In a book unprecedented in its scope and approach, Declan Kiberd offers a vivid account of the personalities and texts, English and Irish alike, that reinvented the country after centuries of colonialism. The result is a major literary history of modern Ireland, combining detailed and daring interpretations of literary masterpieces with assessments of the wider role of language, sport, clothing, politics, and philosophy in the Irish revival.In dazzling comparisons with the experience of other postcolonial peoples, the author makes many overdue connections. Rejecting the notion that artists such as Wilde, Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett became modern to the extent that they made themselves "European," he contends that the Irish experience was a dramatic instance of experimental modernity and shows how the country's artists blazed a trail that led directly to the magic realism of a Garc a M rquez or a Rushdie. Along the way, he reveals the vital importance of Protestant values and the immense contributions of women to the enterprise. Kiberd's analysis of the culture is interwoven with sketches of the political background, bringing the course of modern Irish literature into sharp relief against a tragic history of conflict, stagnation, and change.Inventing Ireland restores to the Irish past a sense of openness that it once had and that has since been obscured by narrow-gauge nationalists and their polemical revisionist critics. In closing, Kiberd outlines an agenda for Irish Studies in the next century and detects the signs of a second renaissance in the work of a new generation of authors and playwrights, from Brian Friel to the younger Dublin writers.

    More than 300 traditional dishes, each recipe is complemented by tips, tales, historical insights and common Irish customs, many of which have been passed down from one generation to the next through the greatest of oral traditions.

    His journeys took him from the back kitchens of Belfast, where men joked while making two-thousand-pound bombs, to prisons for interviews with men serving life sentences, and to the graveyards where mourners weep. Each chapter explores a world where history, faith, and human savagery determine life and death. At once moving and harrowing, Rebel Hearts is the most authoritative and insightful book ever written on the IRA.

    Annie Proulx) whose “melancholy beauty resonates with the deepest truths” (Boston Globe).

    During a police investigation (concluded in 1996), however, the author admitted that his claims were untrue. The investigation proved that the book was fraudulent, that the purported SAS "execution squads" did not exist, and that the book is not a memoir but a "work of fiction."'Paul Bruce' was the pseudonym of Paul Inman, a former mechanic in the British Army's Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, and he was never a member of the SAS (Special Air Service). 'The Nemesis File: The True Story of an SAS Execution Squad,' therefore, is a work of sensational fiction which only served to exacerbate the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland through which Inman and the publisher (John Blake, a former tabloid editor) could financially profit.

    Features a teaser chapter from Uris's long-awaited new hardcover novel, A God in Ruins.

    He examines the reasons for -- and the snowballing reactions to -- the introduction of British forces to the streets of Derry and Belfast. Photos bring the events and personalities sharply into focus as he insightfully probes the spread of IRA violence to key locations in Britain, and the responses of the British government, its troops, and various Union organizations.In this new edition, Coogan discusses the continuing argument over weapons, the resumed IRA bombings in February 1996, and the significance of recent elections. Having gained the confidence of the combatants, he presents exclusive interviews and examines the prospects for peace."Coogan fills this book with quotes, personal reportage, and wry wit.... This title should be part of any history or current events collection". -- Library Journal Starred Review

    Now three of her finest, most memorable works have been brought together for the first time in an outstanding collection that shines with the luminescent storytelling that has earned the author international renown.THE LILAC BUSFeaturing two novellas, "The Lilac Bus" and "Dublin 4," this national bestseller showcases Binchy's talents at their finest. In "The Lilac Bus, " Binchy masterfully and poignantly interweaves the lives and fates of eight very different individuals who travel from Dublin to the Irish country town of Rathdoon every Friday night in a lilac-colored minibus. In "Dublin 4," a quartet of stories vividly portrays the quiet desperation and everyday heroism of ordinary people living ordinary lives in contemporary Ireland.FIREFLY SUMMERWhen American millionaire Patrick O'Neill comes to Mountfern in the fateful summer of 1962 to convert a dilapidated manor house into a luxury hotel, his intrusion turns life in the small Irish village upside down. The ensuing conflict between new money and old traditions, which strains families and friendships to the breaking point, is brilliantly explored in this truly unforgettable family drama that will live in your heart long after the last page is turned.SILVER WEDDINGGuilty secrets from the past and plaguing fears in the present surface when sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, and friends and lovers reunite to celebrate Desmond and Deirdre Doyle's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Among the difficulties the Doyles must come to terms with: the daughter struggling to become a nun, the son who prefers the dreary farm in Ireland to life in London, and the enviable successes of their best man and bridesmaid.

    In their fourth book, Williams and Breen, the authors of O Come Ye Back to Ireland, When Summer's in the Meadow, and The Pipes Are Calling chronicle their life and adventure in this beautiful country, where fewer and fewer Irish men and women are lucky enough to be able to live.

    Even the experienced player may not "get it" on first reading a given tune, but "You can expect to enjoy the process of learning... [and experience] the joy of recreating a traditional tune, of making it your own." This is the teacher/ student pact in effect throughout this marvelous book, written for the literary as much as the musical connoisseur. Although no classical violin experience is needed, you will need to know how to hold the fiddle and bow, and be able to play at least simple tunes in the first position. Having the ability to read music will enable you to follow the bowing patterns and left-hand techniques which the author feels are crucial in grasping the playing style.

    His defence was that he was attempting to exorcise a fairy possession first by gentle means and finally by fire.

