Dublin: The Chaos Years by Neil Cotter (Penguin Ireland, €18) This is a refreshingly honest account of the interactions between the managers, players and fans of the Dublin senior football team from 1996 to 2010. It records the behind-the-scenes abuse, backchat, disloyalty and other challenges faced by the managers of that period. Pat O’Neill led the…
Falling for a Farmer by Maura McElhone (Mercier Press, €14.99) In this beautifully written memoir Maura McElhone presents a perceptive mirror both to life on the farm and life in 21st-Century Ireland. This she achieves in a romantic tale about herself and a farmer, named Jack. Maura, a native of Portstewart in Co. Derry, was educated…
Game Changer by Cora Staunton with Mary White (Transworld Ireland, €28.00) While Cora Staunton is well-known for her skill and prowess on GAA playing-fields, little is known about her life beyond football or her private persona. That deficit is rectified in this frank autobiography. Cora recalls her early years as she was raised in a small…
The GAA and the War of Independence by Tim Pat Coogan (Head of Zeus/an Apollo Book, £20.00) The Gaelic Athletic Assoc–iation (GAA) promotes, across the whole island of Ireland, Gaelic football, hurling, ladies’ Gaelic football, camogie and handball. However, it does not concern itself solely with organising these sports. With the Irish language, Irish music and…
A Century of Politics in the Kingdom: A County Kerry Compendium by Owen O’Shea and Gordon Revington (Merrion Press, €19.95) This is a comprehensive account of local politics and the democratic process in Co. Kerry across more than two centuries. It covers in fact the rise of modern democracy in Ireland, and its preservation, often against…
The Martins of Lisieux by Michael O’Connell (St Thérèse National Office, 56 Angier Street, Dublin 2, €5.00; contact Pat Sweeney at 086-819-8186) This brochure is a work of pietas by a devotee of St Thérèse. The beautifully illustrated booklet is in two parts, the first concerns the grave of the saint, the second the burial place of the…
The Earls of Castlehaven: Lord Audleys of Cork and Kildare by Michael Christopher Keane (ISBN 9781527230026; obtainable from all branches of O’Mahonys Booksellers, €20.00, tel. +353 – 614-18155; or directly from the author at Farran, Ovens, Co. Cork). The subtitle to this book promises “War & Sex, Corruption & Land, from the battle of Kinsale…
Fireside Miscellany: A collection of Irish Memories, Meanderings and History by Denis O’Higgins (available from Eason Monaghan and other outlets, €10.00) This is a collection of delightful short stories, such as we would expect to find in an issue of Ireland’s Own. They reveal that the author was born and raised on a small farm in…
Stand Up and Fight: When Munster Beat the All Blacks by Alan English (Yellow Jersey Press, €14.00 / £9.99) Presently the Irish team is enjoying first place in the pecking-order of world rugby. This has not resulted from a meteoric rise from rags to riches. For decades rugby has been played in Ireland to a high…
Nano Nagle: The life and the Legacy by Deirdre Raftery, Catriona Delaney, and Catherine Nowlan-Roebuck (Irish Academic Press, €24.95) In 2013 Pope Francis declared Nano Nagle (1718–84), the founder of the Presentation Order, to be venerable. For the nuns of that order, their friends and associates and the countless admirers of Nano Nagle’s work this was…