First published 2009 by Publishing Ireland for the Great Irish Book Week promotion. Publishing Ireland Guinness Enterprise Centre, Taylor’s Lane, Dublin 8 Tel: +353 1 4151210; email: info@publishingireland.com CLÉ Teoranta t/a Publishing Ireland. Registered in Ireland No. 80409 www.publishingireland.com ISBN: 978-0-904089-06-6 Copyright for text as indicated in each extract A catalogue record for this title is available from The British Library 12345678 09 10 11 12 13 Typeset by Ivan O’Brien Cover design by Fidelma Slattery Printed and bound in Ireland by ColourBooks Ltd
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Foreword Dear Reader, Irish people have an ongoing fascination with the book, and Irish publishers have been integral to developing those relationships. Our indigenous publishing is an important part of our cultural infrastructure: as an employer, economic generator, contributor to our national pride and international reputation. Literature is Ireland’s greatest art form – our writers engage with the Irish condition and contribute to our national identity. There is a natural alliance here. The 100 publishing houses which are members of Publishing Ireland make essential contributions to literary and cultural publishing. In this sampler you will see some of those contributions from 30 different books. We urge you to be inspired by Irish publishing and explore the treasures within. The ‘Great Irish Book Week’ project is already a success story. It demonstrates how even in harsh economic times when pressures are more intense than ever, that people are still willing to work together, voluntarily, for the benefit of all. Publishers, booksellers, authors, wholesalers and the media have worked together to bring the best of Irish publishing to your attention, under the diligent management of Jean Harrington and Michael O’Brien. Our sincere thanks to all. This partnership bodes well for the future of our industry. Alan Hayes President Publishing Ireland
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Introduction Fáilte chuig Seachtain na Leabhair Mór Éireannach 2009! The Great Irish Book Week was conceived by Publishing Ireland as a way to promote and publicise the rich variety of books published by Irish publishers and to help shoppers make informed choices about their book purchases. At present Irish publishing accounts for about 15% of Irish bookshop sales, and we believe that there is room for development. Irish people are loyal about buying Irish, and so we have designed the Great Irish Book Week to encourage you to not only look at the 30 books within, but to explore the thousands of indigenous treasures on shelves throughout the country. This promotion is a new departure between booksellers and publishers who are working closely together, encouraged by the success of World Book Day which has successfully promoted children’s books for many years. The Great Irish Book Week is exclusively focused on the adult trade. To this extent, we have prepared this sampler with extracts from 30 great Irish books. These books have been carefully chosen by an independent panel who are passionate about publishing and writing. The range of books includes humour, travel, fiction, sport, history, biography, poetry, politics, literature and crime in both English and Irish languages – a great representation of what Irish publishing has to offer. There are, of course, many more great Irish books on sale, outside of this small collection, so take time to browse through your local bookshops. Please take note of which books are Irish published – each sale is an important contribution towards preserving jobs in Ireland and creating a long-term sustainable books industry. During the Great Irish Book Week look out for author readings, signings and interviews: details on www.greatirishbookweek.com. We hope you enjoy these extracts and that they inspire you to journey in the exciting world of Irish literary and cultural publishing. Is mise le meas, Jean Harrington. Publisher, Maverick House; Board Member, Publishing Ireland 4
CONTENTS Foreword 3 Introduction 4 Fiction/Poetry/Literature 7 The Journey 8 Canary Wharf 15 An Irish Country Village 20 Con Trick an Bhalla Bhรกin 26 Flowing, Still 31 Second Readings 37 The Irish Male 43 The Space Between Us 50 Poetry 59 Life in the Universe 66 Irish Interest 73 Dublin Zoo 74 The Iveragh Peninsula 81 Debt Busters 87 In Bloom 93 Connemara 99
Social/History/Biography 107 Walter Macken 108 Judging Lemass 114 Listen With the Ear of the Heart 120 Conspiracy 125 Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge 132 A History of Irish Farming 1750-1950 140 My Father, The General 146 Petticoat Rebellion 152 Crime Ink 159 Blood Upon the Rose: Easter 1916 165 The Most Famous Irish People You’ve Never Heard Of 173 Sport 181 Flying Finn 182 Tales of the Dogs 188 The GAA 195 The Liam MacCarthy Cup 202 Acknowledgements 207
Fiction Poetry Literature
The Journey New and Selected Poems Alice Taylor Alice Taylor’s poems have proved perennially popular. Some have been woven into her phenomenally successful memoirs, and she has published three previous books of poetry. Organised thematically, this substantial collection includes sections entitled “The Home Place”, “A Village Romance”, “Grief and Grace”, and “Winter Ploughing”. “[In her poetry] she remains honest and unpretentious.” Books Ireland Stored Summer Bridal hedges of whitethorn Cascade on to green fields. Under bulging wings The gliding bees Collect their nectar, Bearing it back To humming hives. Extraction time, The pregnant combs Release their ripened treasure, Golden liquid pouring Into sparkling jars. 8
The Journey
In a deep cupboard Spirit of warm days Brings to barren winter The taste of whitethorn honey.
Earth Woman She was as real As the dark brown Bank of tiered turf With the promise Of warmer days. She was as solid As a great oak, Unbending with The winds that blow. She was as strong As the hard rocks That weather the Crushing waves. Her core had The luxuriant glow Of the black, rich, Sensuous soil.
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Battered Chalice God’s day, The bird and sun Celebrate his creation. You pick daisies With such joy in your hands; Little child in the body of a man, You are the host In a battered chalice. ÒDaoine le Dia,Ó old people said, And how wise they were Because you live within The circle of God’s arm; Not for you The snares of this world. You walk above man’s narrow vision.
Why Here, Lord? Why did you come to this arid land, Heat-bleached and sun-soaked, Where camels grind their teeth And volcanic tempers can sizzle Into an eruption of violence? Did you never consider Coming as a Kerryman? Kerry is moist and green 10
The Journey
And they have many donkeys. Mary could have ridden one And made the flight into Cork From your kingdom in Kerry. Perhaps they expected you in Kerry When they christened it the Kingdom.
Escape Be glad for me That I shall not Weaken and wither, Will not be trapped In the vagaries Of old age. I walked through Spring and summer, Savoured autumn, Smelt the first frost Of early winter, Then flew on To eternal spring.
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Running I did not know It was a race, But I ran With all the others Past quiet corners Where I could have Picked the daisies, Past many people I could have loved. But there was no time For it was a race And the prize at the end Was death.
Come Sit Awhile How nice to sit And think awhile Of little things To make you smile, Happy things You did in fun Long ago When you were young. To think of people Who were kind And left a ray 12
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Of light behind, People who were Nice to know When you were young Long time ago. So come and sit With me awhile And think of things To make us smile.
Roots I have grown here For many years, Warm and safe In my own place. A lifetime of being here Makes me feel secure; My roots grow deep Into the warm earth. Now I am old, My branches are tattered, But still I would stay here Because this is where I belong. Do not dig me up: The damage to my branches Will ease me slowly from this place, But pull up my roots And my whole being will break. Poems from The Journey: New and Selected Poems ISBN 978-0-86322-391-4 Š Alice Taylor 2009
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Brandon About the author Alice Taylor’s first memoir, To School Through the Fields (1988), was an unprecedented success; her sequels, Quench the Lamp, The Village, Country Days, The Night Before Christmas and The Parish were also bestsellers. She is the author of three novels: The Woman of the House, Across the River and House of Memories. About the publisher Brandon has been a leading imprint in Ireland since 1982. We have established an international reputation for our fiction and non-fiction and have enjoyed a colourful, creative and sometimes controversial history. Amongst our authors are the travel writer and broadcaster Manchán Magan; crime novelists Sam Millar, Paul Charles and Ken Bruen; president of Sinn Féin and bestselling author Gerry Adams. Highlights this year include RTE newsreader Michael Murphy’s memoir, At Five in the Afternoon: My Battle with Male Cancer, and a trio of stimulating, fascinating novels: A Bit of a Scandal by Mary Rose Callaghan, Tracking Giorgione by Thomas Kabdebo, and An Invitation to Dance by Marion Urch. Although we are a small company, many of the bestselling books ever published in Ireland have been published by Brandon, including the wonderful memoirs and novels of Alice Taylor.
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Canary Wharf Orna Ní Choileáin Orna Ní Choileáin’s first collection of short stories in the Irish language shows her to be a natural storyteller, and a wickedly subversive one at that. While her primary hunting ground as a writer is the human drama in the corporate world of technology and high finance, she is as much at home in a more traditional setting in the Bolivian Andes as in airports and television studios. She writes in a clear and lucid style, always fresh and readable with a humour which sides with the human dimension of the struggle for life. In this extract from one of the short stories in the collection, a surreal TV reality show where contestants face their worst fears goes beyond entertainment into the realm of menace when Dana, a postal worker, comes on the programme as a contestant …
999 Thosaigh an drumadóir ag bualadh ar an druma. Shéid na trumpaí. Chrith na ciombail. Las na soilse. Nocht an clár leictreonach a threoraigh don lucht féachana tús a chur leis an mbualadh bos. D’fhógair guth diaga os a gcionn: ‘Céad míle fáilte romhaibh a dhaoine uaisle chuig 999, an clár réaltachta beo ina dtugann na rannpháirtithe faoin dúshlán is mó ina saol, 15
Cois Life
is é sin eagla a n-anama a shárú. Seo chugaibh fear an tí, Iasón Mac Gabhann!’ Mhéadaigh ar an torann nuair a tháinig Iasón Mac Gabhann ar an stáitse, culaith agus carbhat airgid air, léine bhán. Bhí an slua ar mire. Ní dheachaigh na gloiní fíona saor in aisce a bhí caite siar roimh ré acu san ionad fáilte amú orthu. Ghabh Iasón a bhuíochas agus nuair a chiúnaigh siad beagán, labhair sé: ‘Mar is eol daoibh, a dhaoine uaisle, is clár ríspeisialta é an clár seo againn anocht. Tá Dana ar ais linn den tríú huair.’ Bhí ruaille buaille as an nua ón lucht féachana agus iad ag greadadh na gcos. Rinne Iasón aoibh leo agus shín amach na lámha chun go socróidís síos arís. ‘Sea, Dana. Níl aon ní róthe ná róthrom di, a deir sí. Tá sí ar chúl an stáitse faoi láthair, áit a bhfuil an fhoireann slándála ag tomhas a brú fola agus ag déanamh anailíse ar shampla fuail chun a dhearbhú nach bhfuil stéaróideach ar bith á ghlacadh aici. Go dtí seo, ní raibh bean againn, ná fear dála an scéil, ar éirigh leo ceann scríbe a bhaint amach. Is é sin le rá, nár éirigh le rannpháirtí ar bith go dtí seo lámh in uachtar a fháil ar an eagla.’ ‘Tá duaischiste N100,000 againn le tabhairt uainn anocht, a dhaoine uaisle. É go léir ag dul do Dana, má éiríonn léi. Má thosaíonn sí ach má theipeann, gheobhaidh sí an leath atá tuillte aici go dtí seo agus cuirfear an chuid eile ar aghaidh do na rannpháirtithe nua a roghnófar ag deireadh an chláir.’ Rinne an slua bualadh bos eile agus sméid Iasón chun a bhuíochas a léiriú. ‘Is sibhse – lucht féachana, cairde agus comrádaithe na n-iomaitheoirí – a cheap na dúshláin. Cuimhnigh gurb é an frása slándála ná “999”, rud a chuireann deireadh le dúshlán an iomaitheora, má ligeann sé nó sí na focail sin astu. Gach duine le chéile anois: A naoi-a naoi-a naoi.’ Tháinig trí thonn ‘A Naoi’ ar ais ón lucht féachana mar a 16
Canary Wharf
bheadh rang scoile ag foghlaim uimhreacha, agus gháir siad ansin. ‘Anois, breathnóimid ar an scáileán chun súil siar a chaitheamh ar na cláracha a raibh Dana iontu go dtí seo.’ Dhírigh gach duine aird ar an scáileán mór ar bhalla an stáitse, agus an guth diaga céanna ag labhairt lastuas. ‘Seisear a cháiligh mí ó shin don chéad bhabhta den tsraith seo. Lorg na hiomaitheoirí coirníní beaga chun seodra a dhéanamh. Éasca? Smaoinigh arís air. Bhí na coirníní i bhfolach i mbairille feola aimhe. Dúradh leis na rannpháirtithe gur conablaigh francach a bhí ann.’ Leath curfá múisce ón lucht féachana nuair a chonaic siad na hiomaitheoirí ag tochailt lena lámha nochta sna bairillí samhnasacha. Lean an guth. ‘D’éirigh le gach duine seodra ornáideach éagsúil a dhéanamh, á ghlanadh trí na píosaí miotail a shádráil le chéile ag ardteocht. Ina dhiaidh sin, b’éigean dóibh tabhairt faoina gcorp a mhaisiú leis an seodra. Cuimhnigh nach raibh oiread is fáinne cluaise ag ball ar bith den ghrúpa seo riamh ina shaol agus ní raibh duine ar bith díobh ag súil le poill a chur ina gcluasa, ná ina malaí, ná ina smig ná in aon áit eile!’ ‘Rinne siad an beart ach d’fhág an bheirt veigeatóirí slán againn an tseachtain sin ag breith N25,000 an duine leo.’ Phreab suim airgid ar an scáileán agus rinne an slua bualadh bos. D’athraigh na híomhánna arís agus lean an guth ag insint an scéil. ‘Coicís ó shin a tógadh as an stiúideo an ceathrar beo friochanta a bhí fágtha. Tugadh a ndúshlán dul ó fhoirgneamh Bhanc Uladh go foirgneamh Bhanc na hÉireann agus iad crochta ar ghas pónaire. Mar is eol daoibh, is dhá ilstórach spéire iad na foirgnimh sin, suite i gcroílár an cheantar seirbhísí airgeadais. Féach, a deir tú, níl an gas ach píosa beag os cionn talún. A deich ponc a sé a sé méadar go beacht. Deir 17
Cois Life
saineolaithe go dtosaíonn an faitíos ag an airde sin. Is cuma cé chomh hard a rachaidh duine ina dhiaidh sin, beidh an faitíos céanna air. Mar a fheiceann sibh ó na híomhánna, níl aon eangach cosanta fúthu, ach tá na rannpháirtithe ceangailte le rópa timpeall an bhásta. An té a scaoileann leis an ngas, cuirtear é ag bogadaíl san aer mar tá gréasán rópaí á choinneáil in airde. Is í an fhadhb is mó a bhíonn ag daoine nach scaoileann siad a ngreim ar an ngas.’ D’fhéach an lucht féachana ar chailín bocht a bhí tuairim is leathbhealach go dtí an dara foirgneamh ach í reoite san aon áit amháin. Ní ghabhfadh sí chun tosaigh, ní ghabhfadh sí siar, ná ní scaoilfeadh sí leis an ngas. Ar deireadh, nuair a d’éirigh an spéir dorcha agus an brú iomarcach di, ghlaoigh sí amach an frása sábháilteachta ‘999’ agus tháinig an lucht slándála i gcabhair uirthi ar inneall mór le dréimire agus ardán air. ‘I ndiaidh mionscrúdú a dhéanamh ar chat marbh i saotharlann agus iarracht blaosc bó a chogaint, d’fhógair triúr eile “999”, d’fhág siad slán againn agus N33,000 ina ghlaic ag gach duine díobh. Fágann sé sin gurb í Dana an t-aon iomaitheoir amháin don chlár seo. Ach caithfidh sí tabhairt faoi na dúshláin agus iad a shárú chun an duaischiste a bhuachan.’ Tháinig deireadh leis an achoimre, léirigh an scáileán lógó an chláir agus thit an spotsholas arís ar Iasón Mac Gabhann. ‘Cad iad na dúshláin a dtabharfaidh Dana aghaidh orthu? Bígí linn i ndiaidh na bhfógraí.’ Extract from Canary Wharf, ISBN 978-1-901176-91-9 © 2009 Orna Ní Choileáin. First published by Cois Life 2009
About the author Orna Ní Choileáin’s roots are in West Cork. She has won numerous prizes for creative prose, poetry, drama and short stories in the Oireachtas literary competitions and elsewhere. She also 18
Canary Wharf enjoys writing in English and has been awarded the An Post National Penmanship prize. Canary Wharf (Cois Life, 2009) is her first published book. About the publisher Cois Life was established in 1995 to publish literary and research works in the Irish language. It publishes books for learners of Irish and young people and also plays, fiction, poetry and some academic works. Among the authors whose work it has published are Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Liam Ó Muirthile, Dermot Somers, Siobhán Parkinson, Tom Mac Intyre, Gabriel Rosenstock, Seán Mac Mathúna, Anna Heussaff, Gréagóir Ó Dúill, Lorcán S. Ó Treasaigh, Máirín Nic Eoin, Ciarán Mac Murchaidh, Antain Mac Lochlainn, Michael Cronin and Micheál de Barra. The company’s bilingual website www.coislife.ie is a much-visited source of information about Irish-language writers generally and hosts biographies of all the major, living literary figures. The publishing house is famous for its eye-catching covers, the most famous being that for an award-winning collection of short stories by Seán Mac Mathúna. The book was entitled Banana; it featured just that word on its cover – and a picture of an apple. The stories have been in constant demand and an audiobook of this material read by the legendary Niall Tóibín is due for publication in Winter 2009. Cois Life receives assistance from The Arts Council and from Clár na Leabhar Gaeilge.
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An Irish Country Village A Novel Patrick Taylor The second in Patrick Taylor’s New York Times bestselling series of charmingly nostalgic comic novels. Patrick Taylor first charmed readers with An Irish Country Doctor, a warm and enchanting novel in the tradition of James Herriot and Jan Karon. Now he returns to the colourful rural community of Ballybucklebo, where there’s always something brewing beneath the village’s deceptively sleepy surface.
Chapter 4 A Horse of a Different Colour Barry turned to see Donal Donnelly, a gangly youth with a shock of carrot red hair and buck-teeth, filling the surgery door frame. He was obviously dumbstruck by O’Reilly. He held his cloth cap in both hands. Barry knew that he was the betrothed of Julie MacAteer, and a good thing too. Julie was pregnant, and Donal, the father-to-be, was soon going to make an honest woman of her. Pregnancy out of wedlock was more than frowned upon in some circles in rural Ulster in 1964. “I’m waiting, but I’m not waiting much longer, Donal Donnelly,” O’Reilly bellowed. Donal swallowed. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I’m not sick nor 20
An Irish Country Village
nothing. I just came to ask a wee question. I slipped in when Mrs Brown was going out.” “Well, you can bloody well slip out again. I’ve not had my lunch, and I’ve important things to discuss with Doctor Laverty.” Barry felt O’Reilly brush past. Look out, rose bushes, he thought. If Donal wasn’t careful, he’d be on his way into them just like Seamus Galvin. Watching O’Reilly hurl Seamus out bodily had been Barry’s introduction to his senior colleague. He wished Donal would go away. Barry didn’t want O’Reilly to be made angry. Not now. Not when he’d something—God alone knew what—to discuss. “I’m not sick, sir,” Donal squeaked. He took a step backwards, holding his cap in front of him. “I’ve come about a racehorse.” His tones rose a full octave. “I could make a few bob for Julie and the baby.” O’Reilly halted. “A horse?” Barry heard an interested edge in his voice. “A horse is it? Which horse?” “Arkle, sir,” Donal whispered. Barry had vaguely heard of the animal. He paid little attention to the world of horse racing. He knew Donal had a racing greyhound called Bluebird. O’Reilly had won four hundred pounds betting on her, but what did Donal have to do with a racehorse? “Arkle? Away off and feel your head, Donal. You might be able to rig a race with a dog, but you’ll have as much chance of getting near Himself as you would trying to whistle and chew meat.” “Excuse me,” Barry said. “Excuse me. Who’s Himself?” He was surprised when both Donal and O’Reilly laughed. O’Reilly explained. “Arkle’s a steeplechaser, the best animal 21
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ever to come out of Ireland. He’s owned by Anne, duchess of Westminster. He’s so well known in this country that we just refer to him as Himself.” Now Barry understood. “Isn’t that the horse that won the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Paddy’s Day this year?” “Aye,” said Donal, “and the Irish Grand National thirteen days later.” “All right, Donal,” O’Reilly growled. “You’ve got my attention. What’s this all about?” “Can I come in, sir?” O’Reilly stepped aside. Donal sidled into the surgery and shut the door behind him. He glanced round and lowered his voice. “I’ve a wee notion how to make a few quid with Arkle, so I have. For me and Julie, like.” “Go on.” Barry watched Donal rummage in his pants pocket. He produced a silver coin. “See that there, sir?” He handed it to O’Reilly. “That’s a half-crown from the Republic, so it is.” Barry knew the coins well. One side bore the image of a harp; the reverse showed the horse known as the Irish hunter. “I reckon when I go to the races I could sell them to the English punters for a pound a piece, so I could.” O’Reilly laughed. “How in the blazes could you do that?” Barry saw Donal’s eyes narrow. “I’d tell them they’d pay two pounds for one in Dublin. Folks’ll always bite if they think they’re getting a bargain, and they love putting one over on a daft Ulsterman.” Certainly, Barry thought, and Donal would have no difficulty looking the part. “But why would anyone pay twenty shillings for something that’s only worth two shillings and sixpence?” O’Reilly 22
An Irish Country Village
demanded. “Because, sir, the writing on the coins is in Irish. An Englishman couldn’t read that, but he would see the horse.” Barry saw Donal’s skinny chest swell. “You see, sir, I’d tell them the florins were specially coined Arkle medallions. I’ve a pal at the Ulster Bank. He can get me fresh minted ones straight from the Bank of Ireland.” “You’d say they were what?” O’Reilly’s eyebrows rose. “Arkle medallions, sir.” Barry watched the big man’s sides shake, his eyes water. “Oh, dear,” he finally managed to gasp. “Oh, dear me.” He rummaged in the pocket of his tweed pants, pulled out a handkerchief, took off his half-moons and wiped his eyes. “That’s bloody ingenious. That’s nearly a five hundred per cent mark-up, less the two and six face value of the half-crown. You’d be making seventeen shillings and sixpence per sale. Oh dear, oh dear.” “Aye. I know that, sir, but what I don’t know, and that’s what I want to ask . . .” O’Reilly was still chuckling. “Go on.” “Do you think it would be legal, sir?” O’Reilly shoved his half-moon spectacles back on his nose and stared over them at Donal. Barry asked, “Why are you asking us, Donal?” Donal shuffled his feet. “You’re the only ones I can trust to keep it a secret. You know what gossip’s like here, sir.” Barry did indeed. “And,” Donal winked and held one finger beside his nose, “youse doctors have to keep anything a patient tells you in the surgery to yourselves. I know that, so I do, and amn’t I a patient and amn’t I in your surgery?” 23
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“Indeed you are,” said O’Reilly, with a glance at Barry. “So, like I asked, would it be legal?” O’Reilly shook his head. “Probably not, Donal . . .” “Oh.” Donal’s shoulders sagged. “. . . but I’m damned if I know what you could be charged with if you got caught.” Donal straightened up, and Barry watched as a hint of a smile played on his lips. How could O’Reilly be so utterly irresponsible? He was as good as encouraging Donal to commit fraud. “Fingal,” he said, “are you sure it’s a good idea?” “No,” said O’Reilly, “but it has the makings of an amazing joke. I wish I’d thought of it.” He turned to Donal and adopted a more serious tone. “Doctor Laverty’s right, Donal. I can’t encourage you to go ahead.” Barry noticed how O’Reilly’s left upper eyelid drooped in a slow wink. “Thanks very much, sir,” Donal said, smiling. “I’ll be running along, so I will.” “Off you trot,” said O’Reilly, “and close the front door after you.” “Och,” said O’Reilly, head cocked to one side, smiling gently. “I wonder if I would do a thing like that to a poor unsuspecting Englishman?” Extract from An Irish Country Village ISBN 978-0-86322-402-7 © Patrick Taylor 2008, 2009
About the author Patrick Taylor was born in Bangor County Down, and is now living in Cootehall, County Roscommon, following an internationally distinguished career in medical research in Canada. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel, An Irish Country Doctor, and its sequel An Irish Country Village.
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An Irish Country Village About the publisher Brandon has been a leading imprint in Ireland since 1982. We have established an international reputation for our fiction and non-fiction and have enjoyed a colourful, creative and sometimes controversial history. Amongst our authors are the travel writer and broadcaster Manchán Magan; crime novelists Sam Millar, Paul Charles and Ken Bruen; president of Sinn Féin and bestselling author Gerry Adams. Highlights this year include RTE newsreader Michael Murphy’s memoir, At Five in the Afternoon: My Battle with Male Cancer, and a trio of stimulating, fascinating novels: A Bit of a Scandal by Mary Rose Callaghan, Tracking Giorgione by Thomas Kabdebo, and An Invitation to Dance by Marion Urch. Although we are a small company, many of the bestselling books ever published in Ireland have been published by Brandon, including the wonderful memoirs and novels of Alice Taylor.
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ConTrick ‘An Bhalla Bháin’ Colm Breathnach A unique and exciting work of metafiction that re-evaluates the relationship between reader and author. In his short stories and scattered yet enlightening ramblings, Colm Breathnach and his central character Aodh de Ráth – also a writer – create a world where the writer is king. A continuous story is told, almost like a novel. This is the writer’s world, he is the master and the domain of his power encompasses not only the book’s characters but also the reader. The masterly use of metafiction ensures a new and different experience for the reader.
Móimint ar an dTeilifís nó ’Mian leat bheith id Mhilliúnaí? DE BHRÍ GO raibh sé riamh tapaidh aiclí agus de bhrí chomh maith go raibh an t-ádh leis sa mhéid is nár dhein sé i gcás an bhabhta “An Mhéar Mhear a Bhuann” ach na cnaipí a bhualadh chomh tapaidh agus ab fhéidir leis gan aon chuimhneamh aige ar iarracht a dhéanamh iad a bhrú san ord ceart, bhí Cú Chulainn anois ina shuí os comhair an láithreora, Gé Ó Broin, agus an lucht féachana sa stiúideo ag gáirí faoi, mar, an fear bocht, ní raibh aige ach an tSeana-Ghaeilge agus cúpla focal a phioc sé suas anseo is ansúd don nua-theanga. D’fhág sé an scoil sarar tugadh an Caighdeán isteach agus ar an ábhar san 26
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níor thuig sé na focail a bhí ag teacht aníos ar an scáileáinín beag ríomhaire os a chomhair agus an litriú nua orthu. Bhí air dul i muinín an lucht féachana chéanna leis an gcéad cheist ar £100 a fhreagairt nuair a fiafraíodh do cén deireadh atá leis an seana-rá “Is fearr rith maith ná . . .” agus gur tugadh an rogha seo a leanas do: A. drochshiúl B: drochsheasamh C. coisíocht dá fheabhas D. dhá ghreim de chat. Níorbh é amháin nár thuig sé an “sean”-fhocal, ná raibh chomh sean leis féin ní miste a rá, de bhrí nár theith sé ó bhruíon riamh agus ní mó ná san gur dhein sé drochsheasamh riamh ach bhí ag teip air fiú brí na bhfocal a thabhairt leis. Ghlac dóthain daoine don lucht féachana sa stiúideo trua do sa chás san agus roghnaigh 73 fán gcéad acu B nuair a cuireadh an cheist faoina mbráid agus ba leor an méid sin do Chú Chulainn le dul sa tseans air. Bhí seans leis, leis, leis an dtarna ceist. Arís níor thuig sé na focail ar an scáileán agus níor thuig sé an toin chainte aisteach a bhí ag Gé Ó Broin rómhaith ach chomh beag. Chuaigh sé i muinín an “Scairt ar Charaid”, áfach, agus ghlaoigh sé ar chara óg leis, Fionn Mac Cumhail agus cé nár fhéad sé siúd aon bhrí a bhaint as iarrachtaí leibideacha Chú Chulainn ar na focail loma a nocht chuige ar an scáileán a thabhairt amach i gceart, chogain sé a ordóg agus foilsíodh do gurbh é C. Gabriel Rosenstock seachas A. Gabriel Garcia Marques B. Gaibriéil Ard-Aingeal nó D. Gabriella Sabatini a scríobh Suzanne sa Seomra Folctha agus chuir sé é sin in iúl do Chú Chulainn díreach sara raibh an tríocha soicind comhairliúcháin istigh. Na trithí a bhí ag scaipeadh tríd an lucht féachana sa stiúideo roimhe sin, deineadh bolg-gháirí agus scairteacha agus liúnna áiféise díobh faoi sin, go háirithe ó bhí Duais Nobel na bliana don Litríocht díreach buaite ag Rosenstock mí go leith roimhe sin, agus an lucht féachana “léannta” seo ag ceapadh, más ea, gur chóir go 27
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mbeadh cur amach ag gach Éireannach faoi seo ar chnuasaigh filíochta Ghabriel ar a laghad leis an méid cainte a bhí ann faoi. Bhí Suzanne, mar shampla, curtha in áit Peig ar chúrsa an Teastais Shinsirigh le roinnt mhaith blianta. Ní raibh fágtha do théada tarrthála anois aige, más ea, ach an “Leath is Leath”, mar a chuir Gé Ó Broin in iúl do, é ag iarraidh guaim a choimeád air féin san am céanna agus an lucht féachana sa stiúideo ag briseadh a gcroí leis na rachtanna gáirí a bhí ag pléascadh a gcliabh gan staonadh faoi seo. Chlaon Cú Chulainn a chloigeann beagán agus ghlac Gé leis gur chomhartha ab ea é sin gur theastaigh uaidh fáil réidh le dhá cheann do na roghanna a bhí ar an scáileán mar fhreagraí ar an gceist “Cá bhfuil Áth Luain”. Glanadh B. I nDomhnach Broc agus D. Faoi bhun Chnoc na hAoine don scáileáinín agus ní raibh fágtha anois ach A. I gContae na hIarmhí agus C. I gCúil Choicíse. Bhí an lucht féachana fós ag scairteadh gáirí gan stop, go háirithe anois ó thugadar faoi ndeara na gothaí aisteacha a bhí á gcur air féin ag an ndailtín amaideach seo sa chathaoir the. Bhí sé á lúbadh is á únfairt féin sa chathaoir amhail is go raibh piasta faoin gcraiceann aige. An uile bhall dá cholainn ag borradh is ag at, ag crapadh arís is ag séideadh an athuair leis an straidhn a bhí á cur aige air féin ag iarraidh an freagra, nó an cheist féin, a dhéanamh amach. Bhí sé ag stánadh ar an scáileáinín ar shlí a bhí thar a bheith ait. An leathshúil chlé aige, bhí sí ag bolgadh as a éadan, í ar tí pléascadh nach mór, amhail is go raibh sí ag iarraidh tabhairt ar na focail “cúil choicíse” comhartha nó leid éigin a thabhairt do a chuirfeadh in iúl gur bhain Áth Luain leo agus bhí an leathshúil dheas, san am céanna, súite siar isteach ar fad ina chloigeann amhail is dá mbeadh ana-amhras go deo uirthi faoi bharántúlacht “Contae na hIarmhí” mar fhreagra ar aon cheist in aon chor. Lean an lucht féachana dá ngáirí agus lean Cú 28
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Chulainn bocht dá lúbarnach sa chathaoir ar feadh tamaill mhaith. Ba léir an mhífhoighne ag snámhaíl go mall thar cheannaithe Ghé Uí Bhroin agus é ag cuimhneamh ar an sos fógraíochta ba chóir do a ghairm go luath agus ba léir an lí ar dhreach Chú Chulainn a bheith ag dul i ndeirge agus i bhfordheirge i rith an ama. Thosaigh Gé ag labhairt leis, é ag iarraidh sonc a thabhairt don “mbastún” lena spreagadh chun cinneadh a dhéanamh ach ní raibh ráite aige ach “Ní thig li. . .” nuair a léim Cú Chulainn ina sheasamh. Tharraing sé a chlaíomh gur nocht a fhaobhar craosach agus chuaigh sé do bhaothrúid timpeall an stiúideo, síos suas i measc na mbanc suíochán gur bhain a gcloigeann do gach duine don lucht féachana do bhéimeanna inniúla uafara dá ghéarchlaíomh gáiriteach liúmhúchtach míldheamhainmhillteach sarar thiontaigh sé arís i dtreo lár an stiúideo go ndúirt: “Sin é a thuigimse, a Ghé, le ceann do gach éinne sa lucht féachana”, ach bhí fear na gceist leathshlí thar n-ais go Binn Éadair faoi sin ar rotha in airde ar a Hárlaí Mac Dáibhí. Extract from Con Trick, ISBN 978-1-905560-45-5 © 2009 Colm Breathnach
About the author I gCorcaigh a rugadh Colm Breathnach. Tá sé ina aistritheoir i Rannóg an Aistriúcháin, Oifig Thithe an Oireachtas. Bhuaigh sé an phríomhdhuais filíochta i gcomórtais an Oireachtais trí huaire agus i 1999 dhein An Foras Cultúrtha Gael-Mheirceánach Duais an Bhuitléirigh a bhronnadh air mar aitheantas ar a shaothar. Bhí sé mar eagarthóir Gaeilge ar an gcéad eagrán den tsraith Best of Irish Poetry le Southword Editions. Foilsíodh Rogha Dánta 1991 – 2006 sa bhliain 2008.
