From Crown to Harp: How the Anglo-Irish Treaty was Undone, 1921 – 1949, by David McCullagh (Gill Books, €26.99 / £25.99) This is an account of the three decades in Ireland which followed the War of Independence. Those years featured a number of remarkable Irish persons. Not least among them was Alfred O’Rahilly, an…
Listowel Food Fair: Tríoche Bliain ag Fás (Thirty Years a-Growing) 1995-2025, edited by James Deenihan and Annette McElligot (Listowel Food Fair, €20 + €4.00 p&p; email James Deenihan: info@listowelfoodfair.ie; copies locally from Woulfe’s Bookshop, 7 Church Street, Listowel) The Listowel Food Fair was established in 1995 by a committee headed by Jimmy Deenihan. However, much…
Unbeatable: Father Tom Jones: Handball Supremo, by Tom Looney (Red Stripe Press, €14.99) Tom Jones was born in Tralee, Co. Kerry, on December 23, 1868. In his early years, he attended the local Christian Brothers school and the local Dominican Classical school. As he intended to study for the priesthood in the diocese of Kerry,…
The Last Ditch: How one GAA Championship gave a Sports Writer back his Life, by Eamonn Sweeney (Hachette Books, €20.00 / £16.99) The author is a sportswriter and in the first two chapters reveals the challenges – phobias – which he has to overcome in plying his trade. In the rest of the book…
Across the Waves, by T. Ryle Dwyer (Mercier Press, €14.50) It is clear who is the heroine in this story. It is Margaret Harrigan, a heroine taken straight from the life of the author’s own family. T. Ryle Dwyer is well known throughout the south-west as a journalist and historian. It is quite a saga.…
New Perspectives on Conflict and Ireland in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Paul Huddie, Cathal Billings and Arlene Crampsie (Liverpool University Press, £105.00 / €121.00) This collection of essays is the product of a conference of historians at Liverpool University. The subject for discussion was “Conflict in Ireland in the Nineteenth Century”. The contributions…
Memorialising Émigré Dignity: The Cultural Heritage of St Anthony’s College, Leuven, Edited by Francis M. O’Donnell (Irish College, Leuven, €20.00) The Franciscan Irish College of St Anthony of Padua was founded by the rulers of the Spanish Netherlands, Archduke Albert and Infante Isabella, in May 1617. From the outset the main aim of the…
Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, by Bill Bryson (Penguin Random House, €15.40 / £9.99) Anthony Gaughan Bill Bryson is an American humourist. Like other comedians he portrays himself as woebegone, put upon and the butt of those who work in bars, restaurants and hotels. His style is breezy and entertaining. Bill writes travel…
Discovering St Patrick, by Thomas O’Loughlin (Darton, Longman & Todd, €15.00 / £10.95) St Patrick is universally identified with Ireland and the Irish. St Patrick’s Day is one of those few festivals that are celebrated around the world, so much so that it has become more of a carnival than a mere religious feast…
Drawn not Driven: Pilgrim of Life’s Beckonings, by Warren Ford (Red Feather Publishing, 2025). This is a fascinating autobiography, a wide ranging account of an Australian . The author, Warren Ford, was born in Western Australia on 23 January 1942. He attended the elementary convent school of St Aloysius conducted by the Mercy Sisters…