With these metaphors in place, he makes clear his difficult poetic task: to delve into the past, both personal and historic, while remaining ever mindful of the potentially fatal power of language.Born and raised in Northern Ireland, where any hint of Gaelic tradition in one's speech was considered a political act, Heaney is all too aware of the dire consequences of speaking one's mind. Indeed, during times of crisis, he has been expected to appear on television and dispense political wisdom. Most often, however, he stays out of the fray and opts for a supreme sense of empathy to guide his words. As excavator--of earth, of his beloved Gaelic, of his own life--Heaney is unmatched. In "Bone Dreams", the archaeologist's task is synonymous with reaching for a cultural past: I push back through dictions, Elizabethan canopies, Norman devices, the erotic mayflowers of Provence and the ivied Latins of churchmen to the scop's twang, the iron flash of consonants cleaving the line.And in early poems like "Blackberry Picking", Heaney's images--deftly, delightfully--carry us back to childhood fields: At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam pots Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots. Round hayfields, cornfields and potato drills We trekked and picked until the cans were full... Opened Ground is a pleasure and a triumph. These three decades of work confirm Heaney as one of the most important poets of his time. --Martha Silano

    To the IRA, he was a trusted intelligence officer and an integral member of an active-service unit. To the British Government, however, he was known only as 'Agent Carol'. McGartland is credited by British Intelligence with having saved the lives of at least fifty people. Working within the ruthless network of the IRA, every time he tipped off the authorities, he saved a life, but with each success came a higher risk of detection. He continued to pass on life-saving information until, one day, his cover was blown. . .

    No one is more excited than Cripple Billy, an unloved boy whose chief occupation has been grazing at cows and yearning for a girl who wants no part of him. For Billy is determined to cross the sea and audition for the Yank. And as news of his audacity ripples through his rumor-starved community, The Cripple of Inishmaan becomes a merciless portrayal of a world so comically cramped and mean-spirited that hope is an affront to its order.

    It was a time when English landlords held power over Irish tenant farmers and seeds of bitterness were sown that would last for generations.In an endeavor to eliminate all influences of Irish heritage, the English forced an intellectual and spiritual bondage on Ireland as well as a bitter physical bondage of servitude. Freedom had become so rare that the Irish coined a saying, "In Ireland only the rivers run free." Yet one poor, befuddled old woman speaks of freedom, truth, and hope. Mad Molly Fahey promises the priest and villages that a miracle is on its way.

    This book is the true account of the small-town violence and terror which lies behind the headlines.

    Based on the television documentary series of the same name, the author charts the history of the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein.

    The first comprehensive selection of Kavanagh's poetry to be published, this volume offers a timely reassessment of a poet unfairly neglected outside Ireland.

    Bombs and guns were, and once again are, the primary negotiation tools used by Catholic and Protestant extremists in the conflict surrounding the sovereignty of Northern Ireland—the six counties known as Ulster.Patrick Taylor's Only Wounded centers on the hopes and despairs of everyday life during these new Troubles. New York Times bestselling author Patrick Taylor traces an intricate narrative path through Ulster, detailing sensitive, unbiased portraits of the ordinary—and not so ordinary—people caught in the partisan brutality of Northern Ireland.

    The narrator is the elderly Victor Maskell, formerly of British intelligence, for many years art expert to the Queen. Now he has been unmasked as a Russian agent and subjected to a disgrace that is almost a kind of death. But at whose instigation?As Maskell retraces his tortuous path from his recruitment at Cambridge to the airless upper regions of the establishment, we discover a figure of manifold doubleness: Irishman and Englishman; husband, father, and lover of men; betrayer and dupe. Beautifully written, filled with convincing fictional portraits of Maskell's co-conspirators, and vibrant with the mysteries of loyalty and identity, The Untouchable places John Banville in the select company of both Conrad and le Carre.Winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction"Contemporary fiction gets no better than this... Banville's books teem with life and humor." - Patrick McGrath, The New York Times Book Review"Victor Maskell is one of the great characters in recent fiction... The Untouchable is the best work of art in any medium on [its] subject." -Washington Post Book World"As remarkable a literary voice as any to come out of Ireland; Joyce and Beckett notwithstanding." -San Francisco Chronicle

    Sparrow's dream is the World Lightweight Championship. But when he finally has it in his grasp he can't deliver the finishing punch. Sparrow's life falls apart, and fifteen years later he's a bum, a loser. Then something happens that convinces him that there are still things worth fighting for ...

