Ireland Books

Though this is not a new book, it should still be much sought out for it offers readers--scholars and the general public--the opportunity to discover how the Jews in the medieval era were cast the heinous role as servants of the Devil. This study details the Anti-Semitism of that age with chilling color. I highly recommend this title.

Trachtenberg's the Devil and the Jew has only recently returned to print after decades of being unavailable. The book is so good, that it was even hard to find in libraries because it was so often stolen. Now at last it is available to the modern reader without having to resort to theft or exauting searches.

In this work, the author traces the history of the christian association between the Jew and the Chritian devil from early church history, but with a particular focus on the middle ages. Many of the myths that many Jewish murders have been based on, right up to the 20th century, have their roots in this period and Tractenberg does a tremdous job exploring them. While many others have written about this topic, (Moss, Towards the Final Solution being a particularly fine example) none of the more recent works have in any way displaced Trachtenberg's careful study.

This is a must for the collection of anyone intersted in this topic or anything else related to European Jewish History. Buy it now before it again goes out of print.

I discovered this book in a store in Boston. I thought I knew a good deal about contemporary Irish poetry. However this book took me by surprise. It is outstanding. I had not come across this poet before. What a pleasure his work gave me. This is an original, I have no doubt.There is a dark imagination at work here which I don't think I have seen in modern Irish poetry. I will be ordering all of John Hughes's work . Highly recommended.

One of the few books of poetry to have made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. This book has poems which use language in an evocative and mysterious way. A challenging book in terms of the intellect and imagination at work within its covers. Highly recommended.

Oxford Dictionary Of Superstitions is a no-nonsense, definitive reference to superstitions ranging from spells, cures, and rituals to taboos, charms and omens. Entries are arranged alphabetically by subject; each listing presents a handful of historical citations that offer evidence of the belief. A select bibliography and analytical index round out this exemplary and easy-to-use quick reference.

According to _A Dictionary of Superstitions_, the answer to that one goes back to 1507. The book is filled with page after page of the interesting stories behind close to any superstition one could imagine. As its title suggests, the superstitions are presented in a dictionary format, something that I found very helpful. The definitions include--to different extents--histories, dates, publications, locations, and sometimes even related poetry or bits of songs. There are fifteen different entries for "Eggs," if this gives you any idea as to the scope of book! More than anything, it's a fun read (and to be taken with a "grain of salt" perhaps). It's entirely possible to sit down and read the letter "C," for example, all of the way through, from "Cabbage Stalk: divination" to "Cutlery falls=visitor." One of the best aspects of the text is the sometimes bizarre anecdotes included by the editors, and the conversational and often entertaining manner in which the entries are written. Wonder why it's bad luck to have a clock facing a fire or to crack a mirror, why it's a good idea to rub a dead mouse on your cheek, or where the first references to the cricket as an omen appeared? There's a lot more (494 pages worth), and I definitely recommend it.

The perfect place to start if you want to learn about St. Patrick or early Irish Christianity. O'Loughlin is the best scholar in the world on this subject, but his books are easy to read.

Written by a theology lecturer at the University of Wales, Lampeter, Discovering Saint Patrick is a religious and biographical study of Saint Patrick, that strives to understand as much as possible about his life, his impact on history, how he influenced the development of Irish Catholicism, and much more. Thoroughly researched, drawing heavily on original sources as well as directly from scripture, Discovering Saint Patrick approaches the life and times of the famous saint with a scholarly eye for detail and as much corroboration and verification as reasonably possible. A welcome contribution to church libraries and biographical collections of holy figures, and a "must-read" for anyone who is curious to understand what St. Patrick's Day is really all about.

I decided to read "Disturbance" having very much enjoyed Jamie O'Neill's later more well-known novel, At Swim, Two Boys. Reading a good author's early works, I'm never certain whether to expect more gold or merely an interesting artifact of the author's personal growth.

In "Disturbance" I think I found both. It is a much shorter novel, concentrating on smaller events and fewer characters, but the more limited scope of this story is executed hauntingly. The author has a talent for getting the reader to share the experience of his characters, and he uses that talent beautifully here. Nilus is lost and isolated after his mother's death, living in a crumbling house with his distant father. As he works to lose himself in petty distractions the reader shares his distraction, confusion and inability to interact naturally with others.

I would say that "At Swim, Two Boys" is still the more polished masterwork, but "Disturbance" is still a deeply impressive novel - easily worth a five-star rating.