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Cló Iar Chonnachta About the publisher Bunaíodh Cló Iar-Chonnachta (CIC) i 1985, agus ó shin i leith tá os cionn 150 albam ceoil curtha amach againn, agus suas le 300 leabhar. Foilsíonn CIC réimse an-leathan litríochta; cnuasachtaí filíochta, gearrscéalta agus amhrán, úrscéalta, leabhair do dhéagóirí, leabhair do pháistí, tráchtais taighde agus leabhair staire. Tá roinnt leabhar Béarla foilsithe againn chomh maith, aistriúcháin a bhformhór ar mhórshaothair Ghaeilge. Tá roinnt mhaith de na saothair seo ar fáil ar dlúthdhiosca agus ar caiséad, cuid acu sa tsraith spreagúil An Béal Beo. Tá foilseacháin An Chlóchomhair agus Séirséal-Ó Marcaigh tógtha at láimh ag CIC anois. Tuilleadh eolais: www.cic.ie About Cló Iar Chonnachta Cló Iar-Chonnachta (CIC) was founded in 1985, and since then we have published over 300 books and 150 music albums. CIC publishes a wide range of literature; anthologies of poetry, short stories and songs, novels, teenage fiction, children’s books, theses and history books. We have published some books in English, mainly translations of important Irish language literature, and also some bilingual books. Many of these works are available in audio format, many as part of the series An Béal Beo. CIC has recently acquired the prestigious Irish-language publishers Sáirséal-Ó Marcaigh and An Clóchomhar. For more information visit www.cic.ie
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Flowing, Still Irish Poets on Irish Poetry Ed. Pat Boran A decade on from the major anthology Watching the River Flow (Poetry Ireland / Éigse Éireann, 1999), Dedalus Press reissues the ten introductory essays from that book, by some of the best-known names in contemporary Irish poetry (Eavan Boland, Ciaran Carson, Seamus Heaney, Thomas Kinsella, Michael Longley, John Montague, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Bernard O’Donoghue and Cathal Ó Searcaigh) bringing the survey up to the present day with the addition of essays by Pat Boran, Theo Dorgan, Eamon Grennan and David Wheatley, as well as an informed outsider’s view of the subject by distinguished American poet, now resident in Ireland, Richard Tillinghast. Extract from Nine-and-Fifty Swans: Glimpses of Nature in Recent Irish Poetry by Pat Boran As a ‘townie’, born and bred, in my late teens I moved directly to the city, without any extended intervening period in what in Ireland is often called “the country”. Without real first-hand experience of “the country”, of wild or liminal landscapes and habitats, I suppose I have always fed my appetite for a working knowledge of the natural world, not just with occasional meandering walks, in the style of the lazier of the Romantic poets (sandwich, newspaper, and maybe an iPod tucked discreetly into a bag), but by turning to poems. Poems, more 31
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than any other kind of writing, seemed to be able to describe the natural world, and I read them for the information they often managed to convey almost as much as I read them for their insight. Were it not for such poetry, in fact, many of us townies who grew up with our backs to the country might never have stopped to glance over our shoulders at what we were missing. Poetry is one of the few places where we are invited to commune with and closely observe the natural world.
Yeats’s Swans In the famous ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’, W.B. Yeats apparently takes great pains to count the nine-and-fifty swans he came upon one day on Coole waters, yet the number troubles me more each time I read the poem. Are we to believe the many critics who interpret the number (59) as signifying 29 pairs (58) and one solitary swan on its own—a reference to the poet in his own solitude? Dedicated birdwatchers will argue that the Whooper swans Yeats would have seen at Coole are in fact “non-breeders”, and that swans do not in fact form lasting pairs, despite the many suggestions to the contrary throughout literature. Of course, Yeats could have been consciously referring to the popular image of the faithful, mating-for-life swan, but, if so, surely nature poem and veiled self-portrait are two different things, two mutually exclusive categories? I’m happy to report now that I’m not so sure. Indeed it might be said that what separates a poem from any other form of writing on the same subject is that the poem must proceed in at least two directions at once; and from such tensions do the finest derive their power. A fascinating book, Yeats at Work, by Curtis B. Bradford 32
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(W.W. Norton, 1978) traces the development of a small number of Yeats’s poems, recording their first tentative appearances in journals together with the subsequent revisions the poet was to make to them before, and sometimes after, their first appearances in print. Happily for this undisciplined but sometimes lucky reader, the three main drafts, and further sub-drafts, which Yeats made of ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’ are included, complete with the poet’s markings, second thoughts, deletions and replacements. One notices, of course, the subtle ways in which Yeats achieves what Bradford calls “the management of his persona”, determinedly keeping himself out of the opening of the poem, instead first setting the scene into which he was about to make his entrance: “The trees are in their autumn beauty, / The woodland paths are dry …”). One notices too the way Yeats is constantly revising earlier versions of a line such as “I have trod with a lighter tread”, in the final version moving the words “I” and “trod” (subject and verb) three full lines apart, so as to draw our attention away from the poet and instead to precisely where he wanted it at this point, that is to the swans themselves: All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight, The first time on this shore, The bell-beat of their wings above my head, Trod with a lighter tread.” (again, my italics) If anything, the laying out like this, side by side as it were, of the various versions of the poem only seems to amplify the strange dedication to counting, even to accounting in all of its many meanings, which features so prominently, and the powerful significance for Yeats of numbers themselves. (There 33
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are, for instance, no les than seven version of the lines which will eventually become “The nineteenth autumn has come upon me / Since I first made my count”, only the number itself remaining unchanged throughout, as if it were haunting the poet so much that the syntax around it had become disturbed by its persistence.) And yet, between the first and third revisions, during which “the bell-beat of their wings” morphs into “the slow clamor (sic) of their wings” and finally “their clamorous wings”, some shadow, one might say, seems to pass over the number of the creatures themselves. “I have Coole’s fifty nine / Mysterious, beautiful,” Yeats sets out his stall in what Bradford designates as draft A2, later adding a drop of magic to the number by rephrasing it as “nine-and-fifty swans” with its echo of biblical language. But then, without warning, the number of swans seems to fluctuate, becoming “five and forty dream creatures” in draft C1, the ranks swelling marginally further in draft C3 with “I have numbered all the brilliant creatures / And I am but heart sore / I have counted five and forty two” before ending up back with the original number, 59, or nine-and-fifty, in the version which has since become fact: The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty Swans. Was Yeats just distracted for a moment, or for two or three moments, his mind on something else temporarily more 34
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pressing, like spelling, for instance, which he had terrible trouble with? Did he write five and forty, and five and forty two (ie 47), because the swans were constantly moving about, one masking the other in bright plumage just as an actor will sometimes inadvertently plunge another into shade? Whatever the answer, the question has implications beyond the reach of this particular mystery. Did Yeats make it all up, the nine-and-fifty swans, the clamorous wings of that particular moment of impression, insight and flight? In ‘The Lake Isle of Inisfree’, for that matter, did he really yearn for bean-rows, did he give a whit for bean-rows or rows of anything else, or was it the number nine—for whatever occult reason—he was really, secretly, interested in? Were those famous opening lines any more faithful to his vision than the parody an elderly friend of mine made some ten years ago when, using his new Senior Citizen travel pass for the first time (to take a bus to the Willie Clancy Summer School in Co. Clare) he stood up in the pub to announce, in stentorian tones: “I will arise and go now, and go to Ennis—free!” In short, was Yeats counting swans, or just pretending to count them, as perhaps a way to keep his undeniably flighty imagination busy for a while on solid ground? If so, it’s no bad way for a poet to work, if the evidence be Yeats achievement. For the true poet is always looking for what the great 1st century Chinese poet Lu Chi called “the cage of form” in which to catch and scrutinize reality, subjective and objective. The nine-and-fifty swans are Yeats’s assistants, his fellows and companions in the quest; they still his tread, and his mind, long enough for him to see the brimming water, to hear the clamorous wings, to sense the proximity of the day on which he will awake “to find they have flown away”. 35
Dedalus Press Extract from Flowing, Still, ISBN 978-1-90455-604-1 © 2009 Dedalus Press
About the author Pat Boran was born in Portlaoise in 1963 and now lives in Dublin where he has held a number of Writer-in-Residence posts, presented radio and television poetry and literature shows, programmed the Dublin Writers Festival, and is now runs the Dedalus Press. His most recent publication is New and Selected Poems (2007). The Invisible Prison, a prose memoir, is due in November 2009. About the publisher Described as “One of the most outward-looking poetry publishers in Ireland and the UK” by UNESCO.org, Dedalus believes that the future of Irish literature lies in its ability to re-imagine its connections with the world. To that end we are one of the few small Irish publishers with a proven interest in both Irish writing and writing from around the world in translations. The press has been in existence since 1985 and in that time has published some some of the best-known names in international poetry. Recent years have seen it among the vanguard of Irish literary publishers using the internet to reach new audiences and its free online Audio Room at www.dedaluspress.com has been hailed as “An invaluable new dimension on the Irish studies front” by The Irish Times.
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Liberties Press
Second Readings From Black Beauty to Beckett Eileen Battersby
A collection of 52 pieces by Eileen Battersby in which she has selected and re-read classic novels and written a brief summary and critique of the books. In many cases her choices are surprising both in terms of the authors’ work selected – Orwell’s Coming Up For Air as opposed to Animal Farm – and some of the titles themselves, such as Black Beauty. Mixing work from Ireland, Britain, the US and Continental Europe, there are also brief biographical notes on each author as well as jacket images for each title.
Black Beauty (1877) By Anna Sewell Peaceful days passed in the meadow with his wise mother, followed by livelier sessions playing with the other colts, provide the narrator with a happy early life. There is also the confidence of being the handsome, well-bred grandson of a racehorse twice victorious at Newmarket. Black Beauty seems destined for a pampered future as a gentleman’s accessory. At the age of four, he is purchased by the local squire and is fortunate in that his loving first master, who bred him, undertakes the breaking. Although he recalls the gentle hands that introduced a bit to his mouth and first placed a saddle on his back, Black Beauty is 37
Liberties Press
honest and admits to feeling pain: ‘Those who have never had a bit in their mouths, cannot think how bad it feels; a great piece of cold hard steel as thick as a man’s finger to be pushed into one’s mouth, between one’s teeth and over one’s tongue, with the ends coming out at the corner of your mouth, and held fast there by straps over your head, under your throat, round your nose, and under your chin.’ Norfolk-born Anna Sewell’s immortal classic gives an account of one horse’s progress from ease and affection to suffering through a series of harsh experiences which become steadily worse. It is an important book – it is also a great one. The source of all the grief and cruelty is man. Sewell became an invalid when she was fourteen and remained so until her death at fifty-eight, a few months after the publication of this, her only book. She loved horses – and justice. Sewell’s love of horses had a practical dimension. She was all too aware of the abuse horses suffered at all levels of Victorian society, from the careless antics of the gentry at play on the hunting field to the impossible labour demanded of working horses. This most moving of stories, told by an innocent, increasingly despairing hero, is, for all its appeal, graphic polemic. It is also a vivid social history. Black Beauty quickly settles at Birtwick, the squire’s home. He has a good temperament, having only known kindness. There is a dramatic new difference to his life. Instead of playing in the fields, he is now expected to stand in a stable and serve as both riding and carriage horse. He makes friends with Ginger, a chestnut mare whose personality had been ruined by cruelty. She is destined for tragedy. Sewell makes many welfare points, particularly her condemnation of the vicious bearing rein which was used to keep the heads of carriage and haulage horses held 38
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unnaturally high, even when confronted by steep hills and hauling heavy loads. In one of the strongest set pieces, the narrator recalls slowly waking up to a new sensation – fear – as fire tears through the stables at an inn where his master is staying. Black Beauty’s world changes when the squire’s wife becomes seriously ill and the family leave England, causing the horses to be sold. His new owner is a lord, whose fashionable lady insists on the use of bearing reins. More problems emerge through the carelessness of an alcoholic stableman who whips Black Beauty to gallop with a missing shoe, causing the horse to stumble and damage his knees. The fall costs the drunkard his life. Sewell’s prose is plain, direct and brilliantly observed. She evokes the intelligence of the animal without falling into whimsy or fantasy. His scarred knees result in Black Beauty being sold off. He begins a career of desperate hardship, which includes being rented as a ‘job-horse’. One such client drives him hard, despite the lameness caused by a stone in his foot. By the time the narrator arrives at a horse fair, he accepts that his days as a valued animal have passed. Yet he is bought by a kindly London cabbie. The work is demanding, but Jerry the cabman and his family love ‘Jack’, as they name him. In Jerry’s yard, he meets Captain, an old former army horse who had survived the horrors of the Crimean War. Black Beauty enjoys living with Jerry but when the cabbie becomes dangerously ill, the horse is again sold and is soon hauling massive loads. Just when Black Beauty sees death as his only release, a miracle happens. Anna Sewell set out to change attitudes to the treatment of horses and created in her narrator a mild-mannered, 39
Liberties Press
unforgettable hero, wearied by much of what he has endured and convincingly philosophical in a story of hard fact and profound emotion.
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1955) By Brian Moore Judith Hearne, alone and lonely, unpacks, yet again. The silverframed photograph of her dead aunt is positioned in a place of honour, as ever, on the mantelpiece of ‘whatever bed-sittingroom Miss Hearne happened to be living in’. Within sentences, Brian Moore, in this his first (official) and finest novel, leaves no doubts: his anti-heroine appears to be as defeated as is her new room in this ‘run-down part of Belfast’. A second picture is unwrapped, a coloured oleograph of the Sacred Heart, ‘His eyes kindly yet accusing’. The clues are already mounting: Judith Hearne, clearly beaten by life, continues to be dominated by that dead, still all-seeing aunt, and a religion that for her is more concerned with ritual than belief. Judith addresses the aunt’s photograph, informing her that this once smart residential area has become flatland. Quickly, Ms Hearne moves on to more practical matters. She has brought picture hooks with her but needs a hammer before she can hang the Sacred Heart over her bed. The quest brings her downstairs to her new landlady, Mrs Henry Rice. There she meets Bernard, the repulsive son ‘all bristly blond jowls, tiny puffy hands and long blond curly hair, like some monstrous baby swelled to man size’. Judith is shocked that this ‘ugly pudding’ should possess a ‘soft and compelling’ speaking voice. So adroitly does Moore enter the often bizarrely jaunty mind 40
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of Judith Hearne, unloved, if genteel spinster, that it seems as if she is speaking directly to us. Like an animal accustomed to being kicked, she expects to be rejected by any male she encounters. Moore’s approach to the telling, the precise evocation of a decay shared by most of the characters as well as Belfast itself, appears initially to share something of the tone of Joyce’s Dubliners – and Joyce is obviously an influence. Yet this novel is far closer to William Trevor’s vision of boarding-house life in London. Judith’s hopeless predicament is pathetic and partly traceable to her aunt’s domineering influence, as well as, of course, to Judith’s destructive weakness for invariably turning, at times of crisis, to alcohol. Moore remains detached and is as interested in exposing the religious hypocrisy, cruel gossip and repressive social attitudes prevailing in Belfast, the native city he fled yet always admitted to never having fully escaped, as he is in her. Judith, despite her self-pity, is a fantasist with a flair for subconscious self-delusion. With the arrival of Jim Madden, the landlady’s widower brother, back home after some thirty years in New York, Moore develops the theme of self-delusion. Unlike Judith, with her shaky grasp of correct behaviour, Madden is incontestably crude. For Judith, he is a possibly attainable, if lame and no longer young, future husband; for him, she is a potential business partner, no more. Throughout the narrative, Moore brilliantly shifts the viewpoint between characters who always think and act true to themselves. Among the many inspired set pieces are the Sunday-afternoon teas at Professor O’Neill’s home, during which Judith is endured rather than enjoyed. Published in 1955 and never out of print, this precise study of an unwanted 41
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woman’s slow agony of thwarted dreams and all-too-real humiliation displays the psychological astuteness Moore would bring to his subsequent diverse, always moral fictions. Extract from Second Readings, ISBN 978-1-90548-381-5 © 2009 Eileen Battersby
About the author Born in California, Eileen Battersby is a staff arts journalist and Literary Correspondent of the Irish Times. Four time winner of the National Arts Journalist of the Year award, she lives in the country with her daughter, Nadia, and their horses, dogs and cats. About the publisher Liberties Press was founded in 2003 by Seán O’Keeffe and Peter O’Connell and their first title, More than a Game by the legendary journalist Con Houlihan, enjoyed huge commercial and critical success. Building on this first title’s success, Liberties Press has over eighty titles in print with a catalogue including diverse genres such as memoir, history, health, food, politics, sport and recently revivals of classic Irish literary fiction. We were delighted to learn this year that Michelle Obama was presented with a Liberties Press book by the Taoiseach Brian Cowen on his St Patrick’s Day visit. Seán and Peter have been joined by Caroline, Dan and Orlaith in their offices which is located in the shadow of the Guinness brewery in the area known as the Liberties – from which the company took its name.
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The Irish Male His Greatest Hits Joseph O’Connor A selection of the best from Joe O’Connor’s hilarious take on the world of the Irish male. Here is fear and loathing, pity and terror, country and western. From love, rock ‘n’ roll and football, to more trivial matters such as the search for international peace and the craving for philosophical enlightenment, these vivid snapshots build into a perceptive and absolutely hilarious portrait of contemporary Irish life, both at home and abroad. Featuring also a selection from O’Connor’s popular Drivetime radio column, this book is the perfect way to brighten up a day. This extract from The Irish Male: His Greatest Hits was broadcast as an RTÉ Drivetime diary, 1st April 2009.
A Broken Hallelujah I suspect that like many parents my most memorable Christmas was the one following the birth of our first child. We had been living in London for some years and that’s where the lad was born. But when he was a few months old we returned to live in Dublin, arriving at the start of Christmas week, 2000. The plan had been for my wife and the baby to fly, and I would take our rusting decrepit car on the ferry. But in all the excitement and 43
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exhausted happiness and clutter of new parenthood, we left it too late to book a flight and there wasn’t a seat to be had. Thus I remember driving across England in that cold, late December, the last of the twentieth century, the last of a millennium, through fog and sleet and ice-glazed scenery, the wipers relentlessly fighting the grists of hail, and the crackle of the banjaxed radio. The car was older than our relationship, indeed practically on the scrap-heap, and at some point someone had spilled a pint of milk on the floor, which made the interior smell like Satan’s halitosis. But you couldn’t open the window – literally couldn’t, in the case of one of the windows – because being face-whipped by a hailstorm as you’re driving past Stoke isn’t anyone’s idea of air-conditioning. I had actually tried to sell the jalopy in London as a prelude to re-immigration, telling the dealer it had been valued at two and a half grand. He took it out for a brief test-drive before handing me back the keys. ‘Fackin’ key-ring’s worf more than the car,’ he said. My wife was in the back, with a toaster on her lap, a portable telly beneath her feet, and her pockets full of spoons and forks. In my memory, she was wearing almost every exterior garment she possessed (a) because it was so cold, and (b) because we couldn’t afford another suitcase. I had entrusted her with the really important things in my life, i.e. my Patti Smith and Clash records, and in my memory these were balanced on top of her head, in the manner of a Bedouin woman carrying a water-jar from an oasis, but in fact she was holding them in her frostbitten fingers, whose tips were turning a fetching shade of blue. Under many layers of clothing I had on my favourite T-shirt, an item purchased in revolutionary Nicaragua in 1985, the T-shirt having lasted longer than the revolution. Oh yeah – the baby was there too, strapped into a safety seat, but a safety 44
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seat whose workings neither of us had full confidence we understood because sadly we don’t have a degree in Advanced Mechanical Engineering. While into the crock’s boot had been packed the remainder of our worldly goods, total value about nine quid fifty. I was full of mixed feelings about coming back to live in Ireland. Some of the happiest years of my life had been spent in London. I had met my wife there, had many friends and colleagues there, and had always felt strangely at home there, as I think many Irish people do. So why were we going to Dublin? I wasn’t quite sure. As our car sputtered across England, my wife started telling me that it was all my idea, whereas I, countering brilliantly, said it had been all her idea. At some point we had an argument and I didn’t speak to her for an hour. Well, I didn’t like to interrupt her. As anyone who has ever undertaken that drive knows well, it’s plain sailing through the English midlands, where things like motorways and electric lighting have been heard of, but when you cross the border in Wales, the roads start to narrow and snake, and what looks on a map as though it might take you ten minutes can end up taking you forty years. But rural Wales is of course a scenically attractive place, if you don’t mind hearing ‘Duelling Banjos’ strike up in your head now and again. I was coughing and spluttering as a result of a bad cold, but it did make my attempts to pronounce those Welsh place-names beginning with two ells as enjoyable as they were memorably phlegmy. We made it to Holyhead just as they closed the barriers. We were literally the last car allowed to board the ship, and if we hadn’t had a baby with us I’m not sure the security guards would have taken pity. I had to do an awful lot of bleating and looking piteous and vulnerable, and as this was before Bertie Ahern’s famous 45
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interview with Brian Dobson, it was hard to think of someone whose Oliver Twist-demeanour and facial expressions it might be useful to imitate. It was the midnight sailing, and we rocked across the Irish Sea. It was a dreadful night, the worst crossing I’ve ever known. Through all of it, the little one slept soundly in a carry-cot on the floor of the lounge. Around us ranted the mobs of beer-fuelled émigrés, roaring, carousing, slapping one another on the back, singing carols with obscene or facetious new lyrics, and trying to garrotte one another with lengths of tinsel. It was like being at a re-enactment of a 19th-century Punch caricature of Irish people enjoying themselves at a funeral. There were rebel-yells and mawkish choruses, screechings, cursings, birdie-songs and boogieing and brandying. That shining pearl of Shane McGowan’s genius, ‘Fairytale of New York’ was sung so oft and so badly that I came to hate it with a passion. I don’t exaggerate when I tell you that to this very day, I immediately switch off the radio when it comes on. Every time a massive wave hit the ship, we seemed to rise a hundred feet in the air before crashing back down again with the implacable viciousness of a hanging judge’s gavel. The gnash of glasses breaking. The moans of en-masse vomming. I couldn’t believe the baby was so tolerant of the punk rock ambience, and if I had never loved him before, which I had, very much, I think I bonded with him that night in some fundamental way. Here was a kid who could sleep through ‘The Fields of Athenry’. Our Dozol bill would always be low. By six in the morning the party had ended, mainly because most of the celebrants were by now unconscious. Closer to dawn, the baby was still sleeping, comatose as a student, and his mum asked me to get her a bottle of water. After I’d done that, I 46
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remember asking her if she wanted to go out and get some air on the deck. She didn’t really want to but she suggested I step out myself if I liked. Everything was calm. It was a cold, clear morning. I don’t think I had ever seen a sky that had so many stars, and certainly I never have since. You felt you could touch them, stir them around. There was an unearthliness about the beauty and the stillness. I walked the decks for a while. People were gathered here and there. And as I rounded the stern of the ship, there was an elderly couple who were sharing a flask of tea and listening to classical music on a radio. I don’t know if I can convey to you the strange beauty of that scene: being that far out at sea, in the dark and the cold, with haunting music being played on a radio. I stood near them for a while. I think I was smoking. And what happened next, I’ll never forget. A piece of music they recognised came on. And I recognised it too. They turned it up a little and poured themselves another cup of tea. It was an extract from Handel’s Messiah. You probably know it – you’ll have heard it now and again. But you’ve likely never heard it in the circumstances I describe. The choir began to sing. And the old couple hummed along. And I found I could hardly move. For unto us, A child is born. Unto us, A son is given. Now, I should tell you that I am not the kind of feller who easily cries. But when I heard those simple, beautiful words, it was hard to remember that. I stood in the dark and tried hard not to weep. Dawn began to come on. The sky turned red and 47
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gold. The ship was by now approaching Dun Laoghaire, the town where I grew up. I could actually see the pier where my pals and I used to hang out on summer evenings, the stretch of coastline at Sandycove, near where I kissed and was kissed for the first time, the steeples and the shopping centre, and Killiney Hill in the distance, its obelisk silhouetted against an impossibly scarlet dawn. I had a son. I was a father. I felt flooded with joy, as though everything in my life finally meant something. I was coming home with my wife and our child. I couldn’t believe the happiness. I felt we could face absolutely anything; we’d face it together. It was like a Christmas present from fate; that’s how I felt about it anyway. But in another way it was nothing at all, just a moment in a life. It was a radio on a ship a few days before Christmas, among drunks and dreamers, in the darkness. ‘A broken hallelujah,’ Leonard Cohen might have said. But maybe that’s the best kind of all. Extract from The Irish Male: His Greatest Hits, ISBN: 9781848400375, © Joseph O’Connor
About the author Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin, and is well known as a novelist. His award-winning Star of the Sea was an international bestseller, and its sequel Redemption Falls received rave reviews. Other novels include The Salesman, Desperadoes and Cowboys and Indians. He broadcasts a weekly radio diary on RTE’s Drivetime, and these, along with other selected journalism, are collected in The Irish Male: His Greatest Hits, published by New Island in 2009. About the publisher Established in 1992 as the official successor to Dermot Bolger’s Raven Arts Press, New Island is one of Ireland’s leading publishers of literary fiction and ground-breaking non-fiction in the areas of biography, politics and current affairs. Previous successes have 48
The Irish Male included Nuala O’Faolain’s memoir, Are you Somebody? and her last novel Best Love, Rosie, Mary Raftery’s Suffer the Little Children about Ireland’s clerical child abuse, Christine Dwyer Hickey’s bestselling first novel, Tatty, and a number of RTÉ collaborations, including selections from Sunday Miscellany. The 2009 line up has been particularly strong, and we are delighted to have some represented in the Great Irish Book Week.