    The first edition of Eyewitness Bloody Sunday brought to light 100 witness statements that were officially ignored for more than two decades. This book had a phenomenal and far-reaching impact, profoundly weakening the official version of the events of January 30, 1972. In addition to giving a voice to the civilian demonstrators who witnessed the events of Bloody Sunday, it exposed facts supporting the hypothesis that snipers in the vicinity of the old Derry Walls might have shot dead three of the victims. With the Saville inquiry now into its second year of investigations, this book has become a pivotal source of firsthand evidence about what really happened on that tragic day.

    This biography charts the dramatic rise of the country boy who became head of the Free State and commander-in-chief of the army, before his death in 1922 aged only 31.

    Blending personal stories into his account, Milotte reveals how the state colluded with Church agencies to facilitate the export of 'illegitimate' children, and how a black market existed in which Irish babies changed hands beyond the fringes of the official 'export scheme'. In this hard-hitting book, Mike Milotte explains in vivid detail how thousands of babies came to be exiled.

    "The Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape" has harnessed the expertise of dozens of specialists to produce an exciting and pioneering study which aims to increase understanding and appreciation for the landscape as an important element of Irish national heritage, and to provide a much needed basis for an understanding of landscape conservation and planning.Essentially cartographic in approach, the Atlas is supplemented by diagrams, photographs, paintings, and explanatory text. Regional case studies, covering the whole of Ireland from north to south, are included, along with historical background. The impact of human civilization upon Ireland's geography and environment is well documented, and the contributors to the Atlas deal with contemporary changes in the landscape resulting from developments in Irish agriculture, forestry, bog exploitation, tourism, housing, urban expansion, and other forces."The Atlas of the Rural Irish Landscape" is a book which aims to educate and inform the general reader and student about the relationship between human activity and the landscape. It is a richly illustrated, beautifully written, and immensely authoritative work that will be the guide to Ireland's geography for many years to come.

    This outstanding collection of distinctive designs features a rich and diverse variety of patterns, which can be used as borders or individually.

    Probes the shadowy world of the right-wing forces that plotted the 1983 referendum on abortion and the 1992 Maastricht Protocol to deny women reproductive rights.

    He tells of his family's self-sufficiency in the country, weaving personal memories and reflections into nature's annual cycle.

    Joanne Findon analyses the representation of Emer, the wife of the great Irish hero Cu Chulainn, in four linked medieval Irish tales, and discusses Emer's ability to use powerful, effective words to change her fictional world and the audience's reading of that fictional world.A Woman's Words considers Emer as a literary figure rather than a mythic archetype or a reflection of a pre-Christian Celtic goddess. Emer and the narratives she inhabits are discussed as literary constructs, and are considered within the historical and legal milieu in which these tales were told, recorded, and read. Findon places Emer within the wider context of medieval literature in general as an unusual and compelling example of a heroic secular woman, married and fully integrated into her aristocratic society and yet capable of speaking out against its abuses. Her freedom to speak and be heard is remarkable in the light of prevalent later medieval impulses to silence women.By employing speech act theory to analyse Emer's discourse, and by viewing and interpreting the texts through the lens of current feminist criticism, Joanne Findon seeks to bring Middle Irish literature into the arena of current debates, particularly among feminist medievalists, and to offer a new approach to reading female characters in medieval Irish literature.

    In a risky plan to free her kidnapped lover, Oonagh cleverly solves the evil pirate king's riddles, unites the princess Ethne with her lover, and invents sails.

    In a carnival atmosphere, a peaceful anti-internment march began, only to end tragically a few hours later when thirteen unarmed marchers were shot dead by the British Army.Within days of the killings, more than 500 eyewitness testimonies were recorded to be presented to a British Tribunal by the National Civil Rights Association. The Widgery Tribunal, ignoring the evidence, produced a report that cleared the British Army of any responsibility, again making a mockery of British justice as practiced in Northern Ireland.Don Mullan's meticulous research has seriously undermined the official British version of events. The Irish government and many U.S. congressmen have stated that these discoveries warrant the re-opening of the Bloody Sunday inquiry.No truth is as powerful as witnessed truth, and the witnesses to the massacre tell a dramatic human story of tragedy, brutality and heroism. Bloody Sunday revisits more than 100 of these accounts--published here for the first time.

