Mendelssohn is like a character from an old epic, all hat and history Continue reading
Filed under Book review …
A Slip of a Thing – Book Review
when everyone is poor, cooperation tends to be more common than conflict. Continue reading
A Biography of a Flawed Colossus – Fanning on de Valera
Fanning is quick to point out that Dev ‘remains the most divisive figure in the history of modern Ireland’ (p 1). Fanning considers de Valera’s ‘culpability for the Irish Civil War…irrefutable’. Continue reading
Easter Rising and Captain Bowen-Colthurst
Several of his fellow officers suspected that Bowen-Colthurst was insane, but action to control him was only taken at the instigation of a Major Vane, who arrived in the barracks shortly after the killings and was horrified to discover what had happened. Continue reading
The Maximalist by Matt Cooper
Tony O’Reilly was the tallest of Irish tall poppies, an easy target for the begrudgers, but the author makes a strong case for Tony O’Reilly, the modern Irish patriot. Continue reading
Recuperating the ‘Drunken, Vainglorious Lout’
As Fallon tells it, MacBride’s role in the Easter Rising as second-in-command to Thomas MacDonagh at Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, was almost accidental. He wasn’t a member of the Irish Volunteers and had supposedly come into Dublin to meet one of his brothers. Continue reading
A National Treasure Despoiled by Invaders?
Ireland, it has been said (perhaps a little too often), was once the site of extensive woodland, with its destruction attributed to the depredations of invaders, leaving a national treasure despoiled. On this narrative Nigel Everett casts a pleasingly sceptical eye. Continue reading
Dissonant Voices: Faith and the Irish Diaspora
‘I now believe that the spiritual life is deeply political’ p.175.
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It’s About More Than Winning.
perhaps the biggest contrast is in the personality of the two central characters, hinted in the title that each chose for his book. Continue reading
WINDHARP. Poems of Ireland since 1916
if this was all we had a thousand years from now, it would be the basis for a sound reconstruction of the political, social and economic life in Ireland in the century since 1916. Continue reading
Tinteán 