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How free is the Northern Irish writer to produce even a short poem when every word will be scrutinised for its political subtext? Is the visual artist compelled to react to the latest atrocity? Must the creative artist be aware of his or her own inculcated prejudices and political affiliations, and must these be revealed overtly in the artwork? Because of these and other related questions, the recent work by Northern Irish writers and visual artists has been characterised by an inward-looking self-consciousness. It is an art that relays its personal responses in guarded, often coded ways. Characterised by obliquity and self-reflexivity, the art does not simply re-present events and the artis...
This book provides the first complete account of Patrick Pearse's educational work at St. Enda's and St. Ita's schools (Dublin). Extensive use of first-hand accounts reveals Pearse as a humane, energetic teacher and a forward-looking and innovative educational thinker. Between 1903 and 1916 Pearse developed a new concept of schooling as an agency of radical pedagogical and social reform, later echoed by school founders such as Bertrand Russell. This placed him firmly within the tradition of radical educational thought as articulated by Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux. The book examines the tension between Pearse's work and his increasingly public profile as an advocate of physical force separatism and, by employing previously unknown accounts, questions the perception that he influenced his students to become active supporters of militant separatism. The book describes the later history of St. Enda's, revealing the ambivalence of post-independence administrations, and shows how Pearse's work, which has long been neglected by historians, has had a direct influence on a later generation of school founders up to the present.
According to conventional historical wisdom, Irish nationalism in Canada was a marginal phenomenon - overshadowed by the more powerful movement in the United States and eclipsed in Canada by the Orange Order. The nine contributors in this book argue otherwise - and in doing so make a major and original contribution to our understanding of the Irish experience in Canada and the place of Irish-Canadian nationalism within an international context. Focusing on the period 1820 to 1920, they examine political, religious, and cultural expressions of Irish-Canadian nationalism as it responded to Irish events and Canadian politics. They also look at tensions within the movement between those who argu...
As a child, Anthony Sampson was haunted by a family skeleton. He knew his grandfather John Sampson had been an authority on the gypsies. They had called him the Rai - the Master - and had flocked to his magnificent funeral on a Welsh mountain. But of his grandfather's private life he was told nothing, nor of the mysterious aunt who joined the family after his death. In fact only sixty years later did the truth begin to emerge. This book follows a trail of clues to uncover an extraordinary hidden life and a gypsy world now disappeared. John Sampson was a brilliant philologist who, happening to encounter a gypsy tribe in North Wales, compiled over thirty years a dictionary of the Romani langua...
Tracing the development of the Irish Republican Army following Ireland's Declaration of Independence, this book focuses on the recruitment, training, and arming of Ireland's military volunteers and the Army's subsequent guerrilla campaign against British rule. Beginning with a brief account of the failed Easter Rising, it continues through the resulting military and political reorganizations, the campaign's various battles, and the eventual truce agreements and signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Other topics include the significance of Irish intelligence and British counter-intelligence efforts; urban warfare and the fight for Dublin; and the role of female soldiers, suffragists, and other women in waging the IRA's campaign.
The story of the British political system's reaction to the Irish unrest is told, and an important episode in Mr Gladstone's career fully revealed. The agrarian reform of 1870 was not only `the beginning of the undoing of the conquest', it was also a point of departure for British legislation generally. A great deal of evidence is marshalled in the book to support its argument that the Act undermined the conception of property-rights which was central to the self-confidence of the rulers of mid-Victorian Britain. Dr Steele draws on the relatively neglected mass of evidence about the Irish peasantry, their customs and aspirations, collected and printed by British Parliamentary and official investigations during the nineteenth century. He has been able to exploit a wealth of material in the private pipers of Mr Gladstone, his cabinet colleagues and other leading political figures. Selective use has been made of the British and Irish press, to illustrate and emphasize all that was at stake.
This is an authoritative account of the a major, but neglected aspect of the Irish cultural renaissance- prose literature of the Gaelic Revival. The period following the War of Independence and Civil War saw an outpouring of book-length works in Irish from the state publishing agency An Gum. The frequency and production of new plays, both original and translated, have never been approached since. This book investigates all of these works as well as journalism and manuscript material and discusses them in a lively and often humorous manner. -- Publisher description
Remembering the Irish Revolution chronicles the ways in which the Irish revolution was remembered in the first two decades of Irish independence. While tales of heroism and martyrdom dominated popular accounts of the revolution, a handful of nationalists reflected on the period in more ambivalent terms. For them, the freedoms won in revolution came with great costs: the grievous loss of civilian lives, the brutalisation of Irish society, and the loss of hope for a united and prosperous independent nation. To many nationalists, their views on the revolution were traitorous. For others, they were the courageous expression of some uncomfortable truths. This volume explores these struggles over ...
As a working-class Dubliner who played a crucial role in inspiring and leading Dáil Éireann in its formative stages, Arthur Griffith's life and world is one of the greatest windows into understanding the dynamics of the Irish revolution. Owen McGee's authoritative biography is based on fascinating original research and presents a fresh analysis and interpretation of Griffith's life and the economic basis of the political history of the era. Griffith has been typified as 'the last Young Irelander' and Owen McGee's masterly account reflects on this by examining the very different conceptions of Irish nationalism that existed before and after the formation of the Irish state. It also suggests that Griffith's belief in the importance of economic freedoms and the ability of an independent Ireland to provide for its own people, was an ideal that inspired the subsequent evolution of the Irish state.
When the Irish nationalist Michael Collins signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, he observed to Lord Birkenhead that he may have signed his own death warrant. In August 1922 that prophecy came true when Collins was ambushed, shot and killed by a compatriot, but his vision and legacy lived on. Tim Pat Coogan's biography presents the life of a man whose idealistic vigor and determination were matched by his political realism and organizational abilities. This is the classic biography of the man who created modern Ireland.