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The Space Between Us John MacKenna John MacKenna’s eagerly awaited new novel explores the complexities of love, friendship, loss and betrayal. When a man loses his wife in a car accident and is left to raise his young daughter alone, his emotions lurch from relief to guilt: relief because his marriage had been falling apart for some time, and guilt because he did not have the courage to admit this while his wife was alive. A powerful yet shocking story that asks if we can ever truly know those we are closest to, or if the space between us is always greater than we realise. The following extract shows the protagonist many years later, when his daughter is grown up, and highlights the author’s lyrical talent and his deep connection with the Irish landscape. It rained that morning. Just as I was turning for home, the showers came sweeping across the woods, sheets of mist closing in from two sides so that, by the time I’d reached the small stone bridge that crosses the stream, the rain was thick enough to run everything into a blot and lose sight of my car in a haze at the other end of the road. I sheltered beneath an elder, the dog at my feet, picking at the black fruit which hung even lower in the drizzling air, the 50
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branches pulled down by the weight of the sudden rain. In front of me, the lane was pocking as the raindrops rebounded off the hardened clay. And then the pockmarks began to multiply, the dry dust becoming a light sheen of mud, the surface of the laneway changing colour and texture before my eyes. In the shelter of the overhanging tree, about my feet, the ground remained dry, the branches protecting me from the falling rain. Six feet from where I was huddled, a red squirrel and then another scampered across the open roadway and disappeared into the evergreens. Not grey squirrels, not wild mink but red squirrels. The first pair I’d seen on this laneway in over a year. The dog had missed them. And then, as though taking its cue from the squirrels, the sun broke weakly through and the rain began to lighten, rays of brightness brushing it aside, drying the ground almost as they fell. It was a Tuesday morning, the last Tuesday in September, an ordinary day in a week that promised nothing of any greater significance than the appearance of this pair of wild animals. Waiting for the bow of rain to clear my shelter, I watched the crows rising out of a stand of trees, turning against the clearing blueness of the sky. Ten minutes would get me to the car and another five would get me home to coffee and work. Stepping back onto the laneway, my attention was caught by the smell from the small stream running under the low bridge. Afterwards, I would try to recapture it exactly, that smell you get on a particular day in spring and again in autumn, the scent that leaves you uncertain about whether it augurs a growth or a decomposition. It’s as if the river and everything that feeds into it reaches a point, sometime in March and again in September, where there’s a perfect balance between progress and decay. It’s not something that lasts but, if you catch it, you can gauge the 51
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turning of the year and the change of season by this particular smell. It may be there for a day or it may last as little as an hour. And then it’s gone and the year has suddenly shifted from one phase into another. I was aware of the smell that morning, the sudden dampening of the countryside after three weeks without rain, a freshness that tantalised the senses, suggesting that spring might be about to burst on the world again, though, of course, it wasn’t. The nights were drawing in and, each day, dawn was becoming more and more hesitant. The swallows had already gathered and dithered and then taken off in a surge of wings and longing. The roads were a slow procession of hay lorries, drawing bales from the fields. Haws were lighting up and sloes were darkening in the ditches. This was definitely September. I stood a while, leaning over the balustrade of the stone bridge, gazing down into the stream, as though I expected a face to peer back at me from the cloudy bog water, as though the face of autumn might reveal itself to me. And then the wind lifted, and the rain was gone from the air and the sun was emptying itself out across the stubbled fields, running like a train along the tracks of headland. From a crevice at the foot of the bridge, a blackberry branch straggled above the brown water. Whether it was the shelter of the bridge or some freak of nature, the leaves on this branch were a soft, almost lime green. They stood out against the darker foliage around them, as if the summer had poured everything it owned into them, every last drop of vibrant colour, every promise it had ever made. Their paleness was an olive butterfly poised above the dark water, uncertain in that moment about whether to stay or go. And when I looked up from the water, the fallen mist was 52
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melting in the early sunshine and the road was reappearing, rolling out before me to the gateway where I had parked the car an hour earlier. And I knew this would be a good day, that the sun would continue shining and the montbretia in the ditches would be as dazzlingly orange as they had been for the past few weeks, flaming up against the passing of one season and the arrival of another. A tractor lumbered between the pillars of a farm avenue, a trailer rattling behind it. The driver waved and I beckoned him ahead. He gave me the thumbs-up, pointing to the sky. Smiling, I saluted. The tractor swung right, through an open gateway, climbing steadily up the hill and coming to a stop beside the only rick of hay bales remaining in the field. I watched the driver climb down from his cab and uncouple the trailer before starting to load the bales. I walked on, whistling, reminding myself to tell Jane about the squirrels and the blackberry leaves and the racing sunlight. * * * The house was quiet apart from the sound of the dog’s paws on the wooden floor. Jane was still sleeping, her last week at home before going back to college. Late nights and late mornings, sometimes early afternoons, before she surfaced, hair falling wildly about her face, smiling, calling Rostropovich to her, rubbing his ears, getting him to roll on his back so she could rub his belly. The name had been her idea. She’d been doing something on Rostropovich in school when I’d brought him home for her fourteenth birthday, a black and white bundle of something 53
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akin to collie but not quite. ‘Do you expect me to call him Rostropovich in public?’ I asked when she suggested the name. She laughed. ‘Hardly. You can call him Ros for short, but Rostropovich is his name.’ And so it was decided. And now he was five and the house was his. Standing in the kitchen, I made coffee and caught the news headlines on the radio. Politicians disagreeing. Monks marching in Burma. Road accidents. Settled weather ahead, calm and sunny. ‘Right,’ I said to the dog. ‘Time for work.’ He watched me walk into my study and I knew, once the door was closed, that he’d go and lie outside Jane’s bedroom door and, when finally she appeared, he’d greet her like a long lost friend, jumping and barking and chasing his tail to impress her, delighted that she was there to talk to him, to rub his ears and tell him how beautiful he was. And he’d sit at her feet, under the kitchen table, and wait for chunks of buttered toast to fall his way. That was this dog’s life while Jane was home. When she was in college, he settled for a rug beside my desk and buttered brown bread and my conversation but there was never any doubt about whose company he preferred. I might walk him twice a day but I accepted myself for what I was, a poor second choice. At the desk, I looked back over some sketches I had made that morning, before taking Ros for his walk. They were no better than they had been two hours earlier. I stared at them, walked around the desk, viewed them from the sides, mentally tinkering here, altering there, but they were still missing the 54
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structure I was trying to design. These were the days I dreaded. The times when walking away I hoped that either I’d come back to something that looked better than it had done when I left or that I’d bring something back with me that would unlock the angles and aspects to set the whole thing moving again. Then I was rustling back through my sketchpad, back to what I’d drawn the night before, searching for something there, a place from which to start again. Turning on the computer, I looked over what I had there and pressed delete. No point in playing with something that was dead and gone. Let it go. Start again. Put the lot out of my head and go somewhere else, back to the photographs I’d taken of the site, hoping the empty space would lead me somewhere else. Perhaps up another blind alley but perhaps not. I drew a line, another, an angle, a possibility. I didn’t look back, I just kept drawing, sketching whatever the photographs suggested and the pages began to fill, forms starting out in one place and scratching across until they reached another. A potential beginning to unfold, an imagined angle, a window looking in, another looking out. I was like a guitarist picking out a tune. It all seemed so important then, to get the lines together, to finish the sweep on an arc, to breathe in and out the breaths of this building whose life was confined, for now, to what I thought and drew on these sheets of paper. These walls which would eventually include and exclude experiences unlike my own. To design is to live vicariously, to fool yourself into believing that you are God and can create another person’s life, inhabit their mind and body, instruct or allow them to see or not to see the things you permit or don’t permit. And I was lost in that process for an hour, then two, then three so that lunch-time 55
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came and went and I heard Jane and Ros in the kitchen, heard the sound of cutlery being set and dishes and cups being laid on the table, and still I went on, drawing madly for fear that I would lose what I had found. Believing what I was doing was of value and might somehow change my life or someone else’s because, for those hours, in that room, I had faith in what I was doing, had faith in the power of the eye and the brain, succumbed to the ego of the designer who thinks that what he envisages is important. The architect who knows that without that arrogance, he would never draw another column or imagine another view or describe another building from his assortment of outlines and figures and shapes. Without that arrogance, I told myself, the dancer would forget her steps, the sculptor would lose all sense of proportion, the poet would be redundant. And so I went on working, delaying the knock on the door, postponing the moment when my daughter would come smiling into the room, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand, telling me lunch was ready, telling me it was time to put this work away, sentencing me to the return, which is never as filled with promise as the moment that is now. And the arcs bridged the screen, pushing my vision closer to the edge of something I would either forget or come to terms with, an outline that would blight this day of my life or give me the pleasure of creating something whose fragility and strength would stay with the people of this town long after they had forgotten my name or anything about me. And I smiled as I worked because I believed in what I was doing, for those hours I believed in the power of the idea and the possibility of rising to the challenge. And then I heard the footsteps in the hall and Ros was snorting and Jane was tapping gently on my door, a knock that 56
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never waited for an answer and I pressed Save and turned to see her smiling at me. ‘How’s it going?’ ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Slow start, but it’s beginning to get somewhere now.’ ‘Lunch is ready when you are.’ ‘Fifteen minutes,’ I said. ‘Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be there.’ ‘Fine.’ ‘Sleep ok?’ ‘Seems like,’ Jane laughed and then she was gone and I could hear Ros put, put, putting behind her, across the hall and into the kitchen and the ideas were central again, racing each other to find their place in my scheme. Extract from The Space Between Us, ISBN: 9781848400337, © John MacKenna, 2009
About John McKenna John MacKenna was born in 1952 in Castledermot, Co. Kildare. His books include The Fallen and Other Stories (1992), which won the Irish Times First Fiction Award, A Year of our Lives (London, Picador, 1995), The Last Fine Summer (London, Picador, 1998), Things you should Know (New Island, 2006) and River Field (New Island, 2007). About New Island Books Established in 1992 as the official successor to Dermot Bolger’s Raven Arts Press, New Island is one of Ireland’s leading publishers of literary fiction and ground-breaking non-fiction in the areas of biography, politics and current affairs. Previous successes have included Nuala O’Faolain’s memoir, Are you Somebody? and her last novel Best Love, Rosie, Mary Raftery’s Suffer the Little Children about 57
New Island Books Ireland’s clerical child abuse, Christine Dwyer Hickey’s bestselling first novel, Tatty, and a number of RTÉ collaborations, including selections from Sunday Miscellany. The 2009 line up has been particularly strong, and we are delighted to have some represented in the Great Irish Book Week.
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Poetry Reading it, Writing it, Publishing it Edited and compiled by Jessie Lendennie Contains frank and carefully considered information for poets, and others who are interested in knowing more about how the poetry world works. As well as exploring basic tenets for aspiring writers, the book contains personal essays by poets and publishers from Ireland, Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and Zimbabwe: Primrose Dzenga, Rita Ann Higgins, J.P. Dancing Bear, Celia de Fréine, Michael Heffernan, Kevin Higgins, Seamus Cashman, Nessa O’Mahony, Maurice Harmon, Joan McBreen, Lex Runciman, Joseph Woods, Eamonn Wall, Susan Millar DuMars, Emily Wall, John Hildebidle, Caroline Lynch, Jean O’Brien, Chris Mansell, Gabriel Fitzmaurice, John FitzGerald, Noel King, Philip Fried, Todd Swift, Simmons B. Buntin, Janice Fitzpatrick-Simmons, David Gardiner, Anne Fitzgerald and Stephanie McKenzie.
Introduction Jessie Lendennie (Co Clare, Ireland) Type ‘Poetry’ into Google and you get 128,000,000 entries. 128,000,000! Try ‘Poetry Blogs’: 13,300,000. ‘Poetry journals’: 30,700,00. These are dizzying numbers (and growing exponentially). These websites encompass the mad, the mundane and the 59
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marvellous. It’s an awful lot of stuff about poetry. I point this out as a way to emphasise that, despite the fact that most people will go numb if you talk to them about poetry, many of them, at some time in their lives, write it, or want to write it. For a poetry book publisher, this is, potentially, a great big market. Imagine if everyone who accessed one of these websites decided to buy a poetry book! Wow, South Sea Islands here I come! Well, no, alas, it doesn’t really work that way. I’ve used the “look at all the Internet hits for Poetry” as an argument for more funds from the Arts Council. To show that there really are people who want to read poetry books, so the Arts Council should give us more money to reach those big spenders. Hasn’t worked yet. Well, back to the real world: As an early exponent of the Internet, I’ve been encouraging aspiring poets to use this resource for years in the belief that the more they know the broader their choices – and minds. Perhaps many did benefit, but it’s possible that many were overwhelmed with the utter vastness of it all. Given the tentative approach of most aspiring poets, it’s easy to see that one could come away from an Internet search in total confusion. As with most things, information varies in its usefulness; so after considering the best way to advise aspiring poets, I’ve come full circle – back to the good old “here’s a book, and there’s a lot of good, sound advice within; based on years of experience – from reading poetry, to writing poetry, to selecting it for publication. Read it.” There are only a few basic things to consider when thinking about getting your poetry published. These points are made over and over again by people working in this field. Why the repetition? Is no one listening? Why don’t poets follow a tried and true formula for writing and publishing? Resistance to 60
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conformity seems to be a part of the poet’s psyche (or at least the poet’s image). We seem to be compelled to rediscover the process for ourselves. The first stirrings of a poem is a deeply personal experience involving an intense recognition of one’s own uniqueness. The feeling of discovery, which is so exciting, even addictive, is as far removed from the rough and tumble of the “marketplace” as it’s possible to be. In order to protect that special part of oneself, the ‘poetry’ of oneself, it can be easy to fall into a kind of Protectionism of the Soul. Unwilling to move away from that special impulse, we are likely to act on intuition rather than hard logic when it comes to getting our poems out in the world. Yes, of course, poetry is not, in itself, about “how-to”. It’s a complex pattern made up of our own perceptions, insights, intelligence, confidence, motivation, and even self-image. Poetry, once the province of a few, overwhelmingly male, writers, with pipes and tweed jackets (and, we mustn’t forget, the whiskey bottle) now has a variety of faces, a plethora of practitioners, and, consequently, a confusion of definitions. This appears to be frightening to those who hold a single view of what poetry is, i.e. “This (insert your own cultural assumption) IS what poetry should be; how it should be written; how it should be understood”. On a personal note; since its beginning, Salmon has been up against a particularly narrow definition of the IRISH poem. I think of Emily Dickinson (as it happens, the poet most often quoted in these essays). We all know that she only published a handful of poems in her lifetime; but it’s most fascinating to note that those poems were heavily edited to fit in with the conventional poetry of the day. How awful; hard to think of what Dickinson must have felt – like an outsider? A mere woman versifier? Glad to be 61
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part of the establishment? How is it that we embrace her poetry now, when we wouldn’t have done so in her day unless it was edited to fit with the received definition of poetry? Silly question? Maybe, but it goes to the heart of how canons are established, and notions of the real meaning of poetry. The purpose of this book is to make aspiring, and otherwise, poets aware of all the aspects of poetry, from the enjoyment of reading, to the sweat and tears of running a small press. It’s crucial for a poet who is serious about her/his art to be informed. If there’s one thing to keep in mind, it’s that simple fact. My specialty is, of course, the publishing of poetry. As well, over the years, I’ve run writing workshops, with participants ranging in age from 7 to 80. As well as keeping my publisher’s eye out for poets to grace Salmon’s list, I’ve spent a huge amount of time helping people who want to write. The Salmon website contains questions & answers about poetry and publishing – www.salmonpoetry.com. Since these points are very much part of what this book is about, I’m including the main points. The one thing, above all, that I would advise poets to consider before approaching a publisher – even by email – is to know as much as possible about the press they are querying. Editors look at the professionalism of each submission – not only a high standard of writing, but a clear, informative letter. It’s easy to see who has put thought into their query and who hasn’t. Email makes it very easy to dash off a note in a mood of “what the heck, I’ll just ask”, but 95% of the time such a query will either be ignored or receive a curt reply. Take your time! Investigate! Think about why you want to publish! Do you consider yourself a professional? Are you 62
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willing to persist with your writing no matter what happens? Can you stand back and attempt an unbiased look at your work? There are many issues involved in taking a ragged thought and creating a work of art. This volume aims to lend a helping hand. If I were you, I’d take it.
Some thoughts for the aspiring poet Seamus Cashman (Dublin, Ireland) Poets – makers of poetry – possess and seem to reside within a parallel existence to this familiar daily walk we take: sometimes poetry illumines this reality and sometimes shadows it; yet at all times, poetry is this reality. There are nine words I have for the poet’s ego to contemplate. The first six are: imagination – vision – focus – change – tradition – community. The other three (from an Irish proverb) are: sunshine – wisdom – generosity. Nine words in all. Not so much to ask of yourself. Ask. Another good question to put is: why, if I do not write this poem, will I be poorer? It is only important to ask the question. Answering it is neither here nor there. Move on. The Palestinian poet, Darwish, spoke of here and there – meaning place of exile and place of home. A poet is always here and there. Indeed if you are not here and there, you are unlikely to be a poet. Here is where you find what there made for you. If you write through both, and decide your poem is worth submitting to an editor, whether that editor responds at all, or declines or enthuses, is irrelevant for now. What is important is that there is a poet here. Public-ation is not the first call. Recognise and then acknowledge the poet within yourself; that is the first call; the vocation, the avocation. Only then have 63
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you given yourself (installed, in laptop terminology) the permission necessary to be that poet and to write your poem. So, poet, come now with your poem and the editor may recognise you. But do not expect yet acceptance of your work. It most likely will take time. Keep a bunch of envelopes, stamps and letterheads in a handy drawer; know how to present your poem on the page – it is no mystery, so stop pretending. ‘It is as if to be is not enough; and that to be must also be to do.’ So, – get on with it. Stop moping, my mother used to say. Nosce te ipsum – or as it is written over The Matrix Oracle’s door, temet nosce. It’s a good life being a poet. But sometimes the poet must scrape damp autumn leaves from his/her own soles regardless of who has worn the sandals. Nobody else cares. You are alone with your poet. Yet, being a poet is quite special, and very ordinary. Remember that. It may take a while to discover. And if in the process, you awaken to some other reality, it will have been a worth while journey too. Extract from Poetry, ISBN 978-0-95612-875-1 © 2009 Salmon Poetry
About the editor Jessie Lendennie’s book Daughter was first published in 1988, followed in 1990 by The Salmon Guide to Poetry Publishing and in 1992 by The Salmon Guide to Creative Writing in Ireland. In 2007, she edited Salmon: A Journey in Poetry 1981-2007, an anthology of twenty-six years of poetry from Salmon. She is the co-founder and Managing Director of Salmon Poetry.
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Poetry About the publisher Salmon was established in 1981 as an alternative voice in Irish literature. The Salmon, a journal of poetry and prose was a flagship for writers in the west of Ireland, and Salmon’s first books, Gonella by Eva Bourke and Goddess on the Mervue Bus by Rita Ann Higgins broke new ground for women poets. Since then over 200 volumes of poetry and literary non-fiction have been produced and Salmon has become a major publisher in the Irish literary world. By specializing in the promotion of new poets, particularly women poets, Salmon has enriched Irish literary publishing. In recent years Salmon has developed a cross-cultural, international literary reach... “broadening the parameter of Irish literature by opening up to other cultures and by urging new perspectives on established traditions. That enviable balance of focus and ranginess is a rare and instructive achievement.” (‘Opening up to Other Cultures’ Poetry Ireland Review 54, Kathleen McCracken).
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Life in the Universe Michael J. Farrell A journalist sees an otherwise average house rise into the air. Two old codgers speculate about a utopian life created by writing that need never be read. An elderly priest and an even more elderly widow scan deep space in search of the meaning that eludes them at home. A woman invites a friend from the distant past to attend her suicide. Written with great compassion and humour, Michael J. Farrell’s stories are crammed full of life; and they quietly celebrate all the mystery and potential of our frail existence. Just live as long as you can, they urge us, and expect the unexpected.
An extract from ‘Writer-in-Residence’ His great misfortune was to be left the farm by his father. ‘I’m not cut out for farming,’ he’d announced when he turned seventeen. ‘Nor for much else,’ his father looked up from the boiled egg. His mother put his clothes in a small suitcase with a view to England. ‘Come home whenever you want,’ the father said, with what sounded like remorse. Clarence would write letters home, and the mother would write back. Their topic was the old man pining away. ‘Come home or he’ll die.’ ‘If I come home he’ll die,’ Clarence replied. But he came. 66
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And the father died. ‘If you’re going to stay, you’d better find a wife,’ the mother, a realist, said. This led to marriage to Brona, whom he met in the Mace market, a quiet girl, small. The father would have vetted her up and down and decided she’d be a poor breeder. The mother died to make room for the new woman. If they were going to have children, Brona announced, they’d need to extend the house, make it over with big windows and curtains and an all-electric kitchen. ‘It’s an odd way to go about having children.’ Clarence was droll. No one at school told him what irony was, but he saw it everywhere: a little cloud of humour floating about and pointing at people, who were, without exception, ridiculous. Brona conceived the night after the new refrigerator was delivered. That’s ironic for sure, Clarence’s funny bone whispered in his ear. A beautiful daughter was followed a year later by another. Ambitious Brona transformed the old farmhouse. Under the plaster she discovered fine stone walls. Isn’t that just like life, she would say to Clarence. Gradually he found himself unable to get up in the mornings. He was physically fine. He was still a good eater, and Brona’s cooking put his mother’s memory in the shade. What was lacking was motivation, a word as vague as irony but when you came across it, you knew it. Why? That was the issue. What was the point? It dawned on him that people must have been asking this question since the beginning of thinking, but the answers remained unclear. It surprised Clarence that people nevertheless carried on, looking the other way when it came to motivation. He found himself unable to do it. Every morning, after hating himself for a while, he would 67
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read. Though his sojourn in England had been otherwise unproductive, it had brought him into contact with second-hand books. At first he didn’t discriminate—his reading was dictated by the price of the book. He always knew about libraries but not until he was thirty-two did he venture in. All those novels were strumpets to seduce him. He loved Brona. When the girls arrived he loved them too. When Brona eventually confronted him, he was full of remorse. ‘I wasn’t cut out for farming.’ ‘It’s late in the day to find that out.’ ‘Come on to the pictures,’ he’d say to soften her. ‘After you move the cattle to the high field,’ she would relent. Cattle farming was lucrative as long as you fed the cattle. Clarence’s cattle found themselves on a diminishing diet in a European Union where animals were coddled like children. Associated with the cattle coddling was endless work designed to keep the farm looking spiffy. ‘Clarence,’ Brona would whisper in the early days. Then the whispering turned to badgering. She talked less to Clarence, more to the two girls. Until, one morning, she had gone back to her mother, the note said. She did not ask for anything. She did not sound angry. He would have welcomed anger. Not that he thought he deserved it. He knew from his reading that his case was not unique. There were rotten scoundrels who abandoned nearest and dearest, but there were also decent people who did it. The more he read, the more he realised that writing was a tyrant. All artists were ruthless predators. Not that Clarence was an artist. He was down to earth like a farmer. Six feet with, as the song said, some inches to spare; the big round shoulders and hairy arms seemed wasted in front of a 68
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book. There was a jut to his jaw that belied the lack of ferocity with which he confronted life. But once all that reading got a grip in any household, the traditional way of life was history. Imagination began to outweigh common sense. He sold all the cattle. Then sent the money to Brona. Wrote remorseful letters. He never asked them to come back home—he could not promise them he’d get up in the mornings. He was sure Brona did not hate him. ‘But if you do, a divorce is your best bet,’ he wrote her. ‘Your best years are ahead of you, and I, it seems, am behind you.’ The shine went off the electricals in the kitchen. It was hard to believe so much dust could gather in a house, coming, it seemed, out of nowhere. He read that most of the earth’s dust was the discarded, pulverised dead skin of humans. He started making notes of such things. When he would get up, sometimes towards evening, his head would be full of the ideas he had read all day. To the notes he started adding new thoughts of his own, original ideas that had never before existed. He would survey the words and sentences, would rearrange them; he was rewriting before he even decided to write. One cruel irony, he thought, was to look like a farmer without being one. This had worked for Patrick Kavanagh, but times had changed. He thought: denim, head to toe. He thought: a floppy hat, but with a plastic band under the chin, because he intended, when he got on his feet, to walk the fields. The denims required money. He sold the high field, which lay alone beyond the river, an orphan. Clarence remained on good terms with the neighbours, who never mentioned the empty fields that would be knee-deep in grass come spring. Once one slowed down and allowed irony to penetrate, a more reasonable world came into focus. The spring would take care of itself, 69
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even tomorrow would. He had news for naysayers should he come across any: each life needed a fresh story and no one else could write yours for you. Facts of life heretofore ignored became important. One was the writers’ group that met once a week in the snug at Gilligan’s. He wandered in on a Monday evening. ‘Have you taken up the pen, Clarence?’ ‘Aye, I was thinking about it.’ ‘Good man, good man.’ He liked the way they encouraged him and each other. One read a short story; another a chapter of what she called creative non-fiction; several read poems. Clarence, enthused, joined in the low-octane critique. ‘Have you anything yourself?’ they then asked. ‘I’m working up to it.’ Their offerings ranged from serious to depressing. He might, for a change, let irony creep in through the cracks. The next morning was an eye-opener. Sleep abandoned him. The sun came up fresh and demanding. Clarence reached for a yellow pencil. Writing was easy. All you needed was words, and no need for jawbreakers or showing off. Get the important things down. Emotions and that. There would be decisions to make. Punctuation would be a killer: he was never good at commas. He was up by noon, hours ahead of himself. He couldn’t wait to make sentences, as if he hadn’t been doing it all his life. He had bought a computer when he sold the field. It whirred all day and into the night. The next day, he was up with the sun. Life had a purpose. The following Wednesday he read a long piece about the South Pole and the intrepid explorers who risked everything to go there. 70
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‘Good man yourself,’ the others were enthusiastic, a dozen of them, mostly women, getting their pensions now. No one said he was ready for the Nobel Prize, but no one said he wasn’t. ‘You should write about what you know,’ one said bluntly. ‘Write about yourself.’ He didn’t tell them he knew the South Pole better than he knew himself. That was where the irony came in. Once destiny gets started, it doesn’t know when to stop. Clarence saw, in the arty page of the local paper, that a certain town far away needed a writer-in-residence. The further away the better, he thought. He was not surprised eventually to find himself on the shortlist because a logical inevitability was coming to pass. Extract from Life in the Universe, ISBN 978-1-90653-908-5 © Michael J. Farrell and the Stinging Fly Press 2009
About the author Michael J. Farrell was born in 1935 and grew up in County Longford. Now retired and living in East Galway, he spent his working life as a priest, an editor and a journalist. His novel Papabile won the Thorpe Menn Award in 1998. Life in the Universe is his first collection of stories. About the publisher The Stinging Fly Press was established in 2005 and continues to operate in tandem with The Stinging Fly literary magazine as an important forum for work by new and emerging writers. We have a particular interest in promoting the short story. Our first book, Watermark by Derry-born author Sean O’Reilly, was published to rave reviews in May 2005. In July 2006, we brought out a special fiction issue of the magazine in book form: These Are Our Lives featured twenty-two new short stories by Irish and international writers. In early 2007 we published There Are Little Kingdoms, the 71
Stinging Fly Press widely acclaimed debut short story collection from Limerick-born writer Kevin Barry (winner of the 2007 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature). In 2008 we published a second fiction anthology, Let’s Be Alone Together, as well as a collection of twelve one-act plays from Bewley’s Cafe Theatre, Freshly Brewed. The Stinging Fly magazine continues to publish three times a year, offering a mix of fiction, poetry, essays, book reviews and author interviews. Visit www.stingifly.org for further information.
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Irish Interest
Dublin Zoo An Illustrated History Catherine de Courcy As Dublin Zoo makes the transition from bars and cages to state-of-the-art animal habitats it is appropriate to record its story so far, richly illustrated with images of animals and visitors. Beginning in 1831, stories of animals and visitors are interwoven to record magical moments as visitors experienced the smells, sounds, behaviours and magic of exotic animals. The mixed fortunes of the Zoo are traced and its proud past is united with its present and future direction as the extraordinary changes in recent years are described.