    Strengthened by a fearful and superstitious populace, the Church is seeking to harness a decaying Holy Roman Empire by asserting its absolute authority in interpreting the will of God. Aileran, a monk perceived as saintly, takes issue with the Church and is accused of heresy. Based on real events, places, and people, In the Falcon's Claw magically evokes the political and pastoral landscapes of tenth-century while exploring love, friendship and timeless spiritual and religious questions.

    Cheng argues that Joyce wrote insistently from the perspective of a colonial subject of an oppressive empire, and demonstrates how Joyce's texts constitute a significant political commentary on British imperialism in Ireland and on colonial discourses and ideologies in general. This is a groundbreaking study of the century's most internationally influential fiction writer, and of his powerful representations of the cultural dynamics of race, power, and empire.

    In the three celebrated sequences comprised in Part 1, in the individual love poems of Part 2, and in the new sequences of Part 3, Montague’s rare lyric gift serves a strong narrative impulse, and brings his strong love of place and keen ear and eye to Northern Ireland, Cork, Dublin, Paris, and North and Midwest America. Finally, he has written love poetry as poignant as any in our time.

    First published in 1907, it has never been surpassed as the standard reference for traditional musicians. Indeed, it has circulated so widely over the years that it has become known as "The Book" — a virtual bible for all those who love Irish traditional music.

    Contains: over 60,000 translations; full treatment of all the essential vocabulary of Irish and English; guide to Irish grammar; attractive, user-friendly layout.

    In the first part are poems of great satirical comedy and also of great passion and indignation, and in the second part, poems about the break-up of a marriage so intense they would hurt if they weren't also possessed of the healing gifts of truthfulness and humour. In The Berlin Wall Caf� Durcan has located that space between the walls and barriers societies and individuals erect - a no-man's-land of the free imagination where we meet as the vulnerable and comical human beings we are. It contains some of his very best work.

    The enormous talent of celebrated Irish Padraic Fallon is demonstrated in this volume, which includes early poems (1930-1945), poems of maturity (1946-1959), late poems (1960-1974), and poems from plays, translations, and versions of Homeric Hymns and Ballads.

    Being the texts of the Ogham tract from the Book of Ballymote and the Yellow Book of Lecan, and the text of the Trefhocul from the Book of Leinster.

    It draws on contemporary diaries, letters and reports to present a history of the United Irishmen rising in the North.

    The human toll of Black '47, the worst year of the famine, is notorious, but the lives of the emigrants themselves have remained largely hidden, untold because of their previous obscurity and deep poverty. In The End of Hidden Ireland, Scally brings their lives to light. Focusing on the townland of Ballykilcline in Roscommon, Scally offers a richly detailed portrait of Irish rural life on the eve of the catastrophe. From their internal lives and values, to their violent conflict with the English Crown, from rent strikes to the potato blight, he takes the emigrants on each stage of their journey out of Ireland to New York. Along the way, he offers rare insights into the character and mentality of the immigrants as they arrived in America in their millions during the famine years. Hailed as a distinguished work of social history, this book also is a tale of adventure and human survival, one that does justice to a tragic generation with sympathy but without sentiment.

    Heathcliff and the Great Hunger examines Irish culture from Swift to Joyce, in the light of the tortuous, often tragic, history that conditioned it.

    They depict him at work, reading, with his wife Nora and with his friends and admirers, including the tenor John Sullivan, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Madox Brown.

    Their mother is seriously injured and their Dad is away fighting, so the children are sent to their grandfather in Ireland. Sophie is scared - they have never met grandfather but his letters cause such trouble in the house, and their Dad never speaks of him.How will they live in a strange country, with a man who probably hates them - and will the family ever be together again?

    The narrative proceeds almost on an hour-by-hour basis building up a picture which, while immensely detailed, is none the less presented with the greatest clarity.First published in 1964, "The Easter Rebellion" quickly established itself as the outstanding narrative history of the 1916 Rising in Ireland. It provides an objective and exciting appraisal of what was perhaps the most decisive week in the making of modern Ireland.The story unfolds as a vivid and explosive drama, building up a picture which never loses its sense of narrative urgency. Most of all, the author was able to interview many of the surviving participants - something denied to all subsequent accounts of the Rising.

    The author claims that sectarianism dominated women's philanthropic activity, and analyzes the work of women in areas of moral reform, such as prostitution and prison work. The book concludes that the most progressive developments in the care of the poor were brought about by nonconformist women who were later to become pioneers in the cause of suffrage.

    Within a broad political framework it explores the nature of Irish society, the spiritual and secular roles of the Church and the extraordinary flowering of Irish culture in the period. Other major themes are Ireland's relations with Britain and continental Europe, and Vikings and their influence, the beginnings of Irish feudalism, and the impact of the Viking and Norman invaders. Splendid in sweep and lively in detail, it launches the newLongman History of Ireland in fine style.

    Kelly's exquisite color photographs reveal a modern Irish landscape filled with magical echoes of history and ancient legends.

    Here is a list of good-luck charms, spells, soothsayings and other irrational but charming and creative folk beliefs. Here we have leprechauns and sprites, ghosts, the evil eye and wise women's curses. There are charms and spells to make the crops grow, to keep cattle healthy, to ensure safe childbirth, and many other longed-for desires. Most superstitions are of pagan origin; many were overlaid with popular Christian belief.

    Serving with infectious enthusiasm as guides are Paul and Jeanne Rankin, long known in Europe as Ireland's most talented chefs.