the echoes surviving in
our landscape -- from Art O'Neill's icy grave in the Wicklow
mountains to the ringfort-hiding place of the brown bull in the
secret valley of the Cooley Mountains
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Dublinia: The Story of Medieval Dublin by Howard Clarke et. al
(Trade Paperback; 13.00 Euro / 16.50 USD / 130 pages, with full
colour illustrations throughout)
Dublinia is the story of a unique period in Irish history told
with passion, imagination and accuracy. This book leads the
reader through the noise and bustle of the medieval streets of
Dublin looking at all aspects of life, from religion to trade,
from crafts to government and from buildings to lifestyles.
Based on the hugely successful exhibition on medieval Dublin --
Dublinia -- this book is both a stand alone accessible and
authoritative introduction to life in the medieval city, and
also a souvenir to one of Dublin's most exciting historical
experiences. Whether you are an armchair enthusiast for all
things historic, a Dubliner looking for your city to surprise
you, or a visitor to the city, Dublinia. The story of Medieval
Dublin will fascinate and intrigue you.
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Illauhloughan Island: An Early Medieval Monastery in County
Kerry by Jenny White Marshall and Claire Walsh
(Hardback; 40.00 Euro / 47.00 USD / 31.00 UK; 250 pages, with
full colour and black-and-white illustrations throughout)
Illaunloughan was a small monastery on the Atlantic edge of
Ireland that lasted from the late seventh to the ninth century.
The well-dated material evidence provides a chronological base
for activities and customs that were previously of uncertain age
in Ireland; it also revealed the penetration of Christian
practice from other parts of the world into a regional Irish
monastery.
Evidence found here supports eighth-century construction of
drystone oratories and leachta, as well as a large gable shrine
and its mound. The complex reliquary structure was built to
honour the corporeal relics of the Illaunloughan saints, but the
community also used the eastern quadrant of its mound as their
graveyard, an indication that the Christian custom of burial
near the saints was active in Ireland then.
The community also placed white quartz stones and scallop shells
in with the bones of the saints, apparently for symbolic
spiritual purposes. White quartz stones are found on many early
medieval Irish sites, but the unusual presence of scallop shells
may reflect knowledge of a large scallop shell over the entry to
the Tomb of Christ in Jerusalem.
Excellent preservation of midden remains allowed the first
detailed quantitative analysis of diet and economy in the region
and showed that both wild and domesticated resources, including
meat, oats, seabirds and fish, were eaten. The nature of the
diet raised questions about the extent of mainland support of
the monastery and the possibility that a marginal environment
existed in the area at this time.
Illaunloughan also revealed other new information, such as the
construction of sod oratories, the casting and designing of fine
metalwork on small sites and the fosterage of exceptionally
young children on monastic islands.
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