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Extracts taken from Chapter 4: Peaceful Resort 1922–1950
Introduction The period covered in this chapter was a peculiar one for Dublin Zoo. It should have been an unsettled time with the new political environment in Ireland in the 1920s, the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Second World War. Yet the records, the newspaper reports, visitor memories and the loyalty of the staff all suggest that the Zoo was a place of ‘peaceful resort’ that grew steadily from attracting 173,000 visitors in 1923 to attracting 320,000 visitors in 1949. Few ‘star’ animals were purchased during this period but the lions kept breeding, the bison had a few calves, tigers and leopards shared the steamy atmosphere of the Roberts House, the chimps entertained, the children’s corner was created and Sarah the elephant arrived. A dominant feature of this period was the social activity for members and their friends: parties, dances, dinners, fetes and bridge tournaments were so popular that one wit suggested that the Zoo should sell their own tickets on the black market to raise extra funds. While the parties kept the Society afloat, the bulk of the visitors went to the Zoo when the entry was cheapest. * * *
The parties The success of the fetes of 1919 and 1920 inspired the council and the Ladies’ Committee to continue the practice of having social events in the Zoo to raise much needed funds for animal accommodation and visitor facilities. The range and frequency of the parties increased and the breakfasts, garden parties and 75
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dances became fashionable events, which were reported in the media. In the 1930s, the garden parties were attracting more than 400 people, the dances about 800, while several hundred people attended the bridge tournaments and dinners. In 1932, the council decided to elect members of the diplomatic corps in Dublin as honorary, temporary members. Representatives from the United States, France, Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Italy and Great Britain were elected, as was the Papal Nuncio. The presence of foreign representatives at Zoo parties added a social layer to the events, which usually took place in and around marquees erected on the lawn outside Haughton House. Of course, the Zoo was still a venue for large and small events held by external individuals and organisations. In 1932, the Lord Mayor arranged a party in the Zoo for 4,500 children from schools all over the city. Bands, dancing and a gymnastic display by boys from the Artane school provided entertainment. * * *
More parties The strange twist that characterised Dublin Zoo’s experience of the Second World War was the huge increase in the number of people attending the breakfasts, dances, dinners, bridge parties and any other social event the council and the Ladies’ Committee could find an excuse to organise. Haughton House provided some of the catering for the parties but outside caterers – often the Dolphin Hotel – had to be used for major events. In 1940, 1,800 people attended the functions during fete week and 350 attended the members’ breakfasts. The lake froze in January 1940 and the ice was measured at 3.5 inches deep. Ice 76
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skating for members was free of charge; their family and friends were charged two shillings and sixpence, and the general public were charged five shillings. Skating continued for five days and until 11.00 p.m. each evening with oil flares lighting up the lake. The refreshment room remained open for these hours also. The staff looked after the ice and provided refreshments and safety equipment. Thousands of people attended the summer fetes, breakfasts, dances, dinners and other events. Many of the guests used taxis, cabs and horse-driven vehicles to get to the Zoo but for those who arrived on bicycles changing facilities were provided: the men were given a tent while the women could change in Haughton House. Morning dress for council members at the garden parties was abandoned in 1941 but the women’s fashions still attracted attention. In 1942, The Irish Times report about the garden party said,
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Fashions were mainly of the practical, tailored type. Many of the smartest women wore tailored suits of flannel or lightweight pastel-coloured tweed. Navy blue and white was a popular colour combination, many attractive ensembles in these shades being accompanied by little navy or white toques trimmed with veiling. Demand for tickets for all social events was such that, by 1944, tickets for the dance were issued to members of the Society only. The numbers of ordinary visitors who came to look at the animals, ride on the ponies or the elephant and have tea in Haughton House also increased dramatically during the war years as fuel restrictions limited the number of recreational activities available to Dubliners. In 1943, more than 250,000 people visited the Zoo and the annual number has never dropped below that since then. The increased numbers put great strain on the catering services in Haughton House and it was often full to capacity. Fortunately the entire building was now devoted to catering; in 1938, a blind kangaroo, which had been kept in the cage on the ground floor of Haughton House, died and the cages were dismantled. The Veranda Cafe opened there in 1939. In January 1942, Haughton House provided a ‘delicious tea for 1s 6d [which] included hot scones, home-made jams, and assorted pastries, and was served in pleasant proximity to the new log burning fireplace, where a huge fire roared defiance at the iciness outside’. Four-course lunches were also available, which was a considerable feat on the part of the manageress, Ella Murphy, who ran the restaurant from 1940 until 1943. In February 1942, a notice was put up in the members’ room that, owing to gas rationing, the gas fire would not be lit but tables 78
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near the fire in the large tea room would be reserved for them. In 1943 she informed the council that it would be impossible to cater for large parties, such as a special tea for the Engineering and Scientific Association. Parties of more than fifteen now had to get special permission from the council. * * *
Post-war A huge party was held in the Zoo to celebrate the end of the war and, according to Michael Ward, it went on all night. All staff were given an extra day’s pay in anticipation of the crowds expected on 29 June 1945 on the day of National Thanksgiving. In May 1945, an acknowledgement was sent to Dr Hempel, formerly German Minister to Ireland, who resigned his honorary membership because his mission had been terminated. In November 1945, the council deferred their discussion as to whether to admit the Czechoslovak consul as an honorary temporary member of the Society until some research had been carried out. In 1946, the Czech consul was among the 1,200 guests at the June garden party. The dance was hugely popular; Hugh Brett, a Sunday Independent reporter, managed to get tickets for the dance in 1946 and described the scene: Any husband who wanted to convey bright news to his wife last week had only to tell her that he had two of the coveted tickets. I met a bookmaker who told me he had offered a pony for four tickets, but there were no takers. If the Zoo people had decided to black market the tickets themselves, he hated to think of the extra monkeys they might have collected. We had a whale of a time. I enjoyed particularly 79
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the two speciality dances, the camel dance, Humps-a-daisy and the Llamabeth [sic] walk . . . It was novel going round the houses in the Gardens at night-time. ‘Any water?’ said the parrot. ‘Any whiskey?’ riposted a sarcastic bystander. Extract from Dublin Zoo, ISBN 978-1-84889-008-4 © 2009 Catherine de Courcy
About the author Catherine de Courcy, from Dublin, graduated from UCD in 1979 and became a professional librarian. She has an international reputation as a historian of zoos. In 2003, she returned to Ireland from Australia and is now a full-time writer. Her book An Adventure in Grief (Cork, 2009) recounts how Catherine coped with the death of her husband, John. About the publisher Founded in 1989, The Collins Press publishes a wide range of non-fiction books. Our interests as a publisher are not limited to specific subjects and we have a current output of about thirty titles per year. We published Michael Smith’s bestselling biography, Tom Crean – An Unsung Hero, in 2000, which inspired Guinness adverts, songs, plays and paintings. Our books range from biographies of GAA stars to histories of the Irish at war, from guides to Ireland’s birds to walking guides and books of maritime interest. Several of our books have been shortlisted for awards and have received critical acclaim. High standards of editing, design and production are essential elements in all of The Collins Press’ products. In 2009 we successfully tendered for the GAA-commissioned book to mark GAA 125, The GAA – A People’s History. Looking ahead to 2010, our list will continue to grow in our chosen subject areas.
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The Iveragh Peninsula A Cultural Atlas of the Ring of Kerry Ed. John Crowley & John Sheehan Although not a conventional atlas, this book contains many historic and newly commissioned maps. The opening chapters explore the physical and environmental setting of the peninsula. Subsequent chapters deal with its development over the millennia and the influences that have shaped it. All aspects of Iveragh’s past and present are considered, using the evidence of disciplines such as archaeology, art history, cartography, folklore, geography, geology, history, mythology and zoology. The scenic landscape of the Iveragh peninsula is both rugged and sublime, and first impressions tend to last. The mountains are Iveragh’s most distinctive feature. The remarkable peaks, valleys, deep water-filled corries, ice-fretted crags and narrow mountain gaps are the legacy of a landscape sculpted by ice thousands of years ago. The extensive blanket bogs which cover much of Iveragh are also an integral part of its natural landscape. Iveragh is the largest peninsula in the country and its western extremity forms not only the westernmost point of Ireland but 81
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also of Europe. The main routeway of the peninsula, now internationally known as the Ring of Kerry, is largely coastal and links most of the peninsular towns and villages.
Cultural Landscape Iveragh is also a cultural landscape that is imbued with layers of mythology, archaeology, history, folklore and tradition. The peninsula’s long history of human settlement is well represented and highly visible in the archaeological record. Numerous examples of rock art, standing stones and stone rows bear testimony to the gradual peopling and settling of the peninsula. The introduction of Christianity to Ireland also left its own imprint on Iveragh’s landscape. None of the peninsula’s many religious sites, however, is more impressive than Skellig Michael. Today, its status as a World Heritage Site reminds us that its legacy is part of the heritage of the world as a whole. Despite its strong Christian culture, elements of the old paganism lived on in Iveragh up to early modern times. While the origins of Killorglin’s Puck Fair are open to debate, it is interesting to note that it too takes place around the time of the old Lughnasa festival. Iveragh has many ogham stones from the early Medieval period, representing the earliest written form of the Irish language and Irish still survives as a spoken language in Iveragh.
Historical Development The Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century introduced a period of transformation in Irish society. The impact of the Anglo-Normans on south Kerry was limited in extent, and as a consequence the Gaelic way of life continued largely undisturbed throughout the Medieval period. 82
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During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, the ethnic geography of the peninsula was to change as a result of the Elizabethan and Cromwellian conquests of Ireland and the colonisations that followed. Colonisation and cartography went hand in hand, and it is not surprising that the first detailed maps of the peninsula date from this period. The political union of Britain and Ireland in 1801 witnessed the London government’s renewed interest in Irish economic affairs. The achievement of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 represented Daniel O’Connell’s finest hour and testified to his skills as a consummate politician. The constitutional approach espoused by him would later be supplanted by the militant tradition of the Fenians, culminating in the fight for independence in the early decades of the twentieth century. O’Connell’s death coincided with the bleakest year of the Great Famine. The Famine had a particularly devastating impact on Iveragh. Emigration increased considerably and was followed by the Lansdowne Estate’s scheme of ‘assisted emigration’ in the early 1850s. Emigration remained a constant aspect of life on the peninsula and there are few people in Iveragh that do not have family links in Britain and America. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would see the peninsula participate in the international butter trade. More importantly, the bringing ashore of the transatlantic cable on Valentia Island in the 1860s had a profound impact on the development of global telecommunications and put this relatively unknown location on the world map. During the twentieth century the peninsula increasingly became known as the Ring of Kerry and became a magnet for tourists.
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Cultural Heritage Iveragh has its own distinctive identity and personality, which is best expressed in its long maintained traditions and customs. There is a reverence and respect for both the spoken and written, and its storytellers are held in high regard. Traditions evolve and change over time. Parts of Iveragh once echoed to the sound of uilleann pipes but the instruments and playing styles which displaced this tradition were accompanied by the set-dancing which now forms a vibrant part of the culture of south Kerry. One unique form of cultural expression was replaced by another, just as the mid-twentieth-century decline of traditional seine boat fishing in the area saw the emergence of the coastal regattas that are now such a distinctive feature of Iveragh’s summers. One tradition that continues to flourish here is Gaelic football. It is remarkable how embedded this sport is in the social and cultural life of the place. The fortunes of the county team are reflected in the changing moods of the local people during championship time. Another sport that captures the Iveragh imagination is coastal rowing, with crews from neighbouring towns, villages and parishes pitting their strength and skills against each other. The people of Iveragh are distinctive, even within the county of Kerry, and they are conscious of this. This may be due in part to the surrounding landscape. It has sometimes been suggested that the character of the Iveragh people may have been preserved by virtue of the fact that the Anglo-Normans did not invade the peninsula, and that the people consequently remained more purely ‘Celtic’. Whatever the contributory factors, Iveragh people are different, though it is extremely difficult to isolate and define 84
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their characteristics. Indeed, even within the sub-regions of the peninsula there are differences in the characters of the people. In Iveragh, as elsewhere, declarations of allegiance to place are made in all sorts of contexts.
Approach This book combines many different approaches to understanding the multi-layered landscapes of Iveragh. It uses a range of visual material to assist in interpreting the story of the peninsula, including photographs, paintings and archival material, as well as a series of both historic and newly commissioned maps. Drawing on specialists from appropriate disciplines, it tells the story of Iveragh from prehistoric times to the present day. Initial chapters look at how Iveragh’s natural environment has been shaped over time, with particular emphasis on the formation of the mountains and coastline that give the peninsula its unique character. The peninsula’s archaeology and early historical development is explored, as well as the impact of the Vikings and New English on the landscape. Later chapters examine the world of Daniel O’Connell and the impact of the Famine. The early decades of the twentieth century, which saw the intensification of the struggle for Irish independence, are also explored, as is the historic background to the development of tourism on the Ring of Kerry. The book also explores the cultural traditions of Iveragh, with individual chapters on food, sport, music, song and folklore, while the peninsula’s more recent settlement patterns and socio-economic development are detailed, with particular emphasis on the role of farming, tourism and industry in this peripheral region. 85
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Iveragh has always inspired artists of all types: Jack B. Yeats and Paul Henry visited and their sketches, drawings and paintings form part of a closing sequence which focuses on their way of seeing the landscape. The final chapter features paintings by the artist Pauline Bewick. Extract from The Iveragh Peninsula, ISBN 978-1-85918-430-1 © 2009 Cork University Press
About the editors John Crowley is in the Department of Geography, University College Cork and John Sheehan is in the Department of Archaeology, University College Cork About the publisher Cork University Press aims to stimulate Irish learning by reflecting distinctive and distinguished scholarship in its lists. The Press began publishing in 1925 and is the oldest university press in Ireland. The Press publishes a wide variety of books including the best selling Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape and Companion to Irish Traditional Music. The Press also publishes more popular books including Ivor Browne: Music and Madness and a growing list of cookbooks such as The Cafe Paradiso Cookbook, Cornucopia at Home and The Tannery Cookbook. Cork University Press has a Women’s Studies imprint Attic Press which includes books such as Lyn: A Story of Prostitution, Bird’s Nest Soup and Sisters: the personal story of an Irish Feminist.
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Debt Busters Managing your Money Through the Recession Eddie Hobbs Since the publication in 2005 of Short Hands, Long Pockets, Eddie Hobbs’s bestselling guide to personal finance, the global and personal financial climate has changed almost beyond recognition and the cold winds of unmanageable debt, negative equity and redundancy now blow through many homes. In Debt Busters Eddie explains clearly and practically how to manage your spending and the money you owe – even if you feel overwhelmed by your level of indebtedness – and come out the other side in leaner and fitter financial shape.
Chapter 15 Coping with Job-Loss In a boom labour market there was nearly always a silver lining if you lost your job: a nice lump of cash in your hand, a few weeks off and another job just around the corner. It was easy to feel confident – the newspapers had beefy supplements with pages of jobs backed by websites offering thousands more. But all that has changed. Then you might have expected to spend at most three to four months’ job- hunting. Now it is likely to take far longer to find a new job. If you have lost your job or are facing redundancy – although you may be very lucky and 87
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bounce back quickly – the best thing you can do right now is to plan. The worst thing you can to is do nothing but burn through your cash and hide from your debt until it escalates into a problem you may not be able to control. Ned Maloney lost his job in April 2008 when his employer, a big building-supply firm, was forced to cut employment numbers by a third. Developers had started to run out of cash and were resorting to paying invoices by instalments. Cheques were beginning to bounce. As the company marketing manager Ned was defenceless and surplus to requirements. His employers put their hands deep into the company reserves and paid redundancy lump sums well above statutory minimums. Almost a year later Ned is still looking for a job that matches his skillset. Like many other professionals who had a good job with a strong salary, he is now finding it hard to get meaningful work. Used to earning N120,000, including a N10,000 contribution to his pension fund, he made only token changes to the family’s lifestyle, never visualising that he might be jobless a year later. Like many in his sector, he believed in the doctrine of the temporary dip before Ireland’s insatiable appetite for property would recover. He finds that his redundancy lump sum of N50,000 and the family savings are close to being exhausted, and his wife is searching for a part-time job to keep them ticking over. Ned now realises that he was a classic case of someone who believes they will find work at the same salary level and continues living as he has always done – including going on holidays. The family is facing very severe cutbacks in spending and Ned has to put together a debt-repayment proposal for their mortgage and car loans. He is kicking himself because he knows he could have stretched the family’s assets out for at least 88
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another year with a bit more prudence and foresight. Ned’s story contains an important message. If you’re one of the many people facing the loss of your job, it is best to plan for a much longer jobless period than during the past number of years, whether or not another income is coming into the home. That means putting a twenty-four- month plan in place instead of one for six months. Better to err on the side of caution today and slowly burn through available cash than blow it over a few short months in a forlorn attempt to maintain your lifestyle for the benefit of neighbours and friends. Remember it will take an austerity programme and at least two years before Ireland returns to growth, so you should plan accordingly. If, in the meantime, you manage to get one-off projects that bring in some cash or if you land some kind of job, that’s a bonus. But just about the worst thing you can do is to pretend nothing much has changed – even though that’s a perfectly understandable human reaction. So what should you do? The first thing to do when you hear that your job is going is to take immediate stock of where you are financially. Do up a statement of affairs as suggested earlier. That means starting with a balance sheet summarising everything you own and you owe and then prepare an income and expenditure analysis for the next two years at least. Find a good home for your lump sum, paying the best possible interest rate. Because lots of Irish consumers are not willing to take time to shop around, half of all the money on deposit with banks earns only half the maximum possible interest. Time to squeeze the best you can out of the market. For instance, in early 2009, Northern Rock, now 100% British-government owned, was paying interest for on-line and on-demand deposits at double the ECB base rate. Competition changes, so shop around. Keep 89
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an eye on information from the Financial Regulator – www. itsyourmoney.ie – or check out the money chat website www.askaboutmoney.ie. When you are preparing your budget, pay particular attention to the discipline of separating necessary from optional spending. When you calculate your available cash from liquid assets and divide it by necessary monthly spending, you can then estimate how long you can keep going with the adjusted lifestyle you have identified. You may also be entitled to support payment from the state. If you happen to get extra cash, from odd jobs or short-term contracts, rework the figures before using the extra money to enhance your lifestyle. After calculating the level of support you need to plug the gap left by your state benefits and any other family income, transfer this amount from your lump sum deposit account to your main bank account once a month. This is the income you’re paying yourself from liquid assetssectioAppendix 4.
Don’t Put Budgeting on the Long Finger People often make the critical mistake of putting off the le often make the critical mistake of putting off the unpleasant task of examining their lifestyle and budgeting until after they take the holiday they always wanted. Ask anyone who has been working hard with nothing longer than a fortnight off for years and who faces redundancy. They will tell you that the first thing they want to do is to take a month off and do nothing. For some people this means a month during which they will look around for other jobs and network and plan while playing golf, but for others this month off is fatal. Being idle saps the energy, lethargy sets in and before you know it the month off has stretched out to six months. This is demoralising and breaks the 90
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habit of work. So get cracking on the household budget. Don’t wait for the fateful day when you have no work to go to. You need to know what the impact of a loss of income will be. Use the budget form in Appendix 1 or any other one that works – the important thing is to do it. Extract from Debt Busters, ISBN 978-1-85607-980-8 © 2009 Eddie Hobbs
About the author Eddie Hobbs is a leading financial and economics commentator, a regular contributor to radio and television programmes and the author of Short Hands, Long Pockets (Currach Press, 2005) and Loot (2006). His skill as a personal financial consultant was showcased in the RTÉ television series Show Me the Money and his commitment to consumer rights in Rip-Off Republic, also shown on RTÉ. About the publisher Launched in 2002, Currach Press quickly established a name as a leading independent publisher in all areas of Irish-interest non-fiction, including history, biography, lifestyle, cookery and business, as well as some illustrated books. Since 2005 Kerry native Jo O’Donoghue has been the woman at the helm. She enjoys dreaming up book ideas, commissioning, and working with authors to develop projects with a keen eye to the marketplace. Currach Press is happily commercial, numbering How to Henparty: the Complete Guide among its 2009 successes. Currach’s autumn 2009 list is wide-ranging: from the political memoir of the late Nuala Fennell, A Political Woman; to Kavanagh Country, a collection of Patrick Kavanagh’s poetry paired with superb specially commissioned photographs of Kavanagh locations; to Candidate: the Election Diary of Susan O’Keeffe; to Real Irish 91
Currach Press Ghost Stories, spooky tales compiled by Ireland’s leading paranormal investigator, Paul Fennell; to My Mother Always Used to Say, maternal wisdom as recollected by famous people and collected by Valerie Bowe. Among Currach’s bestselling authors are Mary Banotti, Terry Prone and Eddie Hobbs. Currach Press also publishes the Father Francis Browne SJ collection.
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In Bloom Irish Bands Now Jenny Huston The last few years have been an exceptionally healthy time in Irish music. Hundreds of bands are playing all around the country and many are touring and making headway internationally. This book will tell you everything you want to know about your favourite Irish Bands and to put on record, the new Irish Headliners, the bands filling venues, receiving awards and enjoying critical acclaim right now. Their full history, their pictures, their stories, their successes to date and their plans for the future. Currach Press
The Coronas, featured in the extract below, are one of a number of hot new Irish bands profiled by Jenny Huston in her forthcoming book, In Bloom. In frank in-depth interviews, band members talk about their early careers in music, their commercial successes and disasters and the things that motivate them to play, compose, record and meet their public.
The Coronas • Band Members: Danny O’Reilly; Graham Knox; Conor Egan; Dave McPhillips • Albums: Heroes Or Ghosts, Tony Was An Ex-Con • Label: 3ú Records 93
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• Manager: Jim Lawless • Website: http://thecoronas.net • Myspace: www.myspace.com/coronaband • Bebo: www.bebo.com/thecoronas-band (Danny O’Reilly represented the band for the interview.) The Coronas’ success is due in no small part to the energy the members generate together on stage. The fact that lead singer Danny O’Reilly is usually grinning from ear to ear probably helps too. Danny has an affable, open, friendly nature that makes it virtually impossible not to like him. And he writes very catchy songs. The Coronas’ debut album, Heroes Or Ghosts, is packed full of infectious anthems, songs of summers away and partying all night – songs that make you want to sing along and punch at the air during the choruses. It’s no surprise that these guys captured the hearts of students across the country, but they didn’t just win over the students, they won over daytime radio too, achieving platinum sales in the process. Heroes Or Ghosts was released in Japan and the UK before the Coronas headed back to studio to record their second album, Tony Was An Ex-Con. So how did a young band on a small domestic indie label achieve all this without a massive advertising campaign or marketing spend? The Coronas didn’t quite reverse the traditional sequence of record album, retain PR company, release single to media, play gigs, release album, release second single, tour, but they certainly shook it up. The band had sold out Whelan’s before they had even been written about in the press. Suddenly, there were questions flying around media circles: Who were The Coronas? Were they a boy band? Was it one of those You’re A Star contenders? 94
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When the press eventually caught up with the lads, they realised that they were not a manufactured boy band but friends from school who had been gigging away quietly for years, building up a substantial following in the process. They also realised that Danny’s mother was the famous Irish singer Mary Black, something that inevitably arroused interest, an interest that Danny finds somewhat bemusing, because to him, she’s just a normal mother: ‘It’s funny that people wonder what sort of effect it had, the whole Mary Black thing. But she was just the same as the other mothers, just supportive. She never forced it [music] upon us. My older brother works nine to five now and doesn’t really play music and my sister is in college. It was never, “Well, this is the family way…” Never! It was just the way it happened.’ Danny’s parents may be steeped in folk and traditional music but they had very open minds when it came to the music he liked. ‘When we were growing up, I would put on a Radiohead album and my mum would be like, “That’s amazing!” She would never, ever tell me what to listen to. But in saying that, I remember she would then say, “Have a listen to this album.” I remember when I was really young my mum and dad gave me Revolver [The Beatles, 1966] because I had been listening to Oasis and I was like – what the hell! This is great! I remember too my mum kept saying, “You have to get this album Rumours.” [Fleetwood Mac, 1977]. I bought it for Christmas and I thought it was the best record I had ever heard! So it’s great to have that, but they never ever forced it on us.’ It turns out that Danny is not the only one in the band to have had a musical upbringing. Graham ‘Knoxy’ Knox had a pretty cool musical upbringing too. His father owns a record 95
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store and used to be a DJ. ‘He used to DJ in Old Wesley and other places around Dublin in the late 1970s. Knoxy probably has a much wider musical taste than I do because he has been surrounded by CDs his whole life, whereas I have been surrounded by Mary Black CDs…which is great as well! ‘ Danny and Knoxy went to school together but their friendship goes even further back than that: they were born within two weeks of each other and have been friends since they were babies. By the time Danny and Knoxy were in their early teens, Danny’s older brother and cousins were in bands and the boys thought they were amazing and wanted to give it a try themselves. By the time they were fifteen, they were in their first proper band. They went to Newtownmountkennedy to record with Gavin Ralston (a former member of the band Picturehouse) and recorded their first three-track demo. ‘We were listening to it the other week for a laugh,’ grins Danny. ‘Some of those tunes aren’t that bad, actually! We could come back to it for a dodgy third album if we were missing a few songs!’ Their first gig was in an afternoon all-ages show in the Clifton Court Hotel, beside O’Connell Bridge in Dublin, when they were around sixteen. About fifteen of their friends were there to watch them and they played a few covers and did one of their own songs. Danny recalls, ‘We always found gigs, even when we were under-age, at least one every two or three months.’ At that time, the band was called Kiros, with Conor Doyle as lead singer, Danny on backing vocals and guitar, Knoxy on bass and Conor Egan on drums. Even though they were all so young, tensions were developing and causing problems, a fact that amuses Danny greatly on reflection: ‘It wasn’t really 96
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working out for us and we weren’t really getting on, so we sort of went our separate ways. Then myself, Egan and Knoxy started getting together again and jamming just because we missed it. We were just a three piece for four or five years. We were just called Corona then.’ Corona started gigging around and developing a bit of a following. They recorded a gig supporting Pugwash in Voodoo called Live At The Voodoo Lounge EP, followed by the Corona EP in early 2005. Initially, they were selling the EP for N5 at gigs, which proved successful enough. Then they started handing out the EP to anyone interested, allowing people to copy it for free. Then they went on holidays. Danny and Knoxy went to Vancouver after their second year in college, when they were about nineteen. They were staying in a fraternity house at the University of British Columbia (UBC as it’s known) when they bumped into a guy who was playing guitar in a circle at a party. Rather than being a new Canadian aquaintance, as expected, he turned out to be a fellow-Irishman: Dave McPhillips from Monkstown in Dublin. They had some friends in common back home so they hit it off right away and ended up playing together virtually every night in the circle of music that existed in the house. When they came back to Dublin, Danny had a master-plan to bring Dave into the band, but Egan had not been in Vancouver (and had not even met Dave) and with Danny, Knoxy and Egan having been best friends since childhood, it was going to be a difficult sell. They had a gig that week so Danny suggested getting Dave in to do one song for the laugh: ‘We were doing a gig at Slatterys and he came up and we did “The Wait” by the Band, He sang and we did the harmonies and stuff and the lads loved it.’ McPhillips was in. 97
Currach Press Extract from In Bloom, ISBN 978-1-85607-985-3 © 2009 Jenny Huston
About the author Jenny Huston was born in Vancoover, Canada to Irish parents. Jenny joined 2FM in 2003, having started her broadcasting career at her university radio station. Her arrival on the national broadcasting stage had an immediate impact on Irish music lovers, particularly those hungry for Irish rock. She presents the pop programme, The Annex, on 2FM on Friday and Sunday nights and is a regular guest on The Gerry Ryan Show. About the publisher Launched in 2002, Currach Press quickly established a name as a leading independent publisher in all areas of Irish-interest non-fiction, including history, biography, lifestyle, cookery and business, as well as some illustrated books. Since 2005 Kerry native Jo O’Donoghue has been the woman at the helm. She enjoys dreaming up book ideas, commissioning, and working with authors to develop projects with a keen eye to the marketplace. Currach Press is happily commercial, numbering How to Henparty: the Complete Guide among its 2009 successes. Currach’s autumn 2009 list is wide-ranging: from the political memoir of the late Nuala Fennell, A Political Woman; to Kavanagh Country, a collection of Patrick Kavanagh’s poetry paired with superb specially commissioned photographs of Kavanagh locations; to Candidate: the Election Diary of Susan O’Keeffe; to Real Irish Ghost Stories, spooky tales compiled by Ireland’s leading paranormal investigator, Paul Fennell; to My Mother Always Used to Say, maternal wisdom as recollected by famous people and collected by Valerie Bowe. Among Currach’s bestselling authors are Mary Banotti, Terry Prone and Eddie Hobbs. Currach Press also publishes the Father Francis Browne SJ collection.
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Connemara Legend and Landscape Hugh McElveen Hugh McElveen invites the reader to take a fresh look at the coarse and beautiful vistas of Connemara and to examine our fascination with this magical part of the country. With his dazzling images and expert research, the author explores the interplay between the legends and the setting that inspired them. Through McElveen’s photos we can see how these stories are imprinted on the land. But these images also speak of a loss of connection with nature; we are asked to consider how, even in this remote area, modernity is encroaching on the way of life of the inhabitants and is leaving its scars on landscape itself. In short, Connemara: Legend and Landscape celebrates the cultural richness of Connemara by exploring its rugged scenery.
