Category: Books

I love reading history. And when it comes to history, you can’t often beat a first-person account. I have read a couple of different “Eyewitness to..” type of history books, which are compilations of first-person historical accounts. And so on my current quest for reading about Ireland, I was happy to find ‘Eyewitness to Irish History’. Of the Ireland books I’ve read so far, this was easily my favorite. From Ancient Ireland to recent history of the 90s, the historical accounts in this book give you a front row seat. And interspersed among them are very helpful, context providing text. Here’s one example, describing the aftermath of The Battle of the Boyne.

Althought the conflict at the Boyne was not a significant victory in military terms, for the Jacobite army was able to withdraw, regroup, and fight on for another year, James panicked and fled from Ireland back to St. Germain in France, earning him the title among the Irish of Seamus an Chaca (James the

One moving account is from the diary of Gerald Keegan, an immigrant who recounts setting out for Canada just days after his wedding in 1847, and the tragedy of their trip on what came to be known as a ‘Coffin Ship’ due to the suffering, disease and death that was so pervasive on them. His wife did not survive the trip, and Gerald lived only a few days after arriving in Canada, where he gave his journal to his Uncle, telling him, “It will tell to those unborn what Irishmen and women have suffered in this summer of sorrow.”

And more than any of the history I’ve so far read of Ireland, these accounts brought home the shocking degrees of suffering and oppression that the Irish have suffered for centuries under the English. From evictions, starvation, murder, slavery, deportation… there’s little the Irish haven’t suffered at the hands of the English. It’s a painful history captured in the books final sentences;

James Joyce, in Ulysses, was expressing the feellings of most Irish people when he caused his hero, Stephen Dedalus, to observe: “History is the nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” It is a nightmare from which Ireland is still struggling to awake.

This is an excellent read that I recommend to anyone interested in Irish history.

I love maps, always have. I can spend hours pouring over maps of places both strange and familiar, and I often do (usually with no idea where ‘I’ am). And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a map must likewise be worth at least several hundred. So when I found this book on the shelf at a used book store in Manassas, it was a easy decision to tuck it under my arm with plans to bring it home with me.

Starting with a map of Celtic Ireland dating back to the Iron Age, and progressing through centuries of Viking, Norman, and English invaders, and reaching up to Ireland in the ’90s, each page offers a map of Ireland and one-page of text on a particular era. By itself, the text would be something like a Cliff-Notes version of Irish History, but the complementary maps make all the difference. It’s still a quick skim and fast read, but one that makes up what it lacks in words with some really great maps that give a birds-eye view of Ireland’s history.

It would be easy to imagine a book with a title like the one this has, would be a dry and dull academic volume. It is anything but. The book does cover ‘2500 years of Irish history through the lives of some fifty people’, the author succeed in his stated goal of sharing this history as ‘a collection of stories that one might share across a kitchen table about people we once knew.’ The people in the stores range from characters in Irish mythology, to leaders in Ireland’s fight for independence, to the lead singer of the Irish rock group U2, Bono.

This was a very fast read, as each of the stories typically ran just a few pages, so it was always easy to keep on reading late and night and agree with myself to stop for the night after ‘just one more’. And by the end I was left feeling exactly as Malachy intended, as if I had spent a very late night, listening to him tell these stories across a kitchen table. This was a great read and one I’d recommend to anyone wo is interested in Irish history.

I was really enjoying this book a few weeks ago, when I ran into an unusual hurdle. When I reached the second photo section and tried to continue reading on the other side, I lost all track of the story. Dick Tracy that I am, I quickly found the cause, the pages after the photo section picked up about 40 pages after where they had left off. Someone drinking on the job at the publishing house I suppose. Regardless, I was enjoying the read enough to get back to Borders and order up a replacement copy.

The premise of the book is an interesting one, as it all springs from a drunken bet. Tony Hawks (a British comic, not the skateboarder), told some friends at a party of having once seen a man hitchhiking in Ireland with a full size refrigerator. He got a skeptical reply, offered a drunken boast, and the next day woke up with a hangover and a signed note by which he had accepted a bet of 100 pounds that he could not hitchhike around the entire Emerald Isle with a fridge in tow. His route was flexible, with the only condition being that he visit a specific coastal island at the norther and southern ends of the country.

The book is a fun read. Tony comes off as a friendly and likable guy, the sort you’d enjoy having a few pints with in an Irish pub, quizzing him on exactly why it was he was traveling around Ireland with a fridge. And the locals welcomed him with generosity and admiration for his undertaking such a fine, pointless excursion.

We won’t be taking a fridge with us on our trip. But Tony’s travel tales were entertaining, and it’s hard not to respect someone who follows through on even their most outrageous drunken bets.

This wasn’t the first of my growing collection of Ireland related books that I started, but it was an easy first across the finish line. Part personal history, part Irish history, and part travelogue, Frank Gannon’s book Midlife Irish is a tremendously enjoyable read that I recommend to anyone interested in Ireland. Gannon was a 40-something, first-generation Irish American, who after both of his parents passed away set out to learn more about his own ‘Irishness’ and his parent’s seldom spoken about homeland.

This was really an ideal read for me, as I find myself in a similar place as Gannon did. My own Irish history is much more distant that his, I’m the fourth-generation since my Great Great Grandfather Michael Casey immigrated to Chicago from County Limerick, and happily my parents are still with us. But like Gannon I’m also recently curious about my family history, and planning my first trip to Ireland with hopes of exploring my ‘Irishness’ and touring a country that has intrigued me my whole life. The book offered many humorous insights into the Irish character, useful history that explains this unique character, and thoughtful reflection on family and personal history.

You don’t have to be Midlife Irish or even planning a trip to Ireland to enjoy this book. But if you are, it’s certainly a must read.

If you pay any attention to the ‘What I’m Reading’ block in the right column of my blog, then you can probably see a pattern among my current selections. Yes, they are all related to Ireland. I’m doing my homework in preparation for a planned trip there this spring. And so I’m looking for good books on the subject; histories, travel tales, guidebooks, and anything that my help me make the most of our coming visit. Suggestions are welcome, and I’ll write my reviews of each of them as I finish them.

OK, so I’ve been WAY behind on writing up anything about what I’m reading. This post has been sitting in my ‘drafts’ folder for months, where it began as a posting on summer reading. But with the New Year looming I need to clear the decks and admit that neither time nor memory will allow me to post any useful individual reviews on these books. So I’ll say only that I enjoyed and recommend each of them to any who may interested. Give one of them a try in 2007.