    Ireland's Love Poems highlights one country's extraordinary poetic tradition, in both the English and Irish languages, by male and female poets, both ancient and modern. Emotions of every kind are embodied in this celebration of love's pleasures and pains, in forms ranging from complex ancient Irish ballads to forthright contemporary feminist verse. These poems consider romance in all its stages: from the thrills of young love to the commitments of marriage, from grief to amorous rebirth, from affection to idolatry. The result is a cumulative portrait of love that mirrors Irish history in its complexity.Included in this diverse selection are Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, Samuel Beckett, Patrick Kavanagh, Thomas Kinsella, Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney, Medbh McGuckian, Paul Muldoon, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

    Featuring original work from noted Irish-American personalities, including Pete Hamill, Mary Higgins Clark, Malachy McCourt, and Maeve Binchy, it paints a vivid picture of the Irish-American experience of the past 150 years in selections whose themes are taken from the most important institutions of Irish life.

    It is the site of St Patrick's confrontation with the druids and seat of the High Kings. Legend and history meet in Tara - the Stone of Destiny, which cries out only when touched by a true king, still sits at its summit. Centuries after Tara had been abandoned by Irish rulers, it was chosen as the rallying point for the United Irishmen of the 1798 rebellion. Daniel O'Connell, The Liberator, relied on its power in the 19th century to draw a record attendance to a Home Rule meeting. Today over 30,000 people visit Tara each year.

    Patrick to the epic tales about the warrior Cu Chulainn. These texts, written in both Latin and Irish, constitute an adventurous and productive experiment in staging confrontations between the written and the spoken, the Christian and the pagan. The early Irish literati, primarily clerics living within a monastic milieu, produced literature that included saints' lives, heroic sagas, law tracts, and other genres. They sought to invest their literature with an authority different from that of the traditions from which they borrowed, native and foreign. To achieve this goal, they cast many of their texts as the outcome of momentous dialogues between saints and angelic messengers or remarkable interviews with the dead, who could reveal some insight from the past that needed to be rediscovered by forgetful contemporaries. Conversing with angels and ancients, medieval Irish writers boldly inscribed their visions of the past onto the new Christian order and its literature. Nagy includes portions of the original Latin and Irish texts that are not readily available to scholars, along with full translations.

    

    The author traces events from the cicil rights movement in 1968 to the height of the Troubles in 1972 and examines the conditions created for a protracted confrontation.

    The case in point is the working-class Catholic resistance to British rule in Northern Ireland. During the 1970s women in Catholic/nationalist districts of Belfast organized themselves into street committees and led popular forms of resistance against the policies of the government of Northern Ireland and, after its demise, against those of the British. In the abundant literature on the conflict, however, the political tactics of nationalist women have passed virtually unnoticed. Bego�a Aretxaga argues here that these hitherto invisible practices were an integral part of the social dynamic of the conflict and had important implications for the broader organization of nationalist forms of resistance and gender relationships.Combining interpretative anthropology and poststructuralist feminist theory, Aretxaga contributes not only to anthropology and feminist studies but also to research on ethnic and social conflict by showing the gendered constitution of political violence. She goes further than asserting that violence affects men and women differently by arguing that the manners in which violence is gendered are not fixed but constantly shifting, depending on the contingencies of history, social class, and ethnic identity. Thus any attempt at subverting gender inequality is necessarily colored by other dimensions of political experience.

    This inspirational lifestyle book includes photos and short essays to record Darina's garden and landscape achievements as well as to record the changing scenery around Ballymaloe. As we pass through the seasons from spring toward winter we are offered more than 125 recipes for classic Irish dishes that reflect the fertility and diversity of Ballymaloe's gardens. More than just another cookbook, Ballymaloe Seasons focuses on creative new ways to prepare and present meals, while inspiring readers to grow, harvest, and delight in good produce.