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Introduction The first problem facing anyone who wants to visit Connemara is to determine exactly where Connemara is. It is not a political or geological region. Possibly the greatest living authority on Connemara is Tim Robinson, a man who has walked the length and breadth of the region to produce a map that transcends being a mere ‘how to get to’ representation of an area to being a document of his experience of a place. The map of Connemara is informed by long walks and longer conversations with the many people he came across in his cartographical pursuit. The edge of Connemara is a penumbra; its exact position depends on who you ask. Acknowledging this, Robinson has identified the limits of Connemara based on his intimate experience of the region. He has classed three levels of Connemaricity. These are indubitable, arguable and fanciful. This book has chosen to identify the Connemara of this middle ground. Arguable Connemara lies to the West of the line that links Leenaun, Maam, Maam Cross and Spiddal. The west of Ireland has some of the most spectacular scenery the country has to offer. Nowhere is this as obvious as in Connemara. Here the richness of the landscape is matched by the richness of the culture. In Connemara the Irish language is still strong, although in puddles shrinking under a hot sun. Traditional music and farming practice continue to thrive in this region also. Much of Ireland’s folklore has been associated with Connemara and remains an integral part of the local culture. Myles Dillon documented many stories from Galway in the 1930s and compiled some of them into his book There Was a King in Ireland. This persistence of Irish heritage did not come about through design, but rather as a result of Connemara’s 100
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geographical and economic marginalisation through the centuries. The absence of outside inference has served to ensure the traditional lifestyle’s endurance. ‘Iar’ is the Irish word for west. The dictionary on my shelf tells me it can also mean: after, post, late, and end. Words built on ‘iar’ have a common thread: ‘iarbháis’ (post-mortem), ‘iarchonn’ (hindsight), ‘iargúil’ (backwater), ‘iargúlta’ (isolated), and so on. This association with loss and defeat has been borne out in events of mythology and history up to the present day. The west was where Goll retreated when chased by Fionn’s men, it was where Cromwell’s vanquished went and today it is part of the BMW (Border, Midland and West), an area of special government grants, to compensate for economic disadvantage. ‘I am the sum total of my ancestor’s existence.’ This statement of a Maori leader expresses a universal experience. An individual’s identity is derived from a sense of a belonging
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to their people and is defined by a flag, an anthem, culture and traditions. The obsession of ex-patriot communities with the culture of their homeland exemplifies our need for a cultural as well as a unique identity. Every generation builds on that of its parents. Each generation makes new advances in science, technologies and the understanding of the world. Every age believes itself to have a truth and understands the beliefs of previous generations to be erroneous or legend, which we assimilate into our own belief system. As a consequence we mythologise the beliefs of our ancestors. We use the words legend and myth in a derogatory sense to dismiss the ideas and values of our predecessors. In the same way our children will cast aside our understanding of the world and relegate it to fiction. Just as we can trace our genetic ancestry, we can follow the path of the evolution of our beliefs. Ireland is no different to many other cultures when we discover that our stories and beliefs were born out of the landscape. Aboriginal Australians sang their songlines as they walked through the landscape to neighbouring communities. These songs were a verbal map of a highly articulate culture. Knowing these stories as we walk through the landscape cannot but enrich our enjoyment of it. By understanding our landscape we understand our history and consequentially we understand ourselves. In Ireland, while the examples are not so obvious, if we dig a little we can find countless occurrences of this profound relationship between legend and landscape. In Connemara, this connection goes back at least as far as the naming of the region. The name Connemara translates as Conn of the Sea, who is associated with the high king Conn of the hundred battles. The land of the dead, the Otherworld, lay beyond the sea and many 102
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of the stories are associated with it. The sunset we see sinking into the Atlantic was the fiery eye of Goll descending into the underworld to meet with Conn in Neolithic times. The Iron-Age fire goddess became St Brigid in the age of Christianity. The Goddess’s domain was the hearth above which, her personification, the fire wheel was hung. This fire wheel was appropriated by early missionaries and became her Christian cross, which is still much in evidence throughout Ireland today. These examples represent the four belief ages of Ireland. Pre-history saw a maternal earth goddess culture in the Stone Age. This grew into a male warrior society during the metal ages. The arrival of Christianity was a fundamental shift of beliefs and societal values which in turn is being replaced by an age of scientific secular rationalism. Apart from the use of the landscape by indigenous people, colonisers reworked the landscape to remind themselves of the lands they left. These manufactured topographies are now considered vistas of natural wonder. However, they are anything but, and this theme-park-isation of the landscape still continues today in the shape of golf courses and organised recreation. This phenomenon has been observed by many academics. A well-known example of the landscape being moulded by a colonial landlord is Luggalaugh in Co. Wicklow. The La Touche family transported several thousand tonnes of Brittas Bay sand to the estate so that they could have a silver lakeside shore. This taming of the landscape happened throughout Ireland, and the estates of the West were no exception. Rhododendron is the omnipresent reminder of this desire to manipulate the land. Its very occurrence is an echo of our colonised past, as are rabbits, introduced by the Normans. 103
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Many of the managed estates of yesterday have become the member-only golf courses of today. Both have at their heart the privilege of access and an elite membership. The consequences of this remodelling of the landscape have not all been negative, however, as it has given use to land that was previously too poor to provide a livelihood. The outcome of the impoverished landscape was desertion and the economic migration of its people to foreign urban conurbations. Echoes of this resonate very strongly today as we view the crumbling cottages and new communities in Ireland. TĂr na nĂ“g also lies to the West and this mythical land of youth from Celtic Mythology became a very real land of opportunity for nineteenth-century immigrants sailing to New York. In the 1950s this desertion continued as the focus switched to London. Another feature of adaptation by Christianity is the holy wells dotted through the countryside. These have had healing 104
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powers associated with them since prehistoric times. As the poor land failed to provide a living for the many of its citizens when the farm was passed to the eldest son, the Landless became the Diaspora. Still, many of those who remained could not afford to stay and deserted small holdings to seek new lives in other places. The West became dotted with dilapidated homesteads. Nobody likes to be reminded of their ancestral poverty and as a result, our traditional architecture has been treated with contempt as the countryside has been dotted with aesthetically vacuous bungalows built alongside the ruins of yesterday. As the pace of our lives and transport gets increasingly faster we have less time for leisure and less time to glance at our surroundings as we shoot through them. This growing disconnect from our heritage is at our peril. Unless we understand the land that made us we will not understand ourselves. The aim of this book is two-fold. Firstly, it hopes to celebrate the landscape on the extreme, remote west of Ireland and secondly, through its stories and history, to uncover the wealth of information that this terrain contains. In short this book is an attempt to reclaim the cultural richness of Connemara through exploring its landscape. Extract from Connemara, ISBN 978-1-12345-123-1 Š 2009 Hugh McElveen
About the author Hugh McElveen has worked as an editorial photographer since 1995. His work has appeared frequently in national and international magazines and books. Since 2001 he has lectured on the BA photography at IADT where he instructs on evolving technologies. He is a founder of Exhibit A Studios. 105
Nonsuch Ireland About the publisher Nonsuch has been publishing in Ireland since 2004, mainly in the areas of history, local history, and photography. To date we have published more than 100 titles on various aspects of Ireland and Irish life. While we have always enjoyed working with experienced academics and photographers, we have also been consistently amazed at the talent of some new authors coming through our doors. Connemara, Legend & Landscape, for example, is Hugh McElveen’s first book, though we would hope not his last. It is works such as this that encourage us to try to foster more new Irish writing every year, something which is very important to us. Following on from our association with The History Press Group, Nonsuch will be rebranding as The History Press, Ireland in 2010. With offices in the UK, France, Germany and the US, we hope this partnership will allow us greater reach to new audiences for our current and future authors. We hope you enjoy Hugh’s book as much as we enjoyed working on it.
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Social History Biography
Walter Macken Dreams on Paper Ultan Macken This new biography by his son sheds light on the private life of one of Ireland’s foremost writers, through his many unpublished and privately held papers and letters. Walter Macken was born in Galway in 1915 and died there in 1967. With the success of his third book, Rain on the Wind, he became a full-time writer. His novels include Rain on the Wind and The Bogman, but he is probably best known for his trilogy Seek the Fair Land, The Silent People and The Scorching Wind. He also published a number of books for children. Known for his romanticised portrayal of the Irish and the portrait he painted of the colonial oppression of the people, Macken’s writings were a product of a more nationalistic time. Extract: (Pages 156 - 160)
First plays and novels published My father had stated a plan and he stuck rigidly to it – to write a play in English and then tackle a novel. He based the play on the lives of people he knew very well and had lived among as a child, the dockers. These men lived in the tenement buildings in the centre of Galway city and some of them lived opposite the Taibhdhearc. One family, the Murrays, were I think the 108
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inspiration for some of the characters of this first play, Mungo’s Mansion (originally called Mungo and the Mowleogs). There were eleven children and this was a normal-sized family among the working class of Galway at that time. He drew on other characters he knew in Galway as well. Many people who saw the play remember there was a real character called Mowleogs and also thought they recognised some of the other characters when the play was performed. But my father always said: ‘I never use real people, each character in my plays, novels or short stories is an amalgam of a range of characters.’ The characters he created in Mungo’s Mansion come to life even on the page. Mungo, the principal character, is a docker who has broken his leg at the beginning of Act I. He’s confined to his bedroom and all the action in the play takes place in this one room. Downstairs there is constant chaos as Mungo’s wife tries to control the children. Mungo is sitting on a chair, with his broken leg in plaster and the characters come in and out of Mungo’s room, talking to him. My father drew on all his experience as an actor and theatre director in writing his plays, and for the dialogue in this play and in Vacant Possession, my father emphasised in his notes that the characters must speak with a ‘ferocious’ Galway accent. It’s clear from listening to the conversations between Mungo and his son and daughter that there is conflict between them. The two young people want to get out of the tenement and get a house in the country, in Shantalla or Rahoon, while Mungo is determined to stay in the tenement where generations of his family have lived. The doctor is called for one of the children, who probably has contracted TB from the unhealthy surroundings, and the doctor warns Mungo to move. Mungo’s wife never appears on stage, she just calls on him occasionally 109
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from downstairs. Another character is Winnie the Wild Duck and upstairs there are other tenants in the house, like Jack Manders and his wife. Mungo’s best friend is Mowleogs – someone who looks like a tramp, but is a fixer. He feeds Mungo’s gambling habit by telling him he has information on a horse that is a cert to win a race that afternoon. Mungo reluctantly gives him the money and Mowleogs heads out. Mowleogs does not put the money on the horse and instead he buys Mungo a Hospital Sweepstake ticket (this was a bit like the Lotto – people bought a ticket and if their ticket drew a horse that subsequently won a race, they could win up to IR£250,000). Mungo’s ticket draws a horse in the Sweepstake draw. Then they have to borrow a radio and have it set up in Mungo’s room, so that they can hear the race. Mungo’s horse wins and the household rush out to tell the neighbours. During all this excitement, no one noticed Jack Manders and his wife slip out of the room and go up to their bedroom. Manders murders his wife and soon afterwards walks into Mungo’s room to talk about the murder. While reading through contemporary copies of the Connacht Tribune in the 1930s, I came across a court case where a young man, a former member of the British army who had fought in the First World War was brought to court and convicted of murdering his wife in their home. That report would have been read by my father and could be the origin of his Jack Manders character, as the murder occurred in an area of Galway quite close to where my father lived. My father finished the play in 1944 and submitted it to the Abbey Theatre. They accepted it and then my father wrote to the publisher Macmillan asking them would they consider it for publication: 110
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2 Whitestrand House, Grattan Road, Salthill, Galway. 12–10–’45 Dear Sir, The Abbey Theatre Company, Dublin, are shortly to produce a play of mine, entitled ‘Mungo and the Mowleogs’. Would you be interested in reading a copy, with a view to publication? Yours sincerely, Bhaitear Ó Mhaicín Macmillan wrote back straight away: Bhaitear Ó Mhaicín Esq. 2 Whitestrand House. 16th October 1945 Dear Sir, We write to thank you for your letter of October 12th and to say that if you will kindly forward to us the MS of your play, ‘Mungo and the Mowleogs’ we shall be pleased to give it our careful consideration. We are, Yours faithfully, Macmillan & Co. Ltd. My father sent them his manuscript on 18 October. Ernest Blythe in the Abbey Theatre asked him to change the title of the play so he called it Mungo’s Mansion. Six weeks after submitting 111
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the play to Macmillan, he had completed his first novel, which he had begun in November 1944, and he wrote to them again: 2 Whitestrand House. 3–12–’45 Dear Sirs, Some six weeks or so ago, I sent you a copy of a play, ‘Mungo and the Mowleogs’ for your consideration. This play will be receiving its premiere in the Abbey Theatre on January 7th next. In connection with this, I have altered the ending of the play and I am sending you a copy of the alteration. If you reject this play it won’t matter; if you accept it, it probably will. The name of the play has been altered to ‘Mungo’s Mansion’. Rather belatedly, I enclose a postal order to cover the cost of returning the manuscript, if found unsuitable. That’s that. I would like to say also, that I have just completed a book, en-titled ‘With Men of Blood, O God’ and wonder would you be willing to read a copy of it? Thanking you, Bhaitear Ó Mhaicín Having received a positive response from Macmillan he submitted the manuscript of his first novel to them on 13 December 1945. By this stage they had written to him to tell him that they had accepted his play for publication (they also arranged for its publication in America). Extract from Walter Macken: Dreams on Paper, ISBN 978-1-85635-630-5 © 2009 Ultan Macken
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Walter Macken About the author Ultan Macken is the son of Walter Macken. He was born in Galway in 1943. Having studied at University College Galway, he worked briefly as a journalist for the Irish Press Ltd. Macken undertook several teaching posts before becoming a feature writer/sub–editor for the RTÉ Guide in 1973. He remained in this position before opting for early retirement in September 1990. He wrote a one man show on his father called My Father, My Son. About the publisher Mercier Press is the longest established, wholly independent, family-owned Irish publishing house. For sixty-five years Mercier has endeavoured to publish work that we hope plays a part in informing public opinion, bringing Irish culture and history to the Irish people and the Irish Diaspora. Based in Cork, Mercier has published many ground-breaking titles over the years, blazing a trail for the wealth of talented, innovative and entrepreneurial Irish writers who have emerged and thrived ever since. Message from Clodagh Feehan – MD of Mercier Press: The Great Irish Book Week 2009 offers an excellent representation of what Irish publishing has to offer. These high quality books are locally published by independent Irish publishers, supporting Ireland’s rich pool of talented Irish writers – so buy an Irish book today! Mercier is the only Irish publishing company to be awarded the National Human Resource Management (HRM) Standard – Excellence Through People. This national mark of achievement recognises companies with an excellent corporate culture, which values employees, authors and customers and actively seeks to encourage and motivate them. For a full list of our books, or to find out more, visit us on www.mercierpress.ie
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Judging Lemass Tom Garvin An almost mythical narrative has grown up around Seán Lemass and his short career as Taoiseach from 1959 to 1966. In Judging Lemass, renowned historian, Tom Garvin, introduces the many facets of Seán F. Lemass – a ‘cusp’ figure who ushered in the modern world; a visionary who was imagining a ‘United States of Europe’ since the 1920s; a sharp dresser with a striking ‘film noir’ style; an ex-revolutionary; a city man, who regarded rural Ireland as somewhat alien and agriculture as a drag on economic development; and, above all, the architect of modern Ireland. The book is richly illustrated with photographs, documents, posters and other imagery, and is produced in full colour. The following extract is taken from the opening pages of the book and describes Lemass’ controversial visit to Northern Ireland in 1965.
States of Ireland Break for the border On 14 January 1965 the young son of the secretary of the Department of Finance informed his father that there was a big policeman at the gate of their house on the Stillorgan Road, 114
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near Donnybrook in the south suburbs of Dublin. Perhaps he wondered what Daddy had done. T.K. Whitaker was among the few people who knew what the Garda was there for, and went out to meet Seán Lemass, Taoiseach and leader of the Fianna Fáil party, in his Garda-driven prime-ministerial Mercedes-Benz. Whitaker got into the car, and the Taoiseach greeted his senior civil service official and informal advisor on Northern Ireland. Lemass growled at the driver, ‘Henry: Belfast!’ Lemass did not even tell Kathleen, his wife of 40 years, where he was going that morning; that way, things could be kept quiet for a bit longer. However, Henry Sheridan, the Taoiseach’s Garda driver since 1961, remarked to his wife, Evelyn, the night before that he had been told to prepare for a long day’s drive, and it occurred to both of them that it involved a visit either to an agrarian outbreak in the midlands or possibly to Northern Ireland. Henry fuelled the car up in anticipation. Evelyn intuited the North; it must have been in the air, somehow. On the way to Northern Ireland, Lemass, not a great man for small talk and rather given to long silences unless there was evidently something necessary and germane to be said, treated Whitaker to an impromptu seminar on the virtues of the American Constitution of 1789, emphasising the unique system of separation of powers, federalism and judicial review that characterises that classic document of political architecture. Presumably, federalism was on his mind yet again; over the years he had taken an interest in federal devices as they worked elsewhere in the democratic world. The car paused on the Republic’s side of the border for some minutes so as not to arrive too early; Lemass was a stickler for punctuality: be neither early nor late. To his mind, to be early could cause embarrassment, to be late was insulting. The party duly crossed 115
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the frontier, and Jim Malley, ex-Spitfire pilot and private secretary to Terence O’Neill, prime minister of Northern Ireland, met them at the British customs post outside Newry, as arranged. On the second leg of the journey to Stormont, this one with a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) motor cycle escort, the small talk was about poker, a passion of Lemass’s. Malley was fascinated by Lemass, apparently almost as though he were some exotic creature. He described him as ‘a most extraordinary man’.
Terence O’Neill, prime minister of Northern Ireland; Cecil Bateman, Cabinet secretary; and Lemass pose for a photograph at Stormont House, 14 January 1965. (copyright Irish Press Plc).
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Someone in Cabinet in Dublin had leaked the information about the projected visit to the Irish Times, and the paper had despatched a cameraman to the border to snap the historic occasion. This may be how Mrs Sheridan correctly guessed the destination of the journey, even though an official blanket of secrecy had covered the operation. Perhaps there was no connection, but there was a well-established tradition even then of leaks from Charles Haughey, an up-and-coming young TD and minister, who was also Lemass’s son-in-law, to John Healy, political correspondent of the Irish Times. On arrival at Stormont, O’Neill welcomed Lemass with the carefully phrased greeting ‘Welcome to the North’, thereby avoiding the possibly taboo words ‘Northern Ireland’ and ‘Ulster’. Lemass did not reply, increasing O’Neill’s unease. He suggested that the Taoiseach might wish to wash his hands after what was such a long journey by the Irish standards of that time, and a far longer one politically than geographically. There seems to have been a prolonged and somewhat uneasy silence as the two men walked to the toilets. O’Neill reminisced: Eventually, in the rather spacious loo at Stormont House he suddenly said, ‘I shall get into terrible trouble for this.’ ‘No, Mr. Lemass,’ I replied, ‘it is I who will get into trouble for this.’ I then took him into the drawing room and introduced him to my wife and Cecil Bateman and Ken Bloomfield of the Cabinet Office staff. From then on he thawed out and became a very pleasant and amusing guest. The conversation was quite free, even somewhat politically incorrect. At one early stage one of the northerners, to break the ice, remarked that he personally regretted that the partition of 1920 had not included the west-Ulster county of Donegal; it 117
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would have rounded off Northern Ireland nicely, he felt. Perhaps he also thought a shorter border might have been a good thing: easier to patrol. Lemass riposted humorously that they were welcome to Donegal, as long as they took Neil Blaney, a rather rambunctious and very anti-partitionist Fianna Fáil politician in that county, with it. Even Lemass seems to have had trouble with Blaney, who was quite a firebrand. Some years later, under Taoiseach Jack Lynch, a quiet Corkman who lacked Lemass’s authoritativeness, Blaney, as a senior minister in the Irish government, was to publicly call O’Neill a ‘bigot’, which he quite transparently was not. Blaney was to get away with it, and would not have done so under Lemass; Lynch lacked Lemass’s revolutionary pedigree. However, back in January 1965 the northerners seem to have been somewhat surprised by Lemass, possibly expecting some wild-eyed revolutionary. One of them thought that the southerner, always a sharp dresser, had a ‘gangster’s suit’; but then, in southern eyes, northerners dressed square. Ken Bloomfield, a senior officer in the Northern Ireland civil service and therefore Whitaker’s opposite number, thought Lemass at first sight had a rough charm: The taoiseach was burly, leonine and gruff, like some veteran French politician of the left. He spoke with a delicious growl. When O’Neill asked him if he knew well the then leader of the [British Conservative] Opposition, Alec Douglas-Hume, he confessed he had always ‘had some reservations about the innate capacity of the Fourteenth Earl’. Extract from Judging Lemass, ISBN 978-1-90489-057-7 © 2009 Tom Garvin
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Judging Lemass About the author Tom Garvin is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for British-Irish Studies and was Professor of Politics at University College Dublin from 1991 until 2008. His books include Nationalist Revolutionaries in Ireland (1987), 1922: The Birth of Irish Democracy (1996), and Preventing the Future: Why was Ireland so Poor for so Long? (2004). About the publisher The Royal Irish Academy (RIA) is one of the longest-established publishers in Ireland, starting with the Transactions in 1787. The RIA has, in recent years, produced a number of publications aimed at disseminating scholarship to a wide audience. This led to the decision, in 2009, to produce a series of books under a separate imprint – Prism – with this common goal in mind. Judging Lemass and Conspiracy: Irish Political Trials are the first books to be published under the Prism imprint. In addition, the Royal Irish Academy continues to publish six scholarly journals, landmark series, policy reports and monographs under its original imprint. Well-known Academy publications include Judging Dev (2007); Our War (2008); and the Irish Historic Towns Atlas, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy and the New Survey of Clare Island series. The Dictionary of Irish Biography, a project of the Royal Irish Academy, will also be published simultaneously in print and online in late 2009. The diverse publishing programme reflects the Academy’s continuing contribution to cultural life in Ireland and further afield. For further details see www.ria.ie
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Listen With the Ear of the Heart An Autobiography Nóirín Ní Riain This is a very personal retelling of an internationally known Irish spiritual singer’s story: the joys, the pains, the shaping of her relationship with God and the most personal thing to her, her voice. Woven into this narrative are beautiful, moving insights on living the spiritual life, which will appeal to many searchers of the presence Divine in their lives. This is not a run-of-the-mill autobiography; Nóirín reflects on her moving life experiences in such a way that the reader is drawn in and with her can share in her life-long search for a deep friendship with God. This book promises new perspectives on hearing, listening and silence as a gateway to the God of the Trinity.
Theme Fourteen From Law to Freedom at UCC At the end of that sixth year, I was the only student to present for music as a Leaving Certificate subject. The examination entailed a written paper in June and a practical performance piece three months prior to that, in March. I had no vision of pursuing a musical career. My parents, particularly my mother, would never have entertained the idea because ‘it is not pensionable and every lady (like yourself and myself, she added) 120
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has to consider this’. I prayed unceasingly before that ‘practical’. ‘Ask and you shall receive.’ Could I be allocated an ally that would understand? One March morning, as I nervously sat in the practice room awaiting the Department of Education examiner, my two paintings were there for me. I felt their help and support. They alone had heard me play at my best and knew that I could do it. An elderly, gangly, sharp-featured man with grey receding hair was escorted into the room by Sr Benedict. Pilib Ó Laoghaire terrified me from the start. Coughing incessantly, I could sense from the way in which he opened his briefcase that his fingers, visibly distorted, indeed his whole being, were riddled with pain. I played and sang for him, and did he listen carefully to me! ‘What are you doing next year, Nór?’ was his very first question. I had never been called ‘Nór’ before, but I loved the sound of it and instantly all fears were cleared from my mind. An easy one, already well answered. ‘Oh, Law in UCD,’ I replied. ‘You’re not, Nór, you’re going to come to the university in Cork where I lecture. I will loan you all my books, teach you to conduct choirs and orchestras and you will also be a soprano in my choir (the celebrated Cór Cois Laoi).’ ‘But my parents won’t hear of it,’ I lisped. ‘No problem,’ he replied. ‘I’ll deal with them.’ And that he did. Returning to Cork from Dundalk, he called into Mount Marian, had an extended chat with them, stayed the night, and the deed was done. Although Ma was sceptical of Pilib’s vision for me at first, she drove me down to his home in Cork to talk things through one July day in 1967. We drew into the avenue of his bungalow in Bishopstown, Cork. Pilib’s elegant wife, Eileen, shyly greeted us and showed us into the front room, a room that, 121
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unknowingly then, was to be a crucial listening acoustic chamber for many years to come. Eventually Pilib came in. Minutes later, Eileen arrived in with tea, homemade scones and her speciality, marmalade tart. I had not seen Pilib since that nerve-racking spring day in Dún Lughaidh five months earlier, but now I felt completely at ease with him. Soon enough so did Ma, I think. He did all the talking and we took note. That afternoon was a delight for my ears. He spoke proudly of his choir, Cór Cois Laoi, and even played us a tape of them singing at the Cork Choral Festival that May. This song-poem that he played, ‘Sheep and Lambs: All in the April Evening’, written by the Dublin poet, Katherine Tynan, has walked with me since. I was enthralled at the possibility of finding my own voice, which I did, as his choir member. He took his treasured two-volume copy of The Grove Dictionary of Music from the bookshelf and promised that I could have it anytime I wished. But that afternoon, he made no mention about the greatest ‘pearl’, as he called it one time, with which he would endow me – the art, the magic, the mystery of sean-nós singing. Mother still insisted that a Bachelor of Music would not guarantee a pensionable career, so a compromise was agreed upon between these two formidable people. I would undertake a Bachelor of Arts Degree at University College Cork with Music as one subject only. And so Pilib did do all and much more than he promised. He was an enriching, although far from easy, fount of love and learning. I would never have entered, experienced or felt this third-level world of song, story and choirs without Pilib Ó Laoghaire. One evening, as we travelled back through Cork city after a choir rehearsal, he firmly suggested, indeed insisted, that I 122
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should learn some sean-nós songs from him. In his youth, Pilib was a peripatetic Irish school teacher in the beautiful Gaeltacht area of An Rinn, Co. Waterford. Days and nights spent there in the midst of these gifted people, he collected a significant repertoire of old songs and now, with a loving heart, he was passing them on to me. For months to follow, every Saturday morning I made my way on the Number 11 bus to Bishopstown for my 10 a.m. sean-nós lesson. Often tardy, he christened me ‘the late Nór Ní Riain’! Initially, I found these songs, the language and the singing style foreign and unfriendly, but I came to seriously respect and revere this traditional singing pearl. One particular song, ‘Seacht nDólás na Maighdine Muire’ (The Seven Sorrows of Mary), came so easily and naturally that my singing of it took us both by surprise. For Pilib, it carried its own story. Many, many years before, he had been staying in the Caherdaniel townland in the Uíbh Ráthach Gaeltacht of Kerry. After supper in his lodgings, the precious custom was to kneel down, elbows on the seat of the chair, head bowed, to say the Rosary with the family. The bean an tí, Bean Uí Dhomhnaill, always brought the circle of fifty Hail Marys to a close by singing these seven sorrows of Mary. After one week there, Pilib, their lodger, had it off by heart. I really never thanked Pilib Ó Laoghaire for all that he did for me before he passed over on 30 May 1976. Although strangely, the night before I heard the bleak word of his death, some strain of thanksgiving came over me. Spending some time in the Kerry Gaeltacht of Baile an Fhirtéirigh, I awoke in the middle of the night, alert to a mysterious calling in my dream. Out of the bed, into the kitchen, I started to transcribe, to commit to silent stave, that same Rosary song that was singing 123
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in my ear in the dead of that night. It was absolutely vital for me to capture every ornament and contain it within the visual five lines and four spaces of Western classical notation. Doing so helps us to glimpse another face of the song and frees the outsider to awaken its mystery and power. Extract from Listen With the Ear of the Heart, ISBN 978-1-84730-172-7 © 2009 Nóirín Ní Riain
About the author Nóirín Ní Riain Ph.D. is an internationally acclaimed Irish spiritual singer who has performed worldwide and recorded extensively. A theologian and musicologist, she was awarded the first ever doctorate in Theology from Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. She is the author of a number of books, and has been the subject of a major RTÉ documentary. About the publisher Veritas is a non-fiction publisher based in Dublin, Ireland. Publishing approximately 40 new titles per year, and having around 500 books in print, Veritas publishes a wide range of titles in a number of categories, such as Self-Help, Parenting, Social Issues, Theology, Spirituality, Psychology, Counselling, Scripture, Prayer, Social Issues, Educational Resources, Biography, Children’s Books, and much more. Veritas also publish a number of academic titles – these books range from conference papers, academic papers and biographies to published theses and academic studies. Veritas also specialises in religious educational textbooks for primary and post-primary schools. Distributing for many leading Christian publishers, Veritas serves an array of trade customers including the nation’s general, parish and religious bookshops, schools and houses of study.
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Conspiracy Irish Political Trials Myles Dungan Conspiracy will focus on the clashes, plots and perjuries that characterised seven notorious trials in Irish legal & political history (1803-1916). Each trial will show how the legal system was contaminated by a political agenda and how that agenda unwittingly incited great moments of legal drama, such as the disintegration of the forger, Richard Pigott, under the cross-examination of Sir Charles Russell at the Parnell Commission. Read also about the trials of Robert Emmet, Daniel O’Connell, the Invincibles and the courts martial after the Easter Rising. The following extract is taken from The Times V Parnell trial. In April 1887 the Times had reproduced what they claimed to be facsimiles of letters written by Charles Stewart Parnell, which connected him to the murder of Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish and Under Secretary Thomas Burke in the Phoenix Park in 1882. Parnell denied writing the letters and claimed that they were a forgery. In the following transcript from the trial, the suspected forger of the letters, Richard Pigott, is cross-examined by Parnell’s lawyer, Sir Charles Russell. Earlier in the trial, Russell had asked Pigott to write a number of words on 125
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paper, one of which was ‘hesitancy’. The misspelling of this word by Pigott is the subject of the following conversation. RUSSELL: ... You were good enough yesterday, Mr. Pigott, to write down the spelling of certain words for me, and amongst others the spelling of the word ‘hesitancy’. Is that a word you are accustomed to use? PIGOTT: I have used it. RUSSELL: You notice that you spell it as it is not ordinarily spelt? PIGOTT: Yes, I fancy I made a mistake in the spelling of it. RUSSELL: What was the spelling of it? PIGOTT: Using an ‘a’ instead of an ‘e’ or vice verse; I really cannot say which. RUSSELL: You cannot say what was the mistake, but you have a moral consciousness that something was wrong? PIGOTT: Yes, something wrong. RUSSELL: I will tell you what was wrong according to the received spelling; you spelt it with an ‘e’ instead of an ‘a’. You have spelt it thus: ‘h-e-si- t-e-n-c-y’. That is not the recognised spelling? PIGOTT: I believe not. RUSSELL: Have you noticed the fact that the writer of the body of the letter of the 9th of January, 1882, the alleged forged letter beginning ‘Dear E’ spells the word in the same way? PIGOTT: I have heard that remark long since about the letter, that there was a word misspelt in it; and my explanation of misspelling it was that having that in my mind I got into the habit of spelling it wrong. RUSSELL: Your attention was called to that a long time 126
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ago—that in the alleged forged letter of the 9th January, 1882, beginning ‘Dear E’ that the word ‘hesitancy’ was misspelt? PIGOTT: Yes. RUSSELL: And you fancy that having had your attention called to the fact that it was so misspelt, it so got into your head: that accounts for your misspelling it yesterday? PIGOTT: I suppose so. I heard so much discussion about it, and everyone spells it differently. I never met anybody who could spell the word correctly scarcely. RUSSELL: It had got into your brain? PIGOTT: Yes, somehow or other. RUSSELL: Who was it called your attention to the misspelling? PIGOTT: Several people; it was a matter of general remark; I heard it frequently. RUSSELL: Then you think but for the fact of your attention being drawn to it you would probably have spelt it rightly? PIGOTT: Yes, but for that I daresay I would. RUSSELL: It had got into your brain somehow or other? PIGOTT: Yes. RUSSELL: And came out at your finger’s ends? PIGOTT: I suppose so. RUSSELL: This letter purports to be the 9th January, 1882? [Russell is referring to the forged or Times letter of that date which was published, with the word ‘hesitancy’ misspelt.] PIGOTT: Yes RUSSELL: You have already told me that this letter is yours, just look at it again and see if there is any mistake [handing the letter]?? PIGOTT: Oh yes, that is all right, that is my letter. 127
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RUSSELL: You did not become possessed of this valuable letter of the 9th January 1882 until the summer of 1886? PIGOTT: Yes. RUSSEL: No, I suppose not. RUSSELL: Up to that time? PIGOTT: No. RUSSELL: It began to operate at that time? PIGOTT: No, I say spelling is not my strong point; I do not pretend to be a good speller. RUSSELL: Perhaps not. Have you noticed that in this letter you have spelt ‘hesitancy’ in the same way? [The letter in question was a genuine piece of correspondence between Pigott and Egan at the time of the sale of the former’s newspapers.] PIGOTT: No, I did not notice that. RUSSELL: ... How do you account for it? PIGOTT: I cannot. RUSSELL: You cannot account for it from the disturbance of your brain theory? PIGOTT: No, certainly not. RUSSELL: Does it strike you as being a remarkable coincidence or not?— PIGOTT: No, I do not think it is very remarkable. Pigott was probably the only person in the room who did not find the coincidence remarkable. Before the end of the second day of cross-examination Russell produced a lengthy correspondence between Pigott and the former Liberal chief secretary for Ireland, William E. Forster. In a series of begging letters, Pigott had appealed to the chief secretary, in the wake of a number of pro-government articles in his newspapers, for an annual salary by way of reward. 128
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Forster had turned him down officially, but the Quaker politician, who could be soft hearted on a personal level in contrast to his hard-line political mien, made numerous donations to the impoverished journalist and was rewarded on every occasion on which he did so with further importuning. Gradually the requests had metamorphosed into shrill demands and, finally, into an attempt at blackmail. As letter after letter was produced (one is tempted to assume that Pigott was unfamiliar with the tendency of eminent personages to hang on to every scrap of correspondence), the effect on: the densely packed audience in court was wrought up to the highest pitch of amusement and excitement. The Court Usher had long since ceased to cry out ‘silence’. The merriment was irrepressible, and almost continuous. The judges themselves were unable to repress their feelings. A loud ringing roar of merriment broke forth, as Sir Charles Russell read Pigott’s next letter containing an application for £200 to enable him to proceed to Sydney, and some hints as to the pressure which was being brought to bear on him to publish the Forster letters. Mr. Justice Day, bending forward, reddened and shook with laughter. The only people not joining in the general hilarity were the representatives of the Times and Pigott himself. As Macdonald puts it, ‘Poor Pigott looked as if he would prefer even the grave to the witness-box. He changed colour; the helpless, foolish smile flickered about the weak, heavy mouth; his hands moved about restlessly, nervously’. The final letter produced was an inept attempt at blackmail. It definitively removed any possible shred of doubt about the 129
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character of the witness. The documentary evidence of his depravity, however amusing to the onlookers, was also compelling. Pigott had written to Forster indicating that he was disposed to reveal to the public how the chief secretary had bribed him to write a series of tracts favourable to the policies of the castle administration. According to John Macdonald, ‘The notion of Pigott’s appearing in the character of injured innocence set the audience off, once more, into a fit of laughter’. At that point the wretched Pigott was, temporarily, released from his acute misery ‘in the uproar and confusion Pigott descended from his box, smiling foolishly, as he brought down the fabric of The Times “letters” case in ludicrous ruin’. Michael Davitt, who had watched the entire proceedings, and whose detective work had been invaluable in the embarrassment of a number of Times witnesses, described the cross-examination as ‘a process of slaying the slain’. Extract from Conspiracy: Irish Political Trials, ISBN 978-1-90489-058-4 © 2009 Myles Dungan
About the author Myles Dungan is a historian and broadcaster for RTÉ. His previous books include Irish Voices from the Great War (1996), They Shall Not Grow Old, Irish Soldiers and the Great War (1997), The Stealing of the Irish Crown Jewels (2003), How The Irish Won The West (2006) and The Captain and the King: William O’Shea, Parnell and late Victorian Ireland (2009). About the publisher The Royal Irish Academy (RIA) is one of the longest-established publishers in Ireland, starting with the Transactions in 1787. The RIA has, in recent years, produced a number of publications aimed 130
Conspiracy at disseminating scholarship to a wide audience. This led to the decision, in 2009, to produce a series of books under a separate imprint – Prism – with this common goal in mind. Judging Lemass and Conspiracy: Irish Political Trials are the first books to be published under the Prism imprint. In addition, the Royal Irish Academy continues to publish six scholarly journals, landmark series, policy reports and monographs under its original imprint. Well-known Academy publications include Judging Dev (2007); Our War (2008); and the Irish Historic Towns Atlas, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy and the New Survey of Clare Island series. The Dictionary of Irish Biography, a project of the Royal Irish Academy, will also be published simultaneously in print and online in late 2009. The diverse publishing programme reflects the Academy’s continuing contribution to cultural life in Ireland and further afield. For further details see www.ria.ie
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Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge Darwin, an Athbheochan agus Smaointeoireacht na hEorpa Brian Ó Conchubhair An account on the Gaelic League, the Gaelic Revival and the influence of continental European thinking, especially Darwin’s theories, on the movement and its members.
