The Sorrow and the Loss: The Tragic Shadow Cast by the Troubles on the Lives of Women, by Martin Dillon (Merrion Press, €19.99 / £15.50). This book provides an account of the grief, sorrow, hurt and tragedy visited on women by the so-called ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Reading it brought to mind those scenes…
Mike Cronin and Mark Duncan,Revolutionary Times: Ireland 1913-23: Forging of a Nation,(Merrion Press 2024) This book will be a delightful read for professional historians, amateur historians and members of the reading public who are interested in our recent history. At the outset the authors explain how it came to be published. It has its origins…
Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society, series 2, vol. 24, for 2024, edited by Tony Bergin, €20,00 / £16.99; inquiries to Kerry County Library, Moyderwell, Tralee, Co. Kerry, V92 X092, Ireland; the editor can be reached at journal@kerryhistory.ie. It is a familiar saying that all politics are local. The same is essentially true…
Inside Rural Ireland: Power and Change since Independence, edited by Tomás Finn & Tony Varley (University College Press, €30.00 / £25.00) It was a maxim in medieval times when a social problem arose to “Wait a bit: lets us ask the country folk” – “Sustine modicum: ruricolae melius hoc norunt.” This was transformed by the…
Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals, by Maurice J. Casey (Footnote Press, £20.00 / €24.00) The Communist International, which became widely known as Comintern, was founded in Moscow 1919. In the tangled politics of the left since 1848 there had been two other international movements, which had failed; but this new organisation…
Unladylike: A History of Ladies Gaelic Football by Hayley Kilgallon (New Island, €24.95 / £19.50) Beginning in the final quarter of the twentieth century, despite medical, religious and social objections, there was a remarkable increase in the number of girls and women participating in what were traditionally regarded as men’s sports. This trend was particularly noticeable…
D-Day: The Oral History by Garrett M. Graff (Monoray / Octopus Publishing, £25.00 / €30.00) D-Day was the turning point in World War II. On that day, June 6 1944, 160,000 troops stormed the Normandy beaches. They set up a battle front of more than sixty miles over five different beaches – their code names forever…
The Companion to Irish Traditional Music edited by Fintan Vallely (Cork University Press, €69.00 / £65.00 / $75.00 ) This is a magisterial study of Irish Traditional Music. At the outset the author defines this genre of music. For him it is a body of melody, song and dance and associated activities that comes from the period…
Irish Doctors in the Second World War by PJ Casey, KT Cullen, and JP Duignan (Merrion Press, €29.99/£25.99) This is a comprehensive account of the Irish doctors who served with the Allied forces in World War II. This is for all intents and purposes an untold story, but one that needed to be told for…
Dane Jeross: The Irish Private Eye who Operates Hollywood Noir Style, by Cyril McHale (Available from Amazon Media Eu: kindle edition, £9.99; paperback, £11.00.) Every classic Hollywood film is essentially a story and all of human life is to be found in those stories. They range from stories about the ‘Wild West’ to accounts…