In 1922 the fledgling Irish Free State decided to replace the RIC with the Civic Guard (An Garda Síochána). This new Irish police force found itself dealing with an unsettled population, many of whom were suspicions of law and order after centuries of forceful policing by the British. It was decided that the Gardaí would uphold the law with the consent of the people however, and that they would remain unarmed. This brave decision may have been popular with ordinary Irishmen and women, but it left members of the force vulnerable to attack and even murder. Many Gardaí met their death in the first decades of the Irish State. This is their story.
The Bruces of fourteenth-century Scotland were formidable and enthusiastic warriors. Whilst much has been written about events as they happened in Scotland during the chaotic years of the first part of the fourteenth century, England's war with Robert the Bruce profoundly affected the whole of the British Isles. Scottish raiders struck deep into the heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire; Robert's younger brother, Edward Bruce, was proclaimed King of Ireland and came close to subduing the country; the Isle of Man was captured and a Welsh sea-port was raided; and in the North Sea Scots allied with German and Flemish pirates to cripple England's vital wool trade and disrupt its war effort. Packed with detail and written with a strong and involving narrative thread, this is the first book to link up the various theatres of war and discuss the effect of the wars of the Bruces outside Scotland.
The life of Robert Bruce is one of the greatest comeback stories in history. Heir and magnate, shrewd politician, briefly 'king of summer' and then a desperate fugitive who nevertheless returned from exile to recover the kingdom he claimed, Bruce became a gifted military leader and a wise statesman, a leader with vision and energy. Colm McNamee combines the most up to date scholarship on this crucial figure in the history of the British Isles with lucid explanation of the medieval context, so that readers of all backgrounds can appreciate Bruce's enormous contribution to the historical impact not just on Scotland, but on England and Ireland too. It is designed to encourage popular reassessment of Bruce as politician, warrior, monarch and saviour of Scottish identity from extinction at the hands of the Edwardian superstate. Peeling back the layers of misconception and propaganda, the author paints an accurate, sympathetic but balanced portrait of a much beloved national hero who has fallen out of fashion of late for no good reason.
It’s exhausting, being Irish. The constant self-flagellation is enough to put anybody off their breakfast. Why are we so hard on ourselves? Is it the post-colonial overhang following centuries of oppression at the hands of a litany of foreign invaders? Or is it collective guilt for sending Westlife out into the wider world? In Surviving Ireland, acclaimed comedy writer Colm Tobin* takes the reader by the hand for a satirical romp through modern Irish life. As well as providing all the tools you’ll need to navigate this often tricky little island (except a compass or anything even resembling a fact), the book will take you through some of the country’s fraught history, asking some searing questions in the process: how did we get here, where are we going and who in the name of God is going to pay for it all? Surviving Ireland takes in culture and politics, town and country, food and drink, birth, death and everything in between. Let it be your definitive guide to this strange and bewildering rock, cowering from the cold Atlantic swells. Oh, and it’s got some funny drawings in it as well. * Not the Booker Prize-nominated author Colm Tóibín.
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * “Stunning.” —People * “Dazzling yet devastating...Tóibín is simply one of the world’s best living literary writers.” —The Boston Globe * “Momentous and hugely affecting.” —The Wall Street Journal * From the beloved, critically acclaimed, bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving novel featuring Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work in twenty years. Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis is now forty with two teenage children. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades. One day, when Tony is at work an Irishman comes to the door asking for Eilis by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting and suspenseful. Long Island is a gorgeous story “about a woman thrashing against the constraints of fate” (Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air). It is “a wonder, rich with yearning and regret” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis).
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by LitHub and The Millions! From one of the most engaging and brilliant writers of our time comes a “not to be missed” (LitHub) collection of eleven essays about growing up in Ireland during radical change; about cancer, priests, popes, homosexuality, and literature. “IT ALL STARTED WITH MY BALLS.” So begins Colm Tóibín’s fabulously compelling essay, laced with humor, about his diagnosis and treatment for cancer. Tóibín survives, but he has entered, as he says, “the age of one ball.” The second essay in this seductive collection is a memoir about growing up in the 1950s and ’60s in the small town of Enniscorthy in County Wexford, the setting for many of Tóibín’s novels and stories, including Brooklyn, The Blackwater Lightship, and Nora Webster. Tóibín describes his education by priests, several of whom were condemned years later for abuse. He writes about Irish history and literature, and about the long, tragic journey toward legal and social acceptance of homosexuality. In Part Two, Tóibín profiles three complex and vexing popes—John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. And in Part Three, he writes about a trio of authors who reckon with religion in their fiction. The final essay, “Alone in Venice,” is a gorgeous account of Tóibín’s journey, at the height of the pandemic, to the beloved city where he has set some of his most dazzling scenes. The streets, canals, churches, and museums were empty. He had them to himself, an experience both haunting and exhilarating. “A tantalizing glimpse into Tóibín’s full fictional powers,” (The Sunday Times, London) A Guest at the Feast is both an intimate encounter with a supremely creative artist and a glorious celebration of writing.
From the author of The Master and Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín weaves together the lives of three generations of estranged women as they reunite to witness and mourn the death of a brother, a son, and a grandson. It is Ireland in the early 1990s. Helen, her mother, Lily, and her grandmother, Dora, have come together to tend to Helen's brother, Declan, who is dying of AIDS. With Declan's two friends, the six of them are forced to plumb the shoals of their own histories and to come to terms with each other. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Blackwater Lightship is a deeply resonant story about three generations of an estranged family reuniting to mourn an untimely death. In spare, luminous prose, Colm Tóibín explores the nature of love and the complex emotions inside a family at war with itself. Hailed as "a genuine work of art" (Chicago Tribune), this is a novel about the capacity of stories to heal the deepest wounds.
This interpretive study analyzes the complex politics of literature, criticism, and professionalism. While affirming the profound importance of political analysis--from the ideological critique of literary texts to the social and economic critique of academic institutions--Hogan reassesses the poststructuralist doctrines that underlie much recent work in this area. He presents extended expositions and criticisms of the views of several influential poststructuralist writers, including Jacques Derrida and Luce Irigaray. In keeping with recent "post-poststructuralist" trends in France and elsewhere, Hogan argues for the political necessity of rational inference, and empirical enquiry, guided by ethical, and more specifically Kantian, considerations. In the process, he convincingly formulates a general theory of ideology that recognizes the crucial link between literary politics and the concrete political issues that affect the lives of real men and women in the real world of social and material life. His study concludes with an economic analysis of the institutions of literary study, outlining some anarchist implications for their restructuring.
This open access book explores the digital transformation of small and rural towns, in particular, how to measure the evolution and development of digital towns. In addition to access to resources, competition from urban and global markets, and population trends, rural communities present lesser access and use of digital technologies and have lower digital competencies and skills than their urban counterparts. Consequently, they experience less beneficial outcomes from increased digitalisation than urban areas. This book defines what a digital town is and explores digitalisation from the perspective of the four basic economic sectors in towns - individuals and households, businesses, the public sector, and civil society - and three types of enabling infrastructure - digital connectivity, education, and governance. Particular attention is paid to how digitalisation efforts are measured by intergovernmental and international organisations for each sector and enabling infrastructure. The book concludes with a Digital Town Readiness Framework that offers local communities, policymakers, and scholars an initial set of indicators upon which to develop digital town initiatives, and measure progress. For those ready to embrace the opportunity, this book is a pathfinder on the road to a more equitable and impactful digital society and digital economy. Theo Lynn is Full Professor of Digital Business at DCU Business School, Ireland. Pierangelo Rosati is Assistant Professor in Business Analytics at DCU Business School, Ireland. Edel Conway is Full Professor in HRM and Organisational Psychology and Director of Doctoral Studies at DCU Business School, Ireland. Declan Curran is Associate Professor of Economics at DCU Business School, Ireland. Grace Fox is a post-doctoral researcher attached to the Irish Institute of Digital Business. Colm OGorman is Interim Dean and Full Professor of Entrepreneurship at DCU Business School, Ireland.
The greatest Gaelic footballer of all time.' Pat Spillane When Colm Cooper retired from inter-county football in 2017, he left behind a remarkable legacy. The holder of five All-Ireland medals and eight All-Stars, he was Kerry’s stand-out forward for fifteen years. From a family steeped in Gaelic football, and a core member of the Dr Crokes team, Colm was still in his teens when he first played for Kerry at senior level. Overcoming struggles with injury and personal tragedy, Cooper became one of the GAA’s most recognizable and best-loved figures at a time of tumultuous change in the game. But the man known nationally as ‘Gooch’ is also an intensely private figure who has never courted publicity and his personal story remains largely untold. Now Gooch – The Autobiography unlocks a previously unopened door, tracing a compelling path through the life beyond the headlines. This is the story of an ordinary man who became an extraordinary footballer.
American Literature and American Identity addresses the crucial issue of identity formation, especially national identity, in influential works of American literature. Patrick Colm Hogan uses techniques of cognitive and affective science to examine the complex and often highly ambivalent treatment of American identity in works by Melville, Cooper, Sedgwick, Apess, Stowe, Jacobs, Douglass, Hawthorne, Poe, and Judith Sargeant Murray. Hogan focuses on the issue of how authors imagined American identity—specifically, as universal, democratic egalitarianism—in the face of the nation’s clear and often brutal inequalities of race and sex. In the course of this study, Hogan advances our understanding of nationalism in general, American identity in particular, and the widely read literary works he examines.
In Personal Identity and Literature, Hogan examines what makes an individual a particular, unique self. He draws on cognitive and affective science as well as literary works - from Walt Whitman and Frederick Douglass to Dorothy Richardson, Alice Munro, and J. M. Coetzee. His scholarly analyses are also intertwined with more personal reflections, on for example his mother’s memory loss. The result is a work that examines a complex topic by drawing on a unique range of resources, from empirical psychology and philosophy to novels, films, and biographical experiences. The book provides a clear, systematic account of personal identity that is theoretically strong, but also unique and engaging.
The Awakening presents a profound yet simple message: how to awaken from emotional imprisonment and find psychological freedom.Many of us feel we are not living life to the full or living it as we should. Haunted by anxiety, we long for lifelines that can lift us out of the mundane into what Seamus Heaney called 'the marvellous'. If you feel like this, then The Awakening may be for you.Drawing on the wisdom of ancient Ireland and using the symbol of the Celtic Cross as an image for how to live, Dr O'Connor shows us that we inhabit both a vertical and a horizontal life, which intersect where the eternal breaks into the everyday and ordinary activities are infused with an extraordinary purpose.Taking you beyond mindfulness and introducing delightful new concepts like 'Mind-Flight', this book uncovers the sparkling jewels buried in the rubble of life's indifference. You can turn a tiny space into a palace, a misfortune into an opportunity, a disability into a blessing and fly when life expects you to fall. The Awakening, like the first light at Newgrange, will illuminate the hidden blessings in what may seem to be your darkened life.
Cognitive cultural theorists have rarely taken up sex, sexuality, or gender identity. When they have done so, they have often stressed the evolutionary sources of gender differences. In Sexual Identities, Patrick Colm Hogan extends his pioneering work on identity to examine the complexities of sex, the diversity of sexuality, and the limited scope of gender. Drawing from a diverse body of literary works, Hogan illustrates a rarely drawn distinction between practical identity (the patterns in what one does, thinks, and feels) and categorical identity (how one labels oneself or is categorized by society). Building on this distinction, he offers a nuanced reformulation of