    

    This omnibus of selected short fiction is the perfect introduction to the talents of this Irish successor to James Joyce and Samuel Beckett (although Higgins's work is perhaps more reminiscent of his Welsh contemporary Dylan Thomas), and displays Higgins's warmth of language and character. From a melancholy tale of suicide in "North Salt Holdings" to a colorful depiction of J. J. Catchpole's escapades in "Catchpole, " Higgins builds his characters into touching failures who both attract and repulse the reader.

    Propositional Logic is explored through using Semantic Tableaux, Natural Deduction and the Sequent Calculus. More formal axiomatic systems are examined and illustrated, and important theorems about these systems are presented. Properties of soundness, completeness and consistency are explained in terms of Propositional Systems; then concepts of resolution are introduced, with an eye towards their use in programming. The book then turns to First Order Predicate Logic, its theoretical underpinnings and uses.Undergraduate computer science and logic courses.

    The overlapping areas of contagious disease, slum housing, and the support of the poorest form the three main areas of analysis. These issues are explored on scales varying from city-wide to the local street or court, while the final case study examines the dynamic nature of slum creation and efforts at relief and reform, in the particular context of the north city parishes of St. Mary's and St. Michan's. Now back in print, Dublin Slums 1800-1925 was awarded as a Choice Outstanding Academic Book 1998, as well as being a NUI winner of the Irish Historical Research Prize 1997-1998.

    The basic idea of the practice in County Cork was the same throughout the country: the bonding of labouring men and women to farmers for a fixed term at a paltry rate.

    With more than 125 recipes, this is a celebration of fresh produce and good food. We are guided through the seasons, meeting the local producers and the school's animals. This book is an invaluable guide to making the best of seasonal produce.

    Each title begins with an introduction to the history and culture, then offers over 100 authentic recipes with helpful glossary and tips. Throughout the books, the recipes are illustrated with beautiful color photography paired with evocative black-and-white images of the people and countryside. A unique collection of culinary and cultural lore, as delicious as it is fascinating!

    He traces Collins' career from his schooldays to his tragic death at the age of 31, through a series of edited extracts from Collins' writings, speeches, letters and memoranda.

    

    D-Day! It's happened. At last. My heart has beaten like a slow drum in my chest the whole day without cease since we heard the news. A most extraordinary reaction. Who is on the landing beaches - some getting killed this instant - men we've danced with maybe. Longlegs? Sure to be there. What about Anton? l haven't heard from him for a long time, nor he from me, I admit it. Armadas of ships of every size and kind are in action off France today. Joe doesn't know when his outfit is to pull out. We kept feeling each other's hearts tonight because we were so astonished they wouldn't stop that slow excitement/dread thumping.'. From Belfast to Berlin, this captivating diary traces one Dublin woman's vivid depiction of her life as a soldier. The immediacy and adventure of army life, the excitement of wartime Europe, poignant letters from soldier boyfriends who would never return from battle. Amidst all of this, the fun and friendship of Romie and her companions - a happy-go-lucky gang of young women embarking upon life in a man's world. Army dances packed with eager GIs: war-weary colonels and majors who softened to chat with the young Irishwoman driving them across battle-scarred Europe: 'displaced persons' and concentration camp victims trekking for hundreds of miles to find their former homes... Romie Lambkin's compelling diary tells a singular story.

    There is less consensus about the economic performance since then, though the ability of the South to sustain a significant population increase for the first time since the Great Famine may reflect relative success.

    Throughout her long life she was a committed champion of Belfast's poor.

    His characteristically original observations and thrilling word plays, rooted here deep in the elemental beauty of the landscape and in its history, literature and mythology, are thrown into high relief by Bill Doyle's pictorial record of Dingle, its surrounding townlands, and the Blasket islands.

    Examines the historiography of the Irish Famine and its relevance now, in the context of the longer-term relationship between England and Ireland.

    No

    Breaking substantial new ground, both for her own work and for the short story form, this collection triumphantly confirms Ni Dhuibhne's place as one of the most questing and courageous voices in modem Irish fiction.

    Well know artists such as James Barry, David Wilkie and Jack Yeats feature, but more in the context of how they referred to Ireland in their work than in terms of overall assessment of their works.