Caibidil 6 An Cló Gaelach agus an Cló Rómhánachi What is intrinsically interesting about a typeface? Why do we need so many different styles? Times, Century, Garamond, Arial, Old English, Goudy … and the list keeps getting longer every year. Who cares what the style is? … Who cares about type? Sometimes a whole nation…ii – Simon Loxley ‘Níl dabht ar bith ann,’ a deir Cathal Ó Háinle ‘ach go raibh cúrsaí litearthachta Gaeilge go hainnis sa bhliain 1882 agus le fada roimhe’: Bhí forbairt an chló agus soláthair fairsing an oideachais ar na nithe is mó a chabhraigh le cothú na nualitríochta i 132
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dteangacha na hEorpa ó thosach an seachtú céad déag ar aghaidh agus is mó freisin a chuidigh le leathadh na litearthachta. Sa chéad chuid den naoú céad déag bhí go leor deiseanna ar fáil sa tír seo ag an múinteoir ar theastaigh uaidh/uaithi an Béarla a mhúineadh, i dtaca le bunleabhar chun léamh agus scríobh na teanga a theagasc do dhaltaí agus i dtaca le litríocht a mheallfadh iad chum nós na léitheoireachta a chleachtadh. A mhalairt glan a bhí fíor faoin nGaeilge.iii Nuair a tosnaíodh ar ábhar Gaeilge a fhoilsiú agus a sholáthar don phobal um an dtaca sin, ba í an chéad bhearna arbh éigean do lucht athbheochan na teanga a líonadh ná conas a léireofaí an teanga labhartha ar phár? Conas a scríobhfaí an ‘signifier’? Ba í an chlódóireacht an modh ba choitianta, ba nua-dhéanaí, ba chumhachtaí, ach ba í uirlis na gcoilíneach i gcoinne na nGael í.iv Chun leas a bhaint aisti, níor mhór í a athshamhlú. Ghin an fhadhb seo an cogadh idir an dá chló – an cló Gaelach agus an cló Rómhánach – a áirítear ar cheann de na conspóide móra in Athbheochan na Gaeilge dar le Liam Ó Dochartaigh: Ábhair mhóra conspóide in Athbheochan na Gaeilge ó thús ab ea an trí mhórcheist atá luaite cheana agam .i. ceist an dá chló, cumadh téarmaíochta agus an caighdeán. Coimhlint idir dhá dhearcadh, dearcadh coimeádach agus dearcadh forbarach, idir an sean agus an nua, idir ‘fíor’ agus an ‘bréagach’, a bhí sna coimhlintí seo go bunúsach.v Má ghéilltear don tuiscint, mar a ghéill lucht na hAthbheochana, gur bhronn teanga faoi leith saoldearcadh faoi leith, ní foláir an difríocht sin a bhéimniú agus a thabhairt chun solais i scríobh agus i gclódóireacht na teanga.vi Murab ionann 133
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an Béarla agus an Ghaeilge ní cóir go mbainfí leas as na comharthaí céanna chun iad a léiriú ar an leathanach bán. Ní hiad na litreacha agus an cló a fheictear ar an leathanach atá tábhachtach ach an chiall agus an saol atá laistiar díobh, an fhís a chruthaíonn na focail a dhéantar as an gcló. Feictear an saol agus tuigtear an chiall tríd an gcló agus trí na litreacha a léitear ar an bpár. Mar sin b’éigean do na litreacha sin a bheith éagsúil mar teanga shonrach le saoldearcadh sainiúil; Weltanschauung agus cruinne shiombalach faoi leith ab ea an Ghaeilge. Dá bharr sin, níor mhór cló faoi leith a bheith ar fáil chuige sin chun an difríocht sin a léiriú go feiceálach agus go soiléir ar an leathanach agus bhí dioscúrsa an náisiúnachais cultúrtha agus an mheathlaithe lárnach sa díospóireacht a deineadh ar cheist an chló. Creideadh gurbh ann do mhórdhifríochtaí idir teangacha. Glacadh leis gur iompair gach teanga saoldearcadh faoi leith agus nárbh ionann saoldearcadh aon dá theanga. B’alt creidimh ag formhór na nAthbheochnóirí agus na dtráchtairí cultúrtha in Éirinn ag an am é, agus níorbh fholáir, mar sin, an difríocht seo a léiriú tríd an gcló. Ba é an cló a chuir an teanga in iúl ar an leathanach bán; ba trí na litreacha, tríd an gcló a léití an teanga. Murarbh ionann an Béarla agus an Ghaeilge mar sin, agus creideadh nárbh ionann, níorbh fholáir cló faoi leith a bheith ag an nGaeilge chun an difríocht fealsúnachta sin a shoiléiriú don léitheoir. Dá bhrí sin, gan tagairt do cheist an traidisiúin in aon chor, bhí gá le foireann cló faoi leith chun neamhspleáchas na Gaeilge ó gach teanga eile a shoiléiriú d’aon duine nach raibh iomlán cinnte faoin gceist seo ar an gcéad dul síos. Bhí an dofheictheacht seanbhunaithe mar shaintréith den dea-chlódóireacht in iarthar an domhain le fada, agus tháinig an tuiscint seo salach ar an dea-chleachtas gairme sin: 134
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The ethic of typographic invisibility has prevailed throughout much of modern Western bookmaking and publishing. The notion was immortalized in a stirring speech by Beatrice Warde in 1932 when she likened good book typography to a crystal goblet. True connoisseurs of wine would prefer crystal to the finest gilded chalice, she declared, because ‘everything about it is calculated to reveal rather than to hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain.’ So too are text and reader best served by typography that strives to be unseen, she explained. ‘The mental eye focuses through type and not upon it … The type which, through any arbitrary warping of design or excess of ‘colour,’ gets in the way of the mental picture to be conveyed, is a bad type.’ Type should be self-effacing and supremely humble, type that intrudes upon a reader’s awareness, she warned, was bad: distracting, impudent, visible.vii A mhalairt ar fad a theastaigh ó lucht an chló Ghaelaigh. Theastaigh uathu go n-aithneofaí láithreach bonn gur théacs Gaeilge a bhí ar an leathanach. Is féidir an dúil sin a thuiscint go réasúnta má chuimhnítear ar chuspóir an náisiúnachais chultúrtha, is é sin béim a leagann ar an difríocht idir Sasana agus Éire. Ní fhéadfaí an Ghaeilge ná litríocht na Gaeilge a thuiscint mar litríocht Shasana ná aon tír eile dá bhfoilseofaí sa chló Gaelach í, mar tharraing cló faoi leith aird uirthi féin. Thug na litreacha faoi leith le fios don léitheoir go raibh sé nó sí ag dul isteach i saol, i dtéacs a bhí éagsúil, agus iomlán difriúil ó shaol an Bhéarla, gur (chomh)théacs agus gur shaoldearcadh eile a bhí anseo, agus gur theastaigh tuiscint agus rialacha nua chuige. Ach seachas corrlitir, bhí formhór na haibítre intuigthe agus inléite don té a raibh cur amach aige nó aici ar an gcló Rómhánach, rud a chiallaigh go raibh an cló Gaelach ag tacú le ceann de 135
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phríomhdhúshláin an chló mar a thuigtear do Robert Bringhurst é: ‘… typography must often draw attention to itself before it will be read. Yet in order to be read, it must relinquish the attention it has drawn. Typography with anything to say therefore aspires to a kind of statuesque transparency.’viii Feictear taobh eile den náisiúnachas cultúrtha sna hiarrachtaí a dhein baill de Chonradh na Gaeilge brú a chur ar Oifigí Poist glacadh le sreangscéalta i nGaeilge ó 1901 ar aghaidh. Nuair a d’éirigh leo a dtoil a chur i bhfeidhm ar Oifig an Phoist, ceann de phríomhinstitiúidí na hImpireachta, bhíothas ag tabhairt le fios don Impireacht nárbh ionann an Gael agus an Sasanach, nárbh ionann an Ghaeilge agus an Béarla, nárbh ionann an cló ina scríobhfaí an dá theanga. B’amhlaidh an meon a spreag Tomás Ó Dónaill/Thomas O’Donnell, Feisire do Chiarraí Thiar, a chearta teanga a éileamh i bParlaimint Shasana: Mr. Thomas O’Donnell’s attempt to address the British Parliament in Gaelic was not, as you imagined, prompted by motives of hilarity, but by the far more serious motive of advertising to the world the fact that the British Parliament was persistently denying us the right of having the Irish language placed on an equal footing ith the English language on the schools of Ireland – a right which, happily, they will not be able to withhold from us much longer.ix Ba ráiteas é nárbh ionann an dá thír, agus go mbeadh ar an Impireacht tríd a gníomhaire Oifig an Phoist glacadh le hÉirinn agus leis an nGaeilge mar ghné agus mar ríocht eile. Cuimsíonn an t-alt seo a leanas ón New York Times, in ainneoin an ghrinn agus na háibhéile, bua an chló Ghaelaigh chun sainiúlacht na Gaeilge agus na hÉireann a chur in iúl: Mr. Meagher, the famous ‘blind reader’ of the New York 136
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Post Office, has recently added to his collection of freak addresses one in the Irish-Gaelic language and character. Irish, unlike Scottish, Gaelic is written in a character of its own, and this envelope, addressed to a young woman of Clonakilty, was the despair of the ‘blind reader,’ to whom Russian and modern Greek, Chinese and Urdu are as plain as plain American. That this is the only address in Irish character to be found in the whole collection is a fact strongly indicating the new vitality of the Gaelic movement. At last inspired by a certain similarity between the envelope and a fac simile (sic) page from the Book of the Dun Cow, Mr. Meagher sent the puzzle to the editor of The Gael. The editor promptly returned the literary curiosity, duly interpreted, adding a high compliment to the painstaking New York Post Office, which he contrasted very much to its own advantage with the British Post Offices, saying that, while the English authorities in India are bound to deliver letters and packages addressed in native characters, those in Ireland refuse to recognize addresses written in Irish. A strong friend of the Gaelic Movement, to whom Mr. Meagher was showing the envelope and telling the experience, smiled and shook his head. ‘The cases would be parallel,’ he said ‘if the Indian peoples had almost entirely left off speaking their own tongues for more than a century and if most of them could only speak a sort of English. But as it is –.’x Fáth amháin a raibh na hAthbheochnóirí chomh mórtasach as na sreangscéalta i nGaeilge sa chló Rómhánach nó sa chló Gaelach, mar b’admháil iad gur ghéill maorlathas agus innealra na hImpireachta don tuiscint nárbh ionann an Ghaeilge agus an Béarla. Cé gurbh ann do shreangscéal i nGaeilge roimhe sinxi 137
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dealraítear gur seoladh an chéad shreangscéal sa chló Gaelach ón Athair Eoin Ó Gramhnaigh i Meiriceá chuig an Oireachtas i Meitheamh na bliana 1899: ‘Dr. Hyde remarked that the above was the first telegram he had ever seen in the Irish character.’xii
Footnotes i.
Foilsíodh cuid den ábhar seo faoin teideal ‘The Gaelic-Roman Font Controversy: The Gaelic League’s (Post-Colonial) Crux,’ Irish University Review: A Journal of Irish Studies 33, 1 (2003): 46-63 ii. Simon Loxley, Type: The Secrets History of Letters (London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 2004), 2-6. iii. Cathal Ó Háinle, ‘Ó Chaint na nDaoine go dtí an Caighdeán Oifigiúil,’ in Kim McCone et al. (eag.), Stair na Gaeilge (Roinn na Sean-Ghaeilge, Coláiste Phádraig, Má Nuad, 1994), 750-1. iv. Feic Cathal Ó Háinle, ‘An tÚrscéal nár Tháinig,’ Promhadh Pinn (Má Nuad: An Sagart, 1978), 97-8. v. Liam Ó Dochartaigh, ‘Cúis na Gaeilge – Cúis ar Strae,’ in Eoghan Ó hAnluain (eag.), Léachtaí Uí Chadhain 1 (1980-1988), (BÁC: An Clóchomhar Tta., 1989), 120. vi. Dar le Philip O’Leary, Prose Literature of the Gaelic Revival: Ideology and Innovation (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 30: ‘As has been noted, the fundamental cogency of this argument was and is unassailable, and it thus provided one of the few ideas on which the league’s progressives and nativists could agree.’ vii. Paul C. Mutjahr agus Megan L. Benton, ‘Introduction: Reading the Invisible,’ in Paul C. Mutjahr agus Megan L. Benton (eag.), Illuminating letters: Typography and Literary Interpretation, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 2001), 1-2. viii. Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 2004), 17. ix. Seumas MacManus, ‘The Irish Revival – A Letters from Seumas MacManus,’ New York Times, 13 Aibreán 1901, BR9. x. ‘Deciphering a Gaelic Address,’ New York Times, 27 Iúil 1902, 23. xi. Feic ‘Cú Uladh’, ‘Ar Lorg na Gaedhilge,’ The Shan Van Vocht, Iml. 2, Uimhir 10, 4 Deireadh Fómhair 1897, 19. xii An Claidheamh Soluis, Iml. 1, Uimhir 14, 17 Meitheamh 1899, 217.
Extract from Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge, ISBN 978-1-905560-46-2 © 2009 Brian Ó Conchubhair
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Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge About the author Ollamh cúnta i Roinn Theanga agus Litríocht na Gaeilge, Ollscoil Notre Dame é Brian Ó Conchubhair agus is comhalta d’Institiúid Mhic Eochaidh-Uí Neachtain um an Léann Éireannach é. Bhí sé ina eagarthóir ar Gearrscéalta Ár Linne (CIC, 2006), WHY IRISH? Irish Language and Literature in Academia (Arlen House, 2008) . About the publisher Bunaíodh Cló Iar-Chonnachta (CIC) i 1985, agus ó shin i leith tá os cionn 150 albam ceoil curtha amach againn, agus suas le 300 leabhar. Foilsíonn CIC réimse an-leathan litríochta; cnuasachtaí filíochta, gearrscéalta agus amhrán, úrscéalta, leabhair do dhéagóirí, leabhair do pháistí, tráchtais taighde agus leabhair staire. Tá roinnt leabhar Béarla foilsithe againn chomh maith, aistriúcháin a bhformhór ar mhórshaothair Ghaeilge. Tá roinnt mhaith de na saothair seo ar fáil ar dlúthdhiosca agus ar caiséad, cuid acu sa tsraith spreagúil An Béal Beo. Tá foilseacháin An Chlóchomhair agus Séirséal-Ó Marcaigh tógtha at láimh ag CIC anois. Tuilleadh eolais: www.cic.ie About Cló Iar Chonnachta Cló Iar-Chonnachta (CIC) was founded in 1985, and since then we have published over 300 books and 150 music albums. CIC publishes a wide range of literature; anthologies of poetry, short stories and songs, novels, teenage fiction, children’s books, theses and history books. We have published some books in English, mainly translations of important Irish language literature, and also some bilingual books. Many of these works are available in audio format, many as part of the series An Béal Beo. CIC has recently acquired the prestigious Irish-language publishers Sáirséal-Ó Marcaigh and An Clóchomhar. For more information visit www.cic.ie
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A History of Irish Farming 1750-1950 Jonathan Bell and Mervyn Watson The book shows the rationality of Irish farmers, in developing systems and techniques that fitted their resources, or lack of them, making Ireland a major agricultural producer, and overcoming huge environmental and social obstacles to ensure the survival of millions of people. “Building in 30 years of investigation and fieldwork, undertaken at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Jonathan Bell and Mervyn Watson have compiled an encyclopaedic narrative of Irish agriculture and rural life, over the past two centuries and more … complemented by an exceptional collection of close to 150 illustrations and photographs.” Liam Downey, Irish Farmers Journal The work of investigating Irish rural life has many joys, including the opportunity to discover more about the economic and social influences that produced this beautiful country. Much of this book concentrates on the practicalities of farming: implements and techniques, land and housing, crops and livestock. The following excerpt comes from a chapter on farm architecture, particularly the houses of farm labourers. It describes the 140
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typical varieties of housing and buildings during the 18th and 19th centuries; the remainder of the chapter looks at the evolution of farm housing, as well as the economic and social influences that shaped the styles and construction of these buildings.
CHAPTER TWO
Farm Houses and Farm Yards THROUGHOUT THE LAST three centuries, rural housing has reflected the extremes of wealth and poverty in the Irish countryside. At the upper end of the social scale, eighteenth-century landlords lived in the ‘Big Houses’ that are now admired as one of Ireland’s important contributions to Europe’s architectural heritage. Less grand, but still well-off, minor gentry of the same period also lived in fine houses, with two or three storeys, and slated roofs. However, Ireland did not have a large number of these well-off farmers. Wealthy squires and comfortably-off yeomen were much more numerous in England. In Ireland, even in the affluent south-eastern counties, there were relatively few people living at levels between the lifestyles enjoyed by the very rich, and those endured by the bulk of the rural population. The houses of the latter, the mass of small farmers and labourers, and their associated farm buildings, will be the main subject of this chapter.
FARM HOUSES The earliest surviving remains of small rural houses in Ireland date from far back in prehistory, but very few houses lived in by ordinary people survive intact from earlier than 1700. We know 141
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from archaeological excavations that rectangular houses with a door in the long wall had become fairly common in Ireland by medieval times, and illustrated maps from around 1600 show a number of types of dwelling, including single-storey thatched houses, again with a door in the long front wall. Cottages that survive from 1700 onwards, built by small farmers, either for themselves or their labourers, also show these features as elements of well-developed ‘vernacular’ designs. The houses are usually single-storey, with between one and three rooms that open directly into one another without any passage or central hall (fig. 11). Two basic types of vernacular house have been identified, each of which was associated with particular areas within Ireland.1 The main feature used in classifying the houses is the relationship between the kitchen hearth and the front door. ‘Direct entry’ houses have a kitchen with a hearth built in to one
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end wall, and the entrance door in a side wall at other end (fig. 12). ‘Hearth-lobby’ houses have a front entrance facing side-on to the kitchen hearth, the door and hearth being separated by a small ‘jamb’ wall (fig. 13). Direct-entry houses are mostly found in the north and west of Ireland, and hearth-lobby houses in the southeast and midlands. However, there are a lot of variations within this basic classification. For example, some vernacular houses are two storeys in height, and their gable ends can be hipped or straight. Many houses also have a greater number of internal divisions, creating more rooms and passages. Most of these surviving rural houses are thatched, or were originally thatched. Fred Aalen has summarized the basic characteristics of their roof construction, including the different materials used. In most areas a thin layer of sods or ‘scraws’ is laid upon and tied to the roof timbers to support the thatch and improve heat insulation. Wheaten straw is the most widely used for thatch. Northern Leinster, however, preferred oaten straw, and reeds were favoured in some localities in Munster and flax in counties Londonderry, Donegal and Fermanagh. Rushes and tough marram grass were used in mountainous coastal areas in the northwest and west. The most general method of securing the thatch is by pinning the straw to the scraws with scollops – pegs made with thin rods of briar and hazel. Along the northern and western coasts, presumably in response to the strong winds, the thatched roof is commonly held in place by a rope tied to pegs in the house walls or to a row of stone weights.2 Despite variations in lay-out and construction, in the past many vernacular houses had very similar living arrangements. The two important day-time spaces were usually the kitchen, 143
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and what was known as ‘the west room,’ or simply as ‘the Room’. A description of how these spaces were used, recorded in County Clare in the 1930s, shows the differences between them quite clearly. The central room … was the kitchen. There the family passed their lives and prepared and ate the food cooked in the hearth … behind this hearth was another room … it was called for its position in the house, the ‘west room’ … [This] room was a sort of parlour into which none but the most distinguished guests were admitted. In it were kept pictures of the dead and emigrated members of the family, all ‘fine’ pieces of furniture.3 Many vernacular houses continued in use into the late twentieth century. Henry Glassie’s lyrical description of life styles in the Ballymenone area of County Fermanagh during the 1970s shows that here also the main room in the house was the kitchen, with several other less-used rooms flanking it. His description of the kitchen, and the lay-out of the house in general, emphasizes how the structure and layout of the houses reflected the communal lifestyle of the people who lived in them. Knowing that all the houses have the same plan … people gain a sense of community … The houses present similar facades, one-storey and sparkling white … Noting the door’s location, in relation to its windows, one for each room, the visitor knows the house’s plan … The kitchen is not a private place. It is gracefully vulnerable, open and occupied. People from without pierce quickly to its very center, where a fire burns, ready to boil water for tea.4
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Notes 1 2 3 4
Alan Gailey, Rural houses in the North of Ireland (Edinburgh, 1984). F.H.A. Aalen, ‘Buildings’, in Aalen et al. (eds), Atlas of the Irish rural landscape (Cork, 1997), pp 153–4. Conrad Arensberg, The Irish countryman (Gloucester, MA, 1959), pp 23–4. Henry Glassie, Passing the time in Ballymenone (Philadelphia, 1982), pp 327–31.
Extract from A History of Irish Farming 1750-1950, ISBN 978-1-84682-208-7 © 2008 Four Courts Press. Photo courtesy National Museum of Ireland.
About the authors Jonathan Bell was head curator in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum from 1993 to 2006; Mervyn Watson worked as Curator of Agriculture in the Museum from 1994-2006. Both men have published a number of books and articles on rural society and aspects of material culture in Ireland. About the publisher Four Courts Press will celebrate forty years in publishing next year. Founded by Michael Adams in 1970, its first book was Seamus Deane’s AE prize-winning Gradual Wars, and its second was by the American novelist Peter Straub. Since 1992 the Press expanded from its largely theology base, first into Celtic and Medieval Studies, and then into the areas of Modern Irish History, Arts, Literature and Law. Since its foundation the Press has published over 700 titles. Located in the heart of Dublin, and with a publishing team that includes Martin Fanning, Martin Healy and Anthony Tierney, the Press continues to publish around fifty titles annually, which range in subject matter over all aspects of Irish history and culture.
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Liberties Press
My Father, The General Richard Mulcahy and the Military History of the Revolution Risteárd Mulcahy
Drawing on the offcial Mulcahy archive as well as family and personal recollections and material My Father, The General is an in-depth portrait of a complicated, committed and principled patriot, soldier and politician. In an era of cynicism – sometimes justified – towards politicians, Richard Mulcahy’s story is characterised almost entirely by the ideal of public service. Although in the early years he was apparently as well known as Collins as a leader in the War of Independence, he had a largely administrative role in coordinating the headquarters staff, as indeed did Collins. His profile has obviously diminished over the years. Unlike Mulcahy’s, Collins’s reputation has advanced with the years and with the increasing media and literary attention to him, so much so that nowadays we hear little of any other military figure in the war. I have a list of forty books published about Collins, and they continue to appear; there is a strong commercial factor driving the current cult of Collins. Mulcahy writes of their association during the war, but there is little direct correspondence between them available and there is no evidence that there was much of it to begin with. They apparently met regularly and committed little or nothing of 146
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their decisions and conversations to paper. They met at Mulcahy’s apartment in Oakley Road at the beginning of the war and later at 19 Ranelagh Road, where my father went to live in 1920. The nature of their relationship is probably best described in Mulcahy’s characteristically conversational, almost poetic, style in the following quotation: I opened and kept open for him all the doors and pathways that he wanted to travel – our relations were always harmonious and frank and we didn’t exchange unnecessary information. We each knew what the other was at and particularly in his domain of intelligence, I had no occasion to be questioning him. Over many matters we exercised a constructive and practical Cistercian silence. Collins needed the protection of his military colleague, particularly after de Valera’s return from America. Historians have paid too little attention to the antagonisms which Collins evoked and which developed after this time, particularly among the politicians. Nor have the reasons for these antagonisms been properly evaluated. Collins did not suffer fools gladly and was inclined to be abrasive with the incompetent. Whatever about this tendency of Collins, Mulcahy had this to say about him: It can be seen that there was never on Collins’s part any note of mere domineering or anything but the offer of the most effective service in a most reasonable manner and terms. Without in any way overpowering or wanting to overpower their judgement in any matter, where their judgement might differ, he would in fact in matters of practice have earned in practical affairs a certain ascendancy over them.
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Mulcahy refers on several occasions to the antagonism shown towards Collins by Brugha and Stack, and speculates about the cause or causes of their antipathy, an antipathy which appeared to surface in early 1921 when de Valera returned from America: In my joint dealings with Collins and Brugha together I could not say that there was any friction between them until it developed over the question of the Scotch accounts in the end of 1920. Various factors may have been responsible for the antagonism, including Brugha’s criticism of Collins’s handling of certain financial transactions in relation to the supply of arms from Glasgow: the Scotch account. There were many who thought that jealousy of Collins on the part of Brugha and Stack may have been a factor, and such an opinion was expressed by de Valera early in 1921 when my father complained that Brugha’s quarrel with Collins was endangering the security of the members of the GHQ staff. On that occasion, de Valera said to him: ‘You know I think Cathal is jealous of Mick. Isn’t it a terrible thing to think that a man with the qualities that Cathal undoubtedly has would fall a victim to a dirty little vice like jealousy.’ [ . . . ] Collins was fortunate (in the historical sense) to have died at the height of his fame, and to have his reputation enhanced by subsequent historians and writers, so that he has become a legend. He is perceived by many as a lost saviour to his country, but he, like other heroes who had the good fortune to survive the revolution, would have found himself facing the realities of 148
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a political and social situation where the gilt of his fame might easily have worn thin with the passage of time and the interpersonal problems and conflicts which are inseparable from the rough and tumble of political life, particularly at a time of profound change. Collins raised many antagonisms during his time, which are referred to by Páidín O’Keeffe in his conversations with Mulcahy. It is likely that, if he had been faced with the many difficulties of the fledging new state, he would have experienced the same problems encountered by his surviving colleagues. It was Mulcahy’s belief, consistent with his admiration for the man, that Collins would have been the saviour of the country if he had survived. Mother and I, in commenting on my father’s view, took a somewhat more pragmatic view of the hazards to one’s reputation of survival in politics, particularly in the bitter post-Civil War milieu, with its severe recession, and with massive unemployment, aggravated by the post-war demobilisation. However, Mulcahy may have had a point in that Collins’s influence in the Cabinet might have eased the demobilisation problems and might have prevented O’Higgins’s intrusion into army affairs, with the consequent Army Mutiny and its adverse influence on the government and its supporters. How Collins would have coped with the rough and tumble of political life in the Ireland of the 1920s is anybody’s guess. Mulcahy was still alive, and living in the mundane political world of post-Treaty Ireland, with its chronic problems of recession and reconstruction, made worse by the bitter political divisions. His reputation, which during the War of Independence was closely linked with that of Collins, slowly atrophied as he faced the problems of the Truce and the Civil 149
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War, and its aftermath of bitterness and disillusionment, and as his admirers and those contemporaries who thought so highly of him gradually departed the scene. Collins died at the right time for himself and for his reputation – although not at the right time for Ireland. Apart from his outstanding military role, he deserves to be remembered for his seminal contribution to the political evolution of the Irish State. However, his reputation might have suffered too if he had survived to face the rigours of post-Treaty Ireland. After 1924, Mulcahy’s reputation began to yield to the influence of the commonplace. He himself, because of his tendency to self-effacement, his lack of political mystique and personal ambition, and his inability to have recourse to the devices that make a politician popular with the crowd, was at least partly responsible for his own declining reputation. Collins is a folk hero, at least in the minds of the media and among some of his biographers, mainly because of his military exploits rather than because of his great administrative skills during the War of Independence. John Regan, in his article on Collins, underlines this point when he writes: But like the seldom-published photograph of Collins at his department desk, the Michael Collins of the Department of Finance does not have the same appeal as Collins the gunman. I am reminded again of the constant theme in my father’s writings and conversations, which is his sensitivity to criticism of Collins and Griffith. In his opinion, they were the two great architects of the independence movement, and their deaths in August 1922, at the height of the Civil War, was the ultimate tragedy for the new Irish Free State. 150
My Father, The General Extract from My Father, The General, ISBN 978-1-90548-363-1 © 2009 Risteárd Mulcahy
About the author Professor Risteárd Mulcahy encouraged his father after his retirement to record his memories of his long military and political career. He was head of the cardiology department and the heart disease research unit at St Vincent’s Hospital and is a past president of the Irish Medical Association. About the publisher Liberties Press was founded in 2003 by Seán O’Keeffe and Peter O’Connell and their first title, More than a Game by the legendary journalist Con Houlihan, enjoyed huge commercial and critical success. Building on this first title’s success, Liberties Press has over eighty titles in print with a catalogue including diverse genres such as memoir, history, health, food, politics, sport and recently revivals of classic Irish literary fiction. We were delighted to learn this year that Michelle Obama was presented with a Liberties Press book by the Taoiseach Brian Cowen on his St Patrick’s Day visit. Seán and Peter have been joined by Caroline, Dan and Orlaith in their offices which is located in the shadow of the Guinness brewery in the area known as the Liberties – from which the company took its name.
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Petticoat Rebellion The Anna Parnell Story Patricia Groves In the late nineteenth century, before women had the vote, a group of respectable ladies operated outside the law to fight for the rights of the landless poor in Ireland. They were the Ladies’ Land League, founded in January 1881 by Miss Anna Stewart Parnell. When the male leaders of the original Land League were imprisoned by the British, the Ladies League took over their work. Exploiting loopholes in the law, they soon became more successful than the men, establishing over 400 branches in Ireland. But when Anna started questioning the men’s political strategies instead of merely distributing alms, she became a threat to more than the British – she became a threat to the Republican movement itself. There was only one man who could silence her: her brother, Charles Stewart Parnell. And he did. ‘This is a long overdue biog of an energetic and feisty lady.’ The Sunday Tribune ‘It is fitting that she be remembered for the significant contribution she made to the aspiration for, and the development of, a more just and caring community.’ Mary McAleese - President of Ireland. Extract of a message from President McAleese to the Parnell Society on the occasion of it's visit to the grave of Anna Parnell, 05 April 2002. 152
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Extract: (Pages 169 - 173) At the first meeting of the executive of the Ladies’ Land League in February, they prepared a letter to issue to their fellow countrywomen. The letter exhorted the Ladies to take swift action to relieve distress, and emphasised the urgency of their work. They also knew that the presence of members of the Ladies’ Land League and the local press at evictions was absolutely necessary to avoid the violent confrontations, which were widespread around Ireland. ‘You cannot prevent the evictions,’ said the statement, ‘but you can and must prevent them from becoming massacres.’ The Irish World described Anna at her first public meeting in Claremorris, County Mayo on 13 February 1881, as ‘burning with patriotic fervour, a tongue of forked lightning, a very Joan of Arc is she’. The subtitle for the article read ‘Ireland’s Women Aroused and At Work. Anna Parnell in the Field, Sounding the Keynote of the New Movement Against Landlordism: Relief not Charity the Motto.’ One of the philosophies behind having a Ladies’ Land League was so that their work would be complementary to the men’s. Anna said that ‘while the men fight about orange and green, the ladies do their work in peace’. The Ladies’ Land League therefore adopted white as their official colour. And at Anna’s first public meeting in Claremorris, there was a white banner across the front of the platform, which read in gold letters ‘Miss Parnell to the rescue’. She said in her speech, which was reported verbatim in the Irish World that their mission was ‘to relieve the evicted families, and that is the really difficult thing to do – that will tax all your brains because you will have to provide them with shelter and food as well. In order to carry 153
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out this object, you will require organisation. Now, the women of Ireland have never been organised before.’ Anna reminded everyone that the male leadership was likely to be arrested like Michael Davitt and be imprisoned for some time ‘so you must learn to depend on yourselves. You will have to keep a sharp eye on the landlords (laughter) and you will have to know, and tell us in Dublin, when the landlords have evicted a family, and you will have to tell us who is going to evict a family … and you will have to be very energetic about it, so that no one shall be left to want, even for a single day.’ The nascent Ladies’ Land League soon found itself with even bigger problems. Rather than being given clear instructions and guidance in what to do – the tidy list Michael Davitt had described earlier – the Ladies were left to work out what they should do by themselves: We were supposed to be instructed in our work by the Land League, but their assistance confined itself to showing us the minute book in which they kept an account of their meetings, and allowing us access to their branch book, where the names and addresses of the principal local officials were written and – lastly but not leastly – finding fault with everything we did. Frustrated by this, Anna asked the male executive for guidance. She almost regretted doing that, because she received mixed messages and confused instructions, with conflicting opinions: What one allowed … the other objected to, each one did not always even agree with himself at different times as to the nature of our duties. The upshot of these divided counsels, naturally, was that the only course left us was to do what we thought best ourselves, though it was some time before we left off trying, more or less, to please everybody, when the 154
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fact was that we could please nobody. She grew increasingly frustrated with the contradiction between what the Land League said and what they actually did, and she complained that, ‘I have described myself as sometimes having felt uneasy about the conduct of the Land League. My uneasiness now deepened into dismay.’ She stated her reservations like a schoolteacher would describe an unruly class of students who were not obeying the rules: Seeing all these grown-up men, who did not, apparently, know enough to understand that they were all individually responsible for the acts of the executive so long as they remained members of it, or even to understand that they were bound by the public resolutions passed at their own meetings, and who could find no better use for us than to quarrel with us … was enough to make even the stoutest heart fail. By this stage, there were bitter and frequent arguments between Anna and the leaders of the Land League about how to run the Ladies’ Land League. Anna, totally unafraid to state what she felt to be the truth, would no doubt have told them in no uncertain terms exactly what they were doing wrong. Her criticisms were not well received and the relationship between the two Leagues began to deteriorate: ‘As time went on the hostility manifested towards the Ladies by the authors of their being [the Land League] increased instead of diminishing.’ Anna suggested a reason for this growing hostility, using language she would no doubt have used in their presence too: I think now that, added to their natural resentment at our having done what they asked us to do, they soon acquired a 155
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much stronger ground for their annoyance in the discovery that we were taking the Land League seriously. This was the point at which Anna realised that the two Leagues could not possibly continue to work together. Their views about the work of the Land League were so different, and working conditions were so difficult that Anna suggested that the Ladies’ Land League should be closed. There was no one more surprised than Anna by the response of the men to this proposal: The proposal was received with something like fury. Not-withstanding our unhappy inability to please them … it still required a great deal of diplomacy on our part to sever our connection with our creators without an open quarrel. History would later write that it was Charles who wanted to put an end to the Ladies’ Land League, but this exchange reveals that in fact it was she who proposed ending it, and at a much earlier stage than had previously been thought. Anna was eventually persuaded not to dissolve the Ladies’ Land League, although she came to regret her decision later. She considered it a great ‘blunder’ to have withdrawn her threat to shut down the Ladies’ Land League: One penalty for those who make an initial blunder of great magnitude in any matter of importance, always is that nothing done by them thereafter ever seems right … So we stayed where we were, and the long squabble went on. The turbulent relationship between the Land League and the Ladies’ Land League was set to continue, but now the Ladies were in a weaker position than before, as they had backed down from this confrontation. The Land League knew that the Ladies 156
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would continue to comply with their instructions, as all good Victorian women were expected to do. Extract from The Petticoat Rebellion, ISBN 978-1-85635-648-0 © 2009 Patricia Groves
About the author Patricia Groves lives in Maynooth, County Kildare. She was inspired to write this book by a fingerprint in the dust of history – a small plaque high on the wall of the AIB Bank in O’Connell Street, Dublin, at the corner of Parnell Square. Standing in the queue in the bank in 2006, she spotted the small, circular plaque which simply says ‘Ladies Land League (1881–1882)’. Intrigued, she began researching, and this book is the outcome. She works in Trocaire as a Campaigns Officer. About the publisher Mercier Press is the longest established, wholly independent, family-owned Irish publishing house. For sixty-five years Mercier has endeavoured to publish work that we hope plays a part in informing public opinion, bringing Irish culture and history to the Irish people and the Irish Diaspora. Based in Cork, Mercier has published many ground-breaking titles over the years, blazing a trail for the wealth of talented, innovative and entrepreneurial Irish writers who have emerged and thrived ever since. Message from Clodagh Feehan – MD of Mercier Press: The Great Irish Book Week 2009 offers an excellent representation of what Irish publishing has to offer. These high quality books are locally published by independent Irish publishers, supporting Ireland’s rich pool of talented Irish writers – so buy an Irish book today! Mercier is the only Irish publishing company to be awarded the National Human Resource Management (HRM) Standard – Excellence Through People. This national mark of achievement 157
Mercier Press recognises companies with an excellent corporate culture, which values employees, authors and customers and actively seeks to encourage and motivate them. For a full list of our books, or to find out more, visit us on www.mercierpress.ie
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Crime Ink Interviews with Notorious Criminals and Other Notes from the Irish Underground Jason O’Toole Jason O’Toole has tracked down and interviewed many of the country’s most notorious criminals. Crime Ink is an explosive collection of the most controversial interviews with some of the most notorious figures from Ireland’s underworld. O’Toole caused major controversy when he visited John Gilligan at Portlaoise Prison and published the first major in-depth interview with the infamous drug trafficker. O’Toole’s journey into the criminal world brought him into contact with some of the country’s biggest drug dealers. All these controversial interviews, plus dozens more, are gathered here for the first time in this compelling collection.
Anatomy of a Murder – John Daly’s Death The dramatic murder of John Daly happened in the full view of night-time revellers, in the centre of Dublin city. While his killing made the headlines, to many in the criminal underworld, he was a dead man walking from the moment his prison sentence ended back in August 2007. The 27-year-old, who had spent over a third of his short life incarcerated, came to the attention of the general public when he brazenly called up Joe Duffy’s RTÉ radio show on a mobile phone, from his prison cell. Why did he make the phone call? In 159
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the house of mirrors that is the Irish criminal underworld, numerous theories have been advanced, but no one knows for sure. Was he signalling his independence from criminal masterminds in the prison, for one ulterior motive or another? Did it not strike him that the effect of his call would be to draw attention to the use of phones and to inspire a clampdown? Or was it just a bit of mad craic? Daly chatted live on air and boasted that he was behind bars at the country’s most secure prison in Portlaoise. As indeed he was – but not for much longer. As a result of his phone call, Daly was moved to Cork Prison and lost all privileges. But, for reasons that are unclear – and feed the rumour machine – he was never charged with the offence of being in possession of a mobile phone. For his part, Daly was probably relieved by the leniency of what was little more than a “slap on the wrist” punishment. But that wasn’t the end of the affair – his call did indeed have serious ramifications. Daly’s 15 minutes of fame highlighted the wider issue of inmates having mobile phones – and using them to keep in touch with what was going on in the outside world. It prompted the prison authorities to act – and fast. As a result, the word on the street was that the notorious John Gilligan was “extremely annoyed” with Daly. An estimated 1,385 phones were confiscated from Irish prisons in the wake of Daly’s call. This angered other inmates who had been using their mobile phones to keep in close contact with their loved ones. It also angered the convicted gang bosses, who Garda sources say, are using mobile phones to co-ordinate serious organised crime on the outside and to also smuggle drugs into the prisons. In order to combat this activity, the prison authorities 160
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decided to rush through a new jamming system to block mobile phone calls. They will not give out information about the blocking system, but I understand that it is currently operating, on a trial basis only, in the Midlands Prison. Since Daly’s call to Liveline, inmates can face fines of up to N10,000 or an additional prison sentence of up to five years if they are caught with mobile phones in their possession. And when Justice Minister Brian Lenihan came into office he immediately vowed to crack down on the prevalence of mobile phones in prison, with the establishment of an Operational Support Group dedicated to gathering intelligence on illicit material being hidden inside the cells. According to sources, it was all too much for the criminal fraternity. A price, believed to be in the region of N50,000 was reportedly put on Daly’s head. Everybody said Daly was a dead man for making that stupid phone call. But did Daly act impulsively or did he have an ulterior motive? One interesting theory that has emerged in the wake of the assassination is that the call was purposely orchestrated in an effort to disassociate Daly from a certain criminal kingpin. An inside prison source explained: “It is a well known fact that CAB put any prisoners, who have connections with certain criminal bosses while inside, under roundthe- clock surveillance when they get released.” I have learned that Daly was not followed when he was set free after serving the majority of a nine-year sentence for an armed robbery on a petrol station. “And why would he be?” the source asks. “Maybe, as far as the authorities were concerned, Daly’s days were numbered. Somebody was going to whack him for the reward that was on offer.” I’ve also learned that, a few days after his release, Daly 161
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slipped out of the country. The tabloids reported that he had gone out to Alicante, which is a known haven for Irish criminals. Coincidentally, it is also the region where Gilligan’s wife and daughter run an Irish bar. If underworld reports are accurate, Daly and another gangland figure, Alan “Fat Puss” Bradley actually visited the bar for drinks. Another source says that Daly had been boasting that he’d gone to Spain “on a paid holiday” to organise various financial matters for one of the city’s crime overlords. One theory is that Daly had gained the confidence of a crime boss who had disclosed secret information to him about his operations in Spain. The plan was for Daly to make occasional trips to Spain to keep an eye on the business, believed to include dozens of properties, among other ventures. It might have sounded like an ideal job for Daly. He wouldn’t have to go back to robbing petrol stations or peddling drugs. Instead, he would be able to live the high life thanks to his powerful new connections. What went wrong with the plan is impossible to establish – yet. Was it that some gangland figures became convinced that Daly now knew too much? Had he fulfilled his usefulness? Or was there something more personal involved, a grudge that was never likely to be forgiven? Whatever the reason, there is no denying that the brutal killing of Daly was meticulously planned. In fact, it has emerged that the murder was “ordered” around the time Daly was freed from prison. I’ve discovered that the killer was also released from prison around the same time. The car used in the hit had been stolen in Donnycarney in August. It was using registration plates from a car stolen in Glasnevin around the same time. According to gangland sources, the hit man went to Limerick to 162
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source a gun for the attack. It was then a waiting game. This is how the events are likely to have played out: On the night of the murder, the killer had a ticket booked in his name to the UK. He arranged for a lookalike to fly out on his passport. Thus he had constructed a simple but brilliant alibi. How could he have killed Daly if he was already out of the country when the hit took place? Daly had been, it is believed, partying the night away with two friends in a nightclub in the centre of Dublin. There they met three women and invited them back to Finglas for a “house party”. But they had been followed for the whole night. The killer was lurking in the shadows and, as a taxi pulled up to take Daly partywards, he quickly pounced. It happened in a blink of an eye. The taxi driver looked on in horror as his front seat passenger was blown away. Daly’s body fell across him, pinning him in position, and the killer continued to pump bullets into the criminal. It was a horrendous scene, made all the more harrowing by the screams from the back seat. The getaway car was found later in the nearby area of Scribblestown, which is also on the way to Dublin Airport. The killer left Dublin on a flight to the UK later that same morning, using his look-a-like’s name and passport. He left with a N10,000 deposit on the N50,000 promised for the job. All he has to do now is come back to collect the rest of his fee. Or will it be so simple? He’ll be hoping that none of Daly’s associates are out there, hell-bent on retribution. When you think about it, that’s a proposition on which Paddy Power would almost certainly offer very good odds indeed. Extract from Crime Ink, ISBN 978-1-90716-200-8 © 2009 Jason O’Toole
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Merlin Publishing About the author Jason O’Toole’s journalism has appeared in dozens of publications, including the Sunday Times, the Mail on Sunday, the Evening Herald, Empire and Hot Press magazine. He is currently a features writer for the Irish Daily Mail and the Irish Mail on Sunday. Crime Ink is his second book, having previously penned a biography of Brian Cowan entitled Path to Power. He is the author of The Last Days of Katy French which will be published by Merlin in November 2009. About the publisher Merlin Publishing was established in 2000 to produce original, hard-hitting, commercially driven non-fiction. Since then we have gone from strength to strength and published many leading names from Irish journalism and broadcasting, including Paul Williams, Jason O’Toole, Mary Kennedy and Eamon Dillon. We are recognised as one of Ireland’s top publishers of true crime, having sold over 400,000 copies of Paul Williams’ books. The most recent, Crime Wars, spent six weeks at number one in 2008. The Untouchables was the basis for the TV3 series Dirty Money, which drew over 1.3million viewers – the highest in the station’s history. We have produced autobiographies by Moss Keane, Dickie Rock and Mary Kennedy, all of which have been bestsellers, and have established us as major publishers of high-profile, quality non-fiction. In the lifestyle area we have published Change a Little to Change a Lot by Karen Ward from RTÉ’s The Health Squad, and OFF THE RAILS: Love Your Look, a practical style guide by Sonya Lennon and Brendan Courtney of the flagship RTÉ fashion programme. We have never shied away from difficult topics and have published some shocking, true personal stories. Daddy, Please Don’t, Barbara Naughton’s harrowing tale of abuse at the hands of her father, and The Complex, John Duignan’s thrilling account of his escape from the Church of Scientology, were both hugely successful in 2008.
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Blood Upon the Rose: Easter 1916 The Rebellion that Set Ireland Free Gerry Hunt The 1916 Easter Rising was the most significant rebellion in Ireland. Though a military failure, it set Ireland on the road to freedom from Britain. This graphic novel covers the story from the early planning to the final executions and includes the tragic romance between Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford. Ireland’s history has never been so immediate: Gerry Hunt has applied the graphic novel’s cinematic qualities to the Easter 1916 Rising, with remarkable results. While it is impossible to show a full-colour, large-format book in all its glory in this sampler, the following pages set the tone: following the scuttling of the Aud, a ship bringing German arms to the rebels, there is disagreement between the leaders about whether the rebellion can take place as planned. Then, after three days in which the rebels successfully take large portions of Dublin and kill many English soldiers, reinforcements arrive to defeat the rising.
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Following three days of fighting, the British bring in the artillery!
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The O’Brien Press Extract from Blood Upon the Rose, 978-1-84717-089-7 © 2009 Gerry Hunt
About the author Having worked as an architect for many years, Gerry Hunt left architecture and began drawing political cartoons in 1986. From this, he moved on to drawing entire comics – his first, self-produced comic was a rhyming, Spanish-language work that he gave away to friends. He has since published the highly-praised In Dublin City and The Streets of Dublin with Dublin Comics. The Streets of Dublin has also been included in an exhibition entitled ‘Artist’s Books’ in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. About the publisher The O’Brien Press was established in 1974, evolving out of a family-run printing house, and over the past thirty-five years has established a reputation for quality and excellence in publishing for adults and children. Since its foundation, The O’Brien Press has published over 1,200 books, over of which are still in print. From the beginning Michael O’Brien has been committed to quality in writing, editing, design and illustration. This commitment has been recognised by numerous awards down through the years including the Irish Book Awards, the Bisto Book of the Year Award and awards from the Reading Association of Ireland. Check out our new and exciting titles for 2009 at www.obrien.ie today.
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The Most Famous Irish People You’ve Never Heard Of Colin Murphy We’ve all heard of Daniel O’Connell, Dev and Michael Collins, but other Irish people have changed the face of history, only to vanish from its pages. Find out about: • William Melville First Head of MI5 • Ambrose O’Higgins Governor of
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Chile and Viceroy of Peru Mnsgn Hugh O’Flaherty saved 6,000 Jews & Allied soldiers from the Nazis Catherine Hayes the first Irish soprano to travel the world John Barry senior commander of the entire United States fleet James Hoban designed The White House Jennie Hodgers served three years in Union Army during the American Civil War – as a man George McElroy of WW1’s outstanding aerial aces William Brown Argentinian national hero and father of the Argentinian navy
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Mary ‘Mother Jones’ Harris American Labour activist, social reformer and the ‘Mother’ of the U.S. Trades Union movement. ‘Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.’ -– Mary ‘Mother Jones’ Harris In the early part of the nineteenth century, two of the greatest leaders and campaigners on behalf of human rights in the nation’s history emerged from rural backwaters in the south west corner of Ireland. One was Daniel O’Connell, The Liberator, who is rightly celebrated with monuments, statues and street names the length of the country. The other is almost unknown in the land of her birth. Her name was Mary Harris or, as she came to be called in the US, her adopted homeland, Mother Jones. She cut a strange figure. A diminutive, motherly woman with a head of white hair, garbed in dark, workaday clothes standing at the head of an army of thousands of hardened miners, railwaymen and factory workers. But besides her unremarkable clothing, she often wore a steely expression that could cut through the massed ranks of her adversaries like a knife through butter. When she would address her audience, Mother Jones at times spoke in the hushed tones one might expect from one’s grandmother, and would then explode into an impassioned rage, striding about her platform, her voice carrying to the farthest reaches of her assemblage with a power and passion that belied her years. On one occasion when put on trial in West Virginia the District Attorney pointed at the frail old lady across the courtroom and declared, ‘Your honour – there is the most 174
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dangerous woman in the country today!’ But who was she and what forces moulded the woman who would become such a commanding and beloved leader of men? * * * The Great Famine was ravaging the country and like millions of his countrymen, [Mary’s father] Richard was forced to board a ship bound for the US in search of a life for his wife and children. Having spent a year in America he could now officially claim citizenship, at which point, by her own account, he then sent for Mary and the rest of the family. The town of Munroe in Michigan was their first port of call, but when Richard secured work as a labourer on the massive railway building programme, he was forced to follow the tracks whose destination was Toronto in Canada. It was here Mary’s family would settle and where she would receive her education in a public school. She progressed well and, not content to settle into the normal pattern of marriage and children, she decided to progress with her studies in what was called ‘Normal School’, which was a two year term in college to train as an elementary school teacher. * * * Mary would always have itchy feet and in 1861 at the age of twenty-four, she upped and headed south, returning to teaching in Memphis, Tennessee. In the sultry heat of the southern town, Mary met and married a local man, George Jones and began to gain her first insights into the conditions and paltry rewards ordinary working men faced on a daily basis. George was an iron moulder, which involved pouring molten metal from a furnace into moulds, back-breaking work carried out in 175
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a stifling and dangerous environment. He was also a member of the Iron Moulders’ Union and through him Mary began to gain her first insights into the methods and aims of America’s nascent labour movement. Although unions had been around in America for almost a century at this stage, they were mostly small groups limited to specific trades like cordwainers or cabinet makers and there was no overall organisation. Fear of retribution by employers also dissuaded many from joining or forming unions. Until an organisational framework was put in place many years later, the power of the unions would be severely limited. During the next six years the couple had four children together but the joy of raising a family was to be snatched away from Mary Jones in the cruellest way possible. The events of 1867 were to have a profound effect on her for the rest of her life. It crept upon the city slowly in the autumn of that year, like a mist rolling in from the ocean. One by one, people began to fall ill with muscle pains, shivers, headaches and vomiting. When victims became jaundiced, the cause was immediately clear – Yellow Fever. It wasn’t the first time Tennessee had been hit by the plague and it wouldn’t be the last, but it was claimed that industrialists deliberately failed to report incidents of the fever for fear that their factories would be closed down. With the poor intermingling in crowded workplaces the disease spread rapidly. Hospitals reported huge influxes of sufferers and the morgues began to fill up. Mary Jones, young wife and mother of four, lost everything she loved in the world. Her memory of those days, written almost sixty years after the event, still imparts a terrible grief. The next phase of her life, though dramatic, was not quite so 176
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traumatic. She moved north to Chicago in 1868 and there re-entered the dressmaking business with a partner. Having struggled to raise a young family on a meagre wage, living in a run-down part of Memphis, Mary Jones would now be afforded a glimpse into how the other half lived. Her dressmaking and sewing skills were sought after by the ladies who resided on the affluent Lake Shore Drive. Working in their houses she was shocked by the opulence they enjoyed while outside the window at which she sat sewing, she could see poverty-stricken wretches making their way towards the shore of Lake Michigan in search of work, or ragged women laden with children struggling towards the cooling water to escape the stifling, oppressive air of the tenements. Her employers seemed utterly indifferent to the seething masses of the poor who surrounded them. It was as though anyone outside their circle of wealth was either invisible to them or worthless. At the end of one of those hot Chicago summers it must have seemed adversity was stalking Mary. In October 1871, a small fire started in a backstreet in the east of the city, about a mile from where she had her business. Many of the buildings were constructed of wood at the time and were tinder dry after the summer heat. Fanned by an onshore wind the fire spread with terrifying speed, burning homes, public buildings, warehouses and even the ships moored in the river. Ninety thousand people were left homeless, among them Mary Jones, whose livelihood was reduced to ashes. Miraculously, only two hundred people died. Most of the homes burnt were the badly constructed wooden tenements formerly inhabited by the poor. To add to their burden, they now found themselves exposed to the horror of the approaching winter. Mary spent the night on the shore of Lake Michigan and over the coming days struggled 177
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to find food and shelter, eventually taking refuge in a church, which would be her home for the foreseeable future. But the tragedy had stoked its own raging fire inside her. It was during those days when she lived among the huddling poor and shared their hopelessness that she first began to attend meetings organised by the labour movement. She joined the Knights of Labor, a group who originated in the south with the stated aim of abolishing industrial slavery. As the years passed she became more and more active, attending and organising meetings, sometimes in the crumbling, burnt out remains of public halls, sometimes in nearby woodlands so as not to provoke the ire of the powers of government. She had her first experience of the abuse of that power during America’s first ever nationwide strike, that of the railroad workers in 1877. Mary was drafted in to Pittsburg to help in the organisation. To control the massed gatherings, the city began recruiting deputies with little or no attention to their background. Many of them were drifters or men who’d previously been on the other side of the law, hired guns essentially. In the middle of the strike a huge railyard shed was set alight causing the destruction of one hundred locomotives. In her autobiography, Mary states that it was common knowledge the fire had been started by the new deputies to help fan the flames of unrest and undermine their cause. There may be some truth in this although it’s unlikely the rail company intended to destroy so much of its own property. Whoever was to blame, the city called in the militia and riots ensued, thousand of strikers were beaten and hundreds arrested, charged with arson and inciting riot. Many men went to prison for crimes of which they were innocent. Mary Jones came to realise that they weren’t only fighting the wealthy but all the powers of the 178
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government. As she put it after Pittsburg: ‘Came strikes. Came violence. Came the belief in the hearts and minds of the workers that legislatures but carry out the will of the industrialists’ … Extract from The Most Famous Irish People You’ve Never Heard Of, ISBN 978-1-84717-163-4 © 2009 Colin Murphy
About the author Colin Murphy has a great interest in all aspects of history and has previously written a light-hearted look at Ireland’s past: The Feckin’ Book of Irish History. With Donal O’Dea, he is the author of the bestselling ‘Feckin’ series, published by The O’Brien Press. For twelve years, he was the Creative Director of one of Ireland’s leading advertising agencies, during which time he was involved in a huge number of national and international award-winning advertising campaigns. About the publisher The O’Brien Press was established in 1974, evolving out of a family-run printing house, and over the past thirty-five years has established a reputation for quality and excellence in publishing for adults and children. Since its foundation, The O’Brien Press has published over 1,200 books, over 550 of which are still in print. From the beginning Michael O’Brien has been committed to quality in writing, editing, design and illustration. This commitment has been recognised by numerous awards down through the years including the Irish Book Awards, the Bisto Book of the Year Award and awards from the Reading Association of Ireland. Check out our new and exciting titles for 2009 at www.obrien.ie today.
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Flying Finn Stephen Davison When Stephen Davison first met Martin Finnegan in 2003, it marked the beginning of an enduring friendship. Together they produced some of the best action shots in the sport’s history and created an extraordinary record of a road racing life that was tragically cut short when Martin was killed at the Tandragee 100 in May 2008. In over 150 pictures, Stephen Davison charts Martin’s spectacular career – from his first race on the black stuff to the gruelling days of training and his glory days as a champion. Flying Finn is Davison’s stunning tribute to Martin – the man and the legend – a book that captures the spirit and heart of a road racing hero. ‘Well, what’s the craic?’ Those were the first words that Martin Finnegan said to me 182
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when we met for the first time at the Cookstown 100 in 2003. I had been watching him working underneath his race truck in the paddock and as he crawled out he hailed me with that familiar Irish greeting. It was to be the beginning of a lot of craic. Although I had already noticed and photographed Martin’s exploits on the track, when I met him at Cookstown it was the first time that I had seen him without his helmet on. Martin’s easy charm relaxed everyone into his company and within a few minutes we were chatting away about racing and photography as if we had known each other for years. Almost from the word go Martin was asking me how he could get more media coverage for his racing. He was at the ‘up and coming’ stage of his career and, as was so typical of him, he was in a hurry to make progress. Unlike many people in road racing, Martin understood the value of publicity in attracting and repaying loyal sponsors. He cared about his team’s presentation and image and wanted to use them to gain coverage. Knowing that I worked for the racing magazines, Martin sought my advice as to how he could get their attention and he understood completely when I said that the one sure way that could guarantee the media would not ignore him was to win. He had no intention of doing anything else. From the 2003 season onwards Martin began to mix it with the established stars of the game in all of the major events. Every weekend he was filling my lens from the front of the pack. It quickly became obvious that Martin was not just very fast on a motorcycle but that he also had a unique control that allowed him to ride in an incredibly exciting style. That style became even more spectacular as he became familiar with the bends and bumps of the Irish and Manx road racing courses 183
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over the next few seasons. Even when he did not win Martin Finnegan often made the best photograph. We soon became good friends as I was drawn in by Martin’s easy-going nature and his brilliance on a bike. He wanted to win races and catch headlines and I wanted to capture the very best bike racing images that I could. We travelled the world living the road racing life to the full, racing and photographing it in the same way. It never ceased to amaze me how Martin, no matter how fast he was going, could spot me around the course whether I was buried in an Irish hedge or hiding behind the Macau armco. Before a race, he would take the time to point out to me the best spots to capture a big jump or a crossed-up wheelie. With that kind of knowledge allied to his stunning skill it is hardly surprising that Martin provided the best action shots of my career. It wasn’t just on the track that Martin was amenable to the camera. He understood that I was interested in his life away from bikes and how that influenced his racing. To get good photographs a photographer needs good access and down the years I was able to watch quietly with my camera as he prepared his machines for racing or trained his body for the stresses and strains of the battle on the track. Nor was the personal side of his life shut away – he invited me to his home to meet his infinitely hospitable family, to his work on the plant machinery that he serviced, to his wedding with Brenda and as he played with their daughter Rachel. It was a great privilege to be part of so many of those bright days. When you are allowed into someone’s life to see how much a man like Martin means to the people around him you also understand something of the pain and anguish that engulfs 184
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them when he is no longer there. Martin’s family were fully aware of the dangers that motorcycle road racing holds but nothing could have prepared them for the loss they were to suffer at Tandragee on 3 May 2008 when Martin died in a crash at Marlacoo corner on the second lap of the 600cc race. Nor can I fully believe that it has happened myself. Martin was very happy that May morning as I photographed him on the grid before the race, as happy as I had ever seen him. I was at Cooley Hill during that tragic race, waiting for him to come into sight again, but he never cam back. When I got to Marlacoo Martin’s smashed bike was still lying on the bank
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where it had come to rest. A few days later I stood outside the church in Lusk as his brothers carried his coffin through the gates. With the funeral ceremony over, the Finnegan family lined up by the graveside to receive the mourners’ condolences. Martin’s wife Brenda was at the head of that sad line and she whispered to me that she was happy that so much of Martin’s life had been recorded. I made my way along to Martin’s parents Margaret and Jim, his sisters Liz and Geraldine and his brothers Sean, Peter and James until finally I came to Paul. ‘Maybe you have all the pictures you would need for a book about Martin, Stephen.’ he said, as we shook hands. Brenda’s and Paul’s words stayed with me as I walked out of that little country churchyard. There had always been an unspoken pact between Martin and I that some day we would do a book together on his career, but everything still had a long way to go. Not every race he wanted to win had been won, not every photograph I wanted to take had been taken. This book should never have been done without him; it should have been a shared enterprise as everything else had been. As so often in this cruel sport of ours, it was not to be. What we have now of Martin is all we have and it will not be allowed to fade away. Martin Finnegan was, simply, the most spectacular road racer the world has ever seen. More importantly, he was a man who lived the richest, fullest life imaginable. That he is now missed so much bears witness to that. It was a very great honour to have known him. And to have shared all of that craic. Extract from Flying Finn, ISBN 978-0-85640-842-7 © 2009 Stephen Davison
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Flying Finn About the Author Stephen Davison is from Tardee in County Antrim and has been a road racing fan since attending his first race in 1974. Hailed by MCN as ‘the world’s number one pure road racing lensman’, Davison is the recipient of many photographic awards, and is the author of four bestselling books. About the publisher Blackstaff Press is a small independent publishing house based in Belfast. Founded in 1971, we are almost forty years old and have published over eight hundred books. We are delighted that Flying Finn and Tales of the Dogs are included in the Great Irish Book Week and we hope that you enjoy both books. One of the strengths of our list, we hope, is its diversity, but even two books selected for GIBW tell you a lot about Blackstaff Press: that we take great pride in the production values of our books; that we work hard with our authors to create titles that are exciting, provocative and ground-breaking; and that we always work with the Irish market firmly in mind. Although Tales of the Dogs and Flying Finn are both sports titles, we don’t just focus on this area – we also publish cookery, memoir, history and travel, to name a few. When we’re not working on the books themselves, we’re blogging about them, or commissioning them, or launching them and generally trying to tell the whole world that books, especially Blackstaff books, are wonderful. We’re always updating our website (www.blackstaffpress.com) and twitter account (twitter.com/blackstaffNI) so please do check them out to find out more about us.
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Tales of the Dogs A Celebration of the Irish and their Greyhounds John Martin Ireland is the home of the greyhound – with the best breeders, owners and trainers, the story of the Irish and their dogs is an extraordinary one. Ever since the coursing triumphs of Master M’Grath in the nineteenth century and Mick The Miller’s days as the first legend of the race track at the start of the twentieth, Irish greyhounds have led the pack. Illustrated with over 120 photographs, Tales of the Dogs is the most comprehensive and lively chronicle of greyhounds in Ireland, both on the track and in the field. Tales of the Dogs is packed with information, stories and memories, from portraits of the characters who have made their mark on the sport and the most famous winners of all the Classic races, to the current great dogs, the new tracks and everything that makes greyhound racing one of Ireland’s best-loved and most popular sports. 188
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The Maestro Finds the Right Note Ger McKenna’s English Derby Triumph Preparing Parkdown Jet In 1981, in the enforced solitude of the English authority’s kennel complex at Potters Bar, outside London, Ger McKenna contemplated how to prepare his finalist Parkdown Jet for the Saturday-night decider at White City. Greyhounds are creatures of habit and soon get into the routine of racing … leaving home, getting into the transporter, stopping off at the same spot for a pee, bedding in at the track kennels for an hour or so, being paraded, put in traps, running as fast as they can, getting a drink … and doing it all in reverse. Some things were different in England: the food and the water for starters. So McKenna began bringing his own over from Ireland. Some of the journeys to the tracks were a little convoluted. McKenna was always highly superstitious and drove in a circuitous manner to ensure that he did not pass a graveyard. As much as horses, some greyhounds simply seem to take a liking to certain tracks. Perhaps it is just that they are comfortable with the configurations or that they are, for dog reasons, happy there. Many Irish greyhounds, in spite of suffering what in humans would be regarded as homesickness, took naturally to the camber and surroundings of White City. McKenna himself lived a solitary existence, away from his wife Josie, his sons, John, Ger and Owen, and village life. McKenna never took a holiday and was never, otherwise, away from home. He would say of the ennui: ‘Those days before the GRA [Greyhound Racing Association] kennels at Potters Bar were 189
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disbanded were hell: the loneliness. They had a place up the way where you could have a mineral and there was a pool table. But it was not for me. In those days I found it hard to mix. ‘Sundays were the worst. There wasn’t the normal coming and going. It wasn’t like home, where you could salute somebody and get into conversation with them … where you could even pick an argument … give a fella a bollocking, just to liven things up. There was nothing like that.’ As for the greyhounds, what they had not experienced before was the sheer size and noise of the crowds at White City. Even during the English Derby preliminaries, five-figure crowds ringed the racing circuit. The dogs had to become accustomed to the din. And so, in the days leading up to the final of the 1981 English Derby, the silence of a summer evening in the peculiarly rural part of Greater London that was Potters Bar, was broken by the brassy sound of bands belting out ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘The Standard of St George March’ or ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. By exposing his dogs to the sort and level of sounds (on his kennel system) that they would be faced with at White City, McKenna acclimatised his charges.
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The Big Night Just over twenty-four hours later and the dogs faced the real thing: an atmosphere that the Romans must have savoured during the gladiatorial tournaments in the Colosseum … mixed with the strident strains of the band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines. Parkdown Jet, trained by McKenna for Corkmen Seán Barnett and Robert Shannon, took it all in his stride. He had heard it all before, under greyhound racing’s principal conductor, ‘The Maestro’, as McKenna was known to his admirers and his peers. And McKenna generates a great deal of affection in the followers of the sport: the man and simply the name. That night at White City – unless you had a serious connection to one of the other finalists – you really wanted Parkdown Jet to win … for McKenna’s, the trainer’s, sake. Ger McKenna had been coming to White City since 1974, and had been written about so often in the Sporting Life that every race-goer felt they knew him. He had never won the race and was loved for this fact alone. He was part of the English Derby heritage, a stalwart of White City. As the volume rose to a deafening crescendo on this sweaty June evening, the unfazed Parkdown Jet crouched and sprang forward in the striped jacket of trap six. The ever-superstitious McKenna has, like other trainers, an aversion to blue greyhounds. There is no biological reason for this. It appears simply to be based on the fact that blue dogs (as opposed to black or brindle, the commoner colours) are unusual and attractive and tend to get patted too much. The result is that they get soft and lose the aggression, drive and urgency needed to beat the other dogs to the quarry. And, in the charge to the opening corner, McKenna must have believed all the old wives’ tales and had misgivings about the blue dog. 191
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It was a big night, too, for Joe Kelly. The Wicklowman was a contract trainer at Owlerton, a giant of a track in Sheffield, and having Barley Field in the London final was the pinnacle of a long career and a hard life that yielded few luxuries. Victory for his runner would have meant everything to Kelly. As it happened, Kelly drew trap three and Barley Field was squeezed in a first-bend concertina. Such happenings seem to take minutes but last barely a second. Barley Field was on the ground with four other runners, trying to disengage themselves from the scrum. In a twinkling, Parkdown Jet had rounded the ruck. It was exhilarating to the onlooker, though not breathtaking running from the winner. Parkdown Jet had poached just enough of a lead to hold off Prince Spy, one of the rank outsiders. Prince Spy was owned by Grace Costello, the wife of prominent London-Irish businessman Eddie, who had spent a fortune trying to buy the right dog to win the English Derby. There was much irony in the fact that Costello’s 33/1 ‘no-hoper’ would
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come closer to making English Derby vision a reality than his much-vaunted favourites. But if there was ever a hard-luck story, then it was Rahan Ship’s. His trainer John Haynes has done so much as an administrator for his fellow trainers in Britain, but back then he was an Irish trainer by virtue of being based near Dublin. Victory for Haynes would have been Faithful Hope or Whisper Wishes or Ballinderry Ash in reverse: Haynes, the quintessential Englishman training an Irish winner of the Derby. The previous Saturday, Parkdown Jet had set a new track record when running 29.09 for the 500 metres. Seasoned observers suspected that he had peaked a week early, but he had enough in reserve – just – to win the final in a slow 29.57.
The Win At the end of the race, 29.57 seconds of pent-up emotion gave way to pandemonium. McKenna was overwhelmed, lost in a sea of ecstatic people celebrating: many were family members, others simply well-wishers, and the rest just strangers who had backed his winner. As a trainer, McKenna had been forced onto the winner’s podium on so many occasions. He had never looked comfortable. He appeared particularly ill-at-ease on this night and, one felt, he wanted to be alone with his own thoughts. He looked shocked by the frenzied nature of the reception, and numbed by the sudden realisation of a long-held dream fulfilled. As far as Ger McKenna was concerned, the wild parties were for others, whether in London or back at home. His quiet satisfaction would be in the next week, on his return to the County Tipperary village, walking up the main street and 193
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recounting with neighbours what had happened in the capital of England. Extract from Tales of the Dogs: A Celebration of the Irish and their Greyhounds, ISBN 978-0-85640-845-8 © 2009 John Martin
About the Author John Martin has been writing about greyhound sport for more than thirty years. He has covered the major events in coursing and greyhound racing, as well as being the recognised arbiter on betting disputes by Ireland’s leading bookmakers. John has been the recipient of a number of awards for his writing and tipping. About the publisher Blackstaff Press is a small independent publishing house based in Belfast. Founded in 1971, we are almost forty years old and have published over eight hundred books. We are delighted that Flying Finn and Tales of the Dogs are included in the Great Irish Book Week and we hope that you enjoy both books. One of the strengths of our list, we hope, is its diversity, but even two books selected for GIBW tell you a lot about Blackstaff Press: that we take great pride in the production values of our books; that we work hard with our authors to create titles that are exciting, provocative and ground-breaking; and that we always work with the Irish market firmly in mind. Although Tales of the Dogs and Flying Finn are both sports titles, we don’t just focus on this area – we also publish cookery, memoir, history and travel, to name a few. When we’re not working on the books themselves, we’re blogging about them, or commissioning them, or launching them and generally trying to tell the whole world that books, especially Blackstaff books, are wonderful. We’re always updating our website (www.blackstaffpress.com) and twitter account (twitter.com/blackstaffNI) so please do check them out to find out more about us. 194
The GAA A People’s History Mike Cronin, Mark Duncan and Paul Rouse Ireland without the GAA would be unimaginable. As it moves past its 125th anniversary, this is the story of how it carved for itself a unique place at the heart of Irish life. Here is a people’s history, commissioned by the GAA, outlining how Gaelic games and the social world around them shaped the lives of generations of Irish people at home and abroad. Lavishly illustrated with previously unseen photographs and original historical documents, this is a book to dip into or read through, with absorbing insights into a world that is both uniquely Irish and global. Extract taken from Chapter 10: Hats, Flags and Rosettes When Kildare reached the 1998 All-Ireland football final, whole sections of Croke Park looked as though they were covered in blankets of snow. Men and women of all ages sat resplendent in their Lilywhite jerseys. On the terraces, too, the brilliance of the white jersey eclipsed the maroon worn by the Galway supporters. It was a most striking image, confirmation that the style in the stands at GAA matches had changed dramatically through the 1990s. Where once men and women wore their Sunday best, people of all ages now sported replica 195
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county jerseys. Alongside the county jerseys, a new range of leisurewear was developed: fleeces, raingear, polo shirts, T-shirts. From the start of the 1990s, wearing county colours to social events was the clearest statement of where you were from. In the new millennium, from teenagers at the Oxegen music festival to holidaymakers in the south of Spain, the county jersey has become ubiquitous. This level of commercial activity in the sale of sports clothing places GAA supporters in the same domain as followers of English soccer, American football or, at the global level, the Olympic Games. For counties, sponsorship of jerseys and deals with jersey-makers has netted tens of thousands of euro every year. The growth in media exposure has lent momentum to this process. And, as with much else, what happened first for counties was then adopted by clubs who understand the potential to derive revenue. Club jerseys are now commonplace in towns and villages across Ireland. Dedicated websites selling a range of T-shirts, bearing slogans such as ‘Hendrix was a hurler’ and ‘On the sod’, find a ready market. The wearing of replica jerseys has spun out, in turn, to the sale of retro jerseys. Websites sell jerseys recreated from past eras – the Dublin jersey of the 1920s, Kilkenny in the 1930s and many more. The range of GAA ephemera and collectables on sale reflects the rich material culture of the Association. Jerseys, initially, were not worn by many teams, with the players taking to the field wearing their everyday clothes and with only sashes or hats to distinguish them from their opponents. This quickly changed. The passion in the Victorian era for distinctive sporting clothing was almost immediately adopted by GAA teams. Kilmoyley in Kerry is a case in point. In their first county 196
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final, played against Kenmare (then known as The O’Connells) in 1889, the Kilmoyley players wore saffron jerseys, long pants and multicoloured woollen caps knitted by wives, girlfriends and other female supporters. Early GAA jerseys were usually cut in the same style as the rugby jerseys of the period. It also took several decades for clubs and counties to adopt standard colours. For example, the Thurles team that represented Tipperary in the 1887 All-Ireland hurling final wore a green jersey with a galaxy of stars woven as a crest. In the twentieth century, however, blue became the colour of the Thurles team. Long before a merchandising market bloomed in the purchase of replica jerseys, the sight of hawkers selling ‘hats, flags and rosettes’ outside GAA grounds was a familiar one. Many supporters bought, and countless others made, rosettes and crêpe-paper hats in their county colours. Hugh and Sarah Coughlan from Tallow spent their spare time making paper hats in the 1940s and 1950s to sell to Waterford hurling fans. They recalled that their time was filled with the ‘making and selling of the blue and white of Waterford . . . Crêpe paper hats and the blue running down your jaw if it rained, no refunds mind you’. In time the paper hat gave way to the oversized sombrero. All the while, that most distinctively Irish of sporting phenomena – the woollen headband – grew in popularity. Its presence was not limited to foreheads, but was also wrapped around wrists, hung from necks, and tied to car mirrors and travel bags. * * * The archaeology of Ireland includes old hurleys and horsehair hurling balls, dating back through the centuries, having been preserved in bogs. In the early years of the GAA the equipment 197
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used by hurlers emphasised the sense that hurling was a sport caught between old traditions and new developments. ‘Sceilg’ (politician and author John J. O’Kelly) recalled that on Valentia Island, the hurls would be cut from furze stumps or whatever wood was available in the nearest ditch. By contrast, in Dublin, the journalist and hurler P. P. Sutton wrote of his beautifully grained, nicely varnished, corded-handled hurleys. Sutton also had access to shops selling sliotars, while Sceilg recalled they used to make their sliotars from cattle hair rolled hard into a ball and steeped in gutta percha. He also claimed to have heard of a whale’s eye used as a sliotar. Sometimes, old and new traditions met on the same field. In December 1887, a match in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, saw hurlers use everything from ‘the polished and painted camáns to the less pretentious fir-bush crooks’. Some hurleys simply did not work. During the American Invasion of 1888, a series of hurling exhibition matches drew huge praise in the local press and were reported as creating ‘a veritable hurricane of excitement and applause’. The matches seemed to be anything but exhibitions. For example, in the match in the Manhattan Grounds, there were at least a dozen hurleys broken. Not long into the tour, the hurlers were running out of hurleys and had to get some made for them by the veteran Fenian, Bob Kelly. Unfortunately, the only wood available was hickory. The clash of the hickory did not have quite the same ring to it and in the first skirmish most of the newly made hurleys broke into matchwood. Deciding the type of sliotar to use in hurling matches also created problems. When Michael Cusack invited teams from Tipperary and Galway to play a match in the Phoenix Park in Dublin in February 1886 there was a dispute over the type of 198
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ball that should be used. The Galway men viewed the ball used by the Tipperary men as being too big and too soft. They favoured a ball which was smaller and harder. A key aspect of the modern sports revolution was the standardisation of the equipment used precisely to prevent such disputes. The size and weight of the ball were standardised. In time, handmade ash hurleys also became the standard. The shape and style of the hurley – though regional variations remain – evolved in tandem with changes in the way hurling was played. This has led to the adoption of a stick with a wider, flatter bas than that used by those who played hurling in the 1880s. Footballs, too, have evolved, with the brown lace ball being replaced by the lighter white ball, which is of considerable benefit on a wet day. The art of hurley-making is another matter again. The growth of hurling under the GAA has seen dedicated hurley-makers establish themselves across the country. Family businesses, handed down through the generations, have each developed a style of their own. These businesses develop relationships with clubs and individuals which are based around much more than commerce. The touch, weight, balance and intangible sense of confidence that is vital to any hurler looking for a new hurley brings a uniquely personal element to the purchase. The store a hurler places in finding and keeping a hurley that feels right is underlined by the repeated repairs which are often undertaken. While hurley-makers continue to make some hurleys by hand, many more are now machine-cut and mass-produced. The poor quality of the early mass-produced hurleys was problematic, feeding the belief that handmade hurleys were far superior. Improved technology has redressed that imbalance, but an enduring problem for hurley-makers remains the supply 199
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of good-quality ash. In 1940 a motion was passed by the GAA’s Central Council that a scheme be put in place by the government to plant more ash, a challenge still being met today by the state agency, Coillte. Not everyone believed that such pampering was necessary, or even a good idea. As one delegate told the GAA’s Annual Congress in 1940, ‘when I was growing up they cut their hurleys from the ditches, and they could still do the same’. Extract from The GAA: A People’s History, ISBN 978-1-84889-018-3 © 2009 Mike Cronin, Mark Duncan and Paul Rouse
About the authors Mike Cronin, academic director of Boston College-Ireland, has written widely on Ireland’s history. His books include The Blueshirts and Irish Politics (1997), Sport and Nationalism in Ireland (1999), and Irish History for Dummies (2006). He contributes to radio and television on Irish and sporting history. Mark Duncan is a Research Consultant and Exhibition Co-ordinator. Central in establishing the GAA Museum at Croke Park and a regular current-affairs researcher with RTÉ, he has worked on research projects in Ireland for public and corporate bodies. Paul Rouse, formerly of Prime Time in RTÉ, has written extensively on the history of Irish sport and the GAA. He teaches history at UCD. All are directors of the GAA Oral History Project based at Boston College-Ireland. About the publisher Founded in 1989, The Collins Press publishes a wide range of non-fiction books. Our interests as a publisher are not limited to specific subjects and we have a current output of about thirty titles per year. We published Michael Smith’s bestselling biography, Tom Crean – An Unsung Hero, in 2000, which inspired Guinness adverts, 200
The GAA songs, plays and paintings. Our books range from biographies of GAA stars to histories of the Irish at war, from guides to Ireland’s birds to walking guides and books of maritime interest. Several of our books have been shortlisted for awards and have received critical acclaim. High standards of editing, design and production are essential elements in all of The Collins Press’ products. In 2009 we successfully tendered for the GAA-commissioned book to mark GAA 125, The GAA – A People’s History. Looking ahead to 2010, our list will continue to grow in our chosen subject areas.
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The Liam MacCarthy Cup Sean Óg Ó Ceallacháin and Owen McCann The Liam MacCarthy Cup is one of the most famous trophies in Irish sport. Each year in early September the cup is contested by the two leading hurling counties in the country. First awarded in 1923, Seán Óg Ó Ceallacháin and Owen McCann survey every decade since then, recalling many of the most famous All-Ireland hurling finals. There is nostalgia and excitement in these pages for every lover of the national game. Macmillan
The Liam MacCarthy Cup The trophy for the All-Ireland senior hurling championship commemorates the memory of Liam MacCarthy who was prominently associated with the GAA in London. He was born in London in 1851 to a Bruff (Co. Limerick) mother and Ballygarvan (Co. Cork) father. Liam was distraught when his mother died in 1877. A very special bond had existed between them. From his mother he inherited a deep love of Ireland and all things Irish—its politics, history, language and mythology—and as a result he never forgot his roots. From his father he inherited discipline, organisational ability and a strong sense of duty. In 1890 his father died, at which time Liam had established his own cardboard box manufacturing business, a 202
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trade he had learned from his in-laws. As the business progressed and developed, he formed a company called William MacCarthy and Sons Cardboard Box Factory in Peckham, London. His levels of mental and physical energy were such that he was able to be actively involved in a wide range of activities. He was vice-president of the Gaelic League and gave generous support to Pádraig Pearse’s school, St Enda’s. When the first county board was formed in London in 1895, he was appointed treasurer and became its president three years later. He loved the game of hurling and it wasn’t surprising that he should have donated a trophy for the All-Ireland senior hurling championship. The new trophy was made in Dublin to Liam’s design at a cost of £50—a lot of money at that time. The first winners of the Liam MacCarthy Cup were Limerick in the All-Ireland championship in 1921. They were captained by BobMcConkey and the final was played in March 1923. In 1992, after 70 years of service, the Liam MacCarthy Cup was replaced. The new trophy was an almost exact replica of the original but was heavier. A thicker gauge of silver was used to create the new trophy, and the handles were strengthened to allow for the inevitable wear and tear. Modifications raised the weight from two and a half kilos to nearly four kilos. The height remains at 33 cm and diameter 22 cm. Master craftsman James Mary Kelly, gold and silversmith, Kilkenny, made the new trophy. The last man to receive the old cup was Tipperary captain Declan Carr in 1991. It is now displayed in the Croke Park Museum. Liam Fennelly of Kilkenny has a personal record all his own where the Liam MacCarthy Cup is concerned. In 1983 when Kilkenny won their 23rd All-Ireland crown, he returned to the 203
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Noreside with the original cup. Nine years later, in 1992, Kilkenny won their 24th All-Ireland title. Liam was captain again, and so he collected the new MacCarthy Cup. In so doing he became the only captain in the history of the gaa to have been presented with both cups. LiamMacCarthy, a teetotaller all his life, was in failing health from 1906 onwards and died on 28 September 1928. At Easter 1996, on the occasion of the centenary of the London County Board, a headstone was unveiled over his grave before a distinguished gathering.
Background To The First Final The first Liam MacCarthy Cup game was played at Croke Park on 4 March 1923 and was for the All-Ireland championship of 1921. Dublin were the defending champions and holders of the Great Southern Cup, which until then was the trophy for the All-Ireland senior hurling title winners. They were challenged by Limerick. When the MacCarthy Cup was offered for the championship, and accepted, Dublin became the sole owners of the Great Southern Cup. The day of the first final was bright but cold. Outside Croke Park the bookies were laying the odds, and Dublin were favourites. By then the gaa had barred betting on games inside the ground, but apparently it was possible to engage in betting on the streets around the stadium. Admission to the ground was 1/- (one shilling) and 2/- (two shillings) or 5 cent and ten cent in today’s currency for adults, and 6p (six pence) or 2 cent for schoolboys. The match was timed to start at 3.15 p.m. The ground was in excellent condition and the ‘proceedings were enlivened by the Transport Workers Band and the Artane 204
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Boys Band’, to quote a newspaper report the following day. The match attracted an attendance of 18,000–19,000 and the gate receipts were £1,680. The final was the first between Limerick and Dublin, and a James O’Mara, of the O’Mara Opera Company and a native of Limerick, threw in the ball. The referee was Willie Walsh of Waterford. The umpires were T. McGrath (Clare), E. O’Keeffe (Laois), P. O’Brien (Wexford), then chairman of the Leinster Council, and J. O’Brien (Clare). The linesmen were O’Farrell of Roscommon and P. McFadden of Antrim. Unfortunately the standard of play was not equal to the excitement of the occasion. There was no spectacular overhead play and little clever passing. Limerick were convincing winners, captained by Bob McConkey, ‘the little fellow with the grey cap—the skipper who knows more about finding the net than most’, as a feature in the Irish Independent put it. Dublin’s captain was Bob Mockler, a native of Tipperary. McConkey scored four goals in the final. He was presented at the end of the match with the MacCarthy Cup by Dan McCarthy td, president of the gaa, who did the honours in the absence of the donor. The Irish Independent described the trophy in the sports pages as ‘of racy and costly design’. Elsewhere in the same issue in a feature article on the final, the cup is referred to as a ‘splendid trophy—marred by an English inscription. The first ten minutes of the inaugural final raised expectations of a good struggle as the pace was fast and furious, with play swinging from end to end. But then Limerick took a firm grip on the exchanges and went on to lead by eleven points at the interval, 4-1 to 0-2. Team captain McConkey scored three of the goals. Dublin had the best possible start to the second half when 205
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they scored a goal. However, the Shannonsiders soon regained the initiative and McConkey’s fourth goal of the day powered them on to a convincing 8-5 to 3-2 win. Extract from The Liam MacCarthy Cup, ISBN 978-0-71714-498-3 © Sean Óg Ó Ceallacháin and Owen McCann
About the authors Sean Óg Ó Ceallacháin is a journalist, author and broadcaster. He is the author of the Dubs and Giants of Gaelic Football. He has been broadcasting on RTÉ since 1948 and his Sunday night GAA Results programme is the longest running radio sports programme in the world. Owen McCann has written exclusively on Gaelic games and is the author of Greats of Gaelic Games, Centenary Year 1984 and 1986, Who’s Who in Gaelic Games, The Leesiders Three-in-a Row and Limerick’s Day of Glory. About the publisher In 1856 Michael Henry Gill, who was then printer to Dublin University, purchased the publishing and bookselling business of James McGlashan and formed the company of McGlashan & Gill. In 1875 the name was changed to M.H. Gill & Son. In 1968 Gill & Macmillan was established as a result of an association with Macmillan of London which in turn had been founded in 1843. Thus on its foundation, Gill & Macmillan had almost 250 years of experience and tradition upon which to draw. Today, Gill & Macmillan publishes a wide range of books and materials for different markets and readerships ranging from university & college books, further education & PLC, school as well as general interest non-fiction books.
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Acknowledgements Everyone who worked on this sampler, and on the Great Irish Book Week, deserves thanks and praise as we simply could not have done it without them. We would like to thank: all the publishers who submitted their titles and who got behind the promotion with such enthusiasm; the distributors and sales agents who worked tirelessly to ensure the shops were stocked with the great Irish books (and Irish published books in general), the booksellers who took the idea and ran with it, ensuring that independent Irish publishers were highlighted to the public. We are hugely grateful to John Harold and Gerry Kelly at ColourBooks as well as our funders in Foras na Gaeilge, The Arts Council, Arts Council Northern Ireland and our friends and supporters including our patrons. Thanks also to our media partners who worked with us on the project, and to everyone who contributed in any way. The team of individuals who put the sampler and the promotion together worked tirelessly for months to make it a success. The following people should take a bow: Gert Ackermann, Sheena Boyle, Seamus Cashman, Jean Harrington, Niamh Hatton, Alan Hayes, Mary Healy, Karen Kenny, Ivan O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Peter O’Connell, Dermot O’Dwyer, Eoin Purcell, Jolly Ronan, Gráinne Ross, Clara Schuessler, Fidelma Slattery & Peter Thew.
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