Nilus Moore, the narrator is in his mid teens and still at school as he starts his account. His mother has recently died, and he lives with his father, but it seems Nilus' world is falling down around him. Their large house is crumbling away while the other houses in the street are being demolished, and his father has taken to his bed, living on garlic cloves and brandy. Putting on the pressure is Nilus' uncle, his father's twin brother, who wants to demolish their house for redevelopment.
As Nilus approaches the end of his school days he struggles both to keep his home together and maintain his sanity. His bedroom, at the very top of their house is his refuge and which he keeps immaculately clean, where he is constantly checking to ensure that the sheet folds on his bed are in order, and where he watches over his near impossible 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. He also has to contend with his aunt and uncle's interfering, his pregnant cousin and her estranged boyfriend, an aging priest and other odd characters.
Nilus is an appealing character, especially as he efficiently tries to take on such heavy responsibilities for one so young. However not all is as it may appear, the subtle clues are there, but they might easily be overlooked.
This is a captivating, witty and often very funny story that repays careful reading.

This book has been re-printed.

New ISBN is 1903464706

This short autobiographical account of an Irish doctor's World War II experiences is so riveting that I stayed up way too late to finish it. Dr. MacCarthy served in Europe and was then shipped out to the Asian theatre where he endured the unthinkable. The most striking things I took away from this book is how strong human beings can be in the face of terrible events and how good can triumph within each of us. As the preface said, if you went to a movie and saw all the things portrayed which Dr. McCarthy lived through, you'd think it too far-fetched to be true.

I found the Blaze Harlequin series of books last year and they are a easy, sexy , great lakeside/Sunday afternoon read. In this novel Claire looses everything in one day - she looses her boyfriend, her job and her apartment. So she does the logical (ha ha) thing she hops a plane to small island in Ireland to find some magical water. Will Donovan is an Inn Keeper on the island and for the first time wants to break his rules and sleep with a guest aka Claire.

I have read more Harlequin romance novels and romance novels in general than I care to admit and my collection of books is bordering on outrageous. However, having read as many as I have I absolutely loved this book, it was fabulous I was totally captured by it and couldn't put it down. It is hard for a romance to really really WOW me since I have read so many and Kate Hoffmann definitely did that with this book I strongly recommend it.

With Domination and Conquest Davies, one of the most prominent historians of the "British" middle ages, has put together a gem of a book. Davies' fundamental purpose here is to put an end to many of the misconceptions about the Anglicization of Britain and Ireland. Beginning with a discussion of the difference between domination and conquest, Davies helps us see that the military aspect of this episode in history is not as important as it often appears. From here Davies moves on to shatter the idea of a concerted and organized Anglo-Norman endeavor to conquer and dominate the Isles, and the myth of organized resistances in Wales and Ireland. In the end, Davies leaves us with a profoundly different understanding of Anglo-Norman expansion in the British Isles. In addition to being illuminating, Domination and Conquest is wonderfully written and a joy to read.

I should start with a disclaimer - Rees Davies was my doctoral supervisor at Oxford. That said, this is a short, well-written exposition of the trend in recent British medieval historiography, advanced by Davies and Robin Frame, in which the boundaries of "national" history are broken down. Davies examines the ideological underpinnings, going back to the Anglo-Saxons, for the overlordship of the British Isles and Ireland by the kings of England. He then proceeds to examine Anglo-Norman expansion and infiltration in Wales, Ireland and Scotland in all its myriad aspects. Military conquest was only one tool available, and was accompanied by economic exploitation (and blandishments), the imposition or denial of English law, and English domination of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in Wales and Ireland. With an eye for the telling anecdote, Davies shows how the Anglo-Normans were flexible, adapting from local societies what suited their purposes and exploiting political divisions and rivalries for their own ends. Davies is a good writer as well as one of the most prominent medieval historians in the U.K., and this book should prove accessible for the lay reader interested in what the author has called the "first English empire".

This book brought back so many childhood memories! I loved how Mr. Greenleaf kept the old Irish charm with the modern revision. Great Job! My nieces and nephews couldn't get enough of the stories and kept asking me to read them again. I also really like the artwork of Mr. Quigley. I definately look forward to any future works of Mr. Greenleaf. A definate MUST HAVE!!!!

Joseph greenleaf has updated this set of classical fairy stories without losing any of the flavor of the original. The illustrations are wonderful, the stories fun to hear or to read. My next suggestion to Mr. Greenleaf is that he produce a CD so that travelers can enjoy these wonderful tales while on the road.

When I found out that Brassey's Military Profiles series was doing an assessment of Francis Drake, I was pleased that this complex and almost legendary figure was going to be summed up in a handy snapshot reference work. At 89 pages of text, this endeavor was quite a challenge. Dudley Wade has managed to include all the controversies and episodes while providing a surprisingly full and fair an appraisal in such a concise book.

My introduction to Drake was a reading of Julian Corbett's one volume 1912 biography (rather than his more scholarly but ponderous 1899 two volume treatment incorporating the dawn of the British Navy). While a handy summary of Drake's career, in just over 200 pages, it was written for a British audience and assumed some background knowledge of the personalities, parties and political-religious quarrels both within England and among its European (principally Spanish) antagonists. Plus Corbett's Edwardian British chauvinism and dated idiom is a bit off-putting. I've since read works on the English "sea dogs" and renaissance era piracy and seafaring, and was looking for a good, brief overview of Drake employing modern (i.e. late 20th century) research.

Chapter 1, Prelude (pp. 3-13). This is a valuable chapter setting the exploits of Drake in total context. This includes the development of seafaring/navigation, maritime trade and conquest, the vagaries and rivalries of the search for routes to the sources of spices (and later, more fortuitously precious metals and gems) in the East, and the rise of Protestant-Catholic (not always so neatly demarcated) antagonism, later focused on the struggle between Protestant England and Caotholic Spain and their allies, pawns, dupes and double-agents. All this is set into English court and religious history - often identical-and the various political intrigues surrounding Elizabeth I.

Chapter 2, Young Man Drake (pp. 15-28). Born of the lesser gentry (economically akin to the present day lower middle class) Drake's father, a tailor by trade, became a preacher in the new Church of England and thus a target for a Catholic backlash against Edward VI's promulgation of a common prayer book. Fleeing local persecution the family wound up living in a ship's hulk converted to a home near Plymouth where young Drake was exposed to seafarers of the port as his father received a very modest stipend to preach the new gospel to them. Here Dudley speculates on the exposure of the boy to the nuts and bolts, or knots and splices, of practical seamanship, while his father imbued him with guiding principles of his Protestant faith and a concomitant hatred of Catholicism - though not of Catholics as individuals. The brief return of the pro-Catholic "Bloody Mary" to the throne marked another stage in the young Drake's career, wherein for his son's safety, his father agreed that his eldest son should leave home at the age of 13. Dudley notes two theories about his schooling in seamanship at this point. One, that generally prevalent in early histories and most popular accounts is that Drake became apprenticed to a coastal merchant, who upon his death, bequeathed Drake his vessel. The alternate account, one seemingly favored by Dudley, is that Drake was "fostered" into the home of a prosperous relative, William Hawkins of Plymouth. Here, Drake would have similarly gained considerable practical knowledge of seamanship while aboard the family's several 50-ton vessels, while also continuing a formal education in the mathematical and navigational skills. Also, here is where the young Drake likely acquired his familiarity with the international diplomatic scene as well as the political savvy to hold his own among haughty gentry. The Hawkins family privateering tradition also imbued Drake with this entrepreneurial and self-directed attitude towards armed adventures. Plus he gained valuable experience in the tricky three-way slaves for gold and produce trade, England-African West Coast - Spanish Caribbean, that danced the fine line between sticking it to the Spaniards and overkill which would get Elizabeth in hot water over her "plausible deniability" sponsorship. Here, in a few close-run escapades, Drake learned the value of Protestant allies and how being charitable to Catholic prisoners and victims could also reap benefits. Plus he acquired his outstanding proficiency in seamanship, both in uncharted shoals and in the vast deep blue, and how to stomach dire adversity with a clear head and cool nerves. The treacherous Spanish attack at San Juan de Ulua, off the coast of Mexico led to some vague charge that Drake deserted the expedition, but his reputation for excellent seamanship was affirmed despite the financial losses. Most importantly, it spurred him to seek revenge on the haughty overbearing Catholic rulers of Spain.

Chapter 3, To the Spanish Main and Beyond (pp. 29-47)continues the saga of the imperfectly "sponsored" freebooting raids on Spanish maritime treasure and communications. It provides a handy summary of Drake's circumnavigation -- a covert operation that forever cemented his place (and that of his diminutive galleon the Golden Hind) in history. Drake's summary trial and execution of a dissident captain, the courtier Thomas Doughty, is handled deftly. Interestingly, Dudley suggests that this incident underlies Drake's shipboard piety, as a guilty conscience plagued him.

Chapter 4, the War of the Armada (pp 49-71)j is a very good summary of the Armada campaign and Drake's role. Dudley's criticism of Drake's apparent insubordination in failing to keep formation has to be seen in light of the epoch's rather lax concept of "command and control" and discipline among adventurous and independent-minded sea rovers.

Chapter 5, The Final Raids (pp. 73-83)shows Drake's waning powers of judgment and self-confidence.

Chapter 6, Who Was Francis Drake (pp 85-89) neatly reviews the controversies and possible explanations for Drake's checkered career as an adventurer, commander, local politician and mid-level aristocrat who was never accepted by the "landed gentry" who haunted the court of Elizabeth I at a time when her power abroad depended on the likes of Hawkins, Drake, et. al. -- men who were fanatically loyal to Queen Bess's England but who would not brook any interference from petty politicians, or a Queen's conservatism inspired by their court intrigues.

Drake: For God, Queen, And Plunder by military historian Wade G. Dudley (Visiting Assistant Professor, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina) is a fascinating, informed and informative, military and historical biography of Sir Francis Drake, the famous high seas plunderer of fifteenth century England, who was fueled by hatred of Catholic Spain and his devotion to his Protestant queen Elizabeth I. Highly recommended reading, Drake is a very carefully researched and engagingly told account with an especial focus upon Drake's nautical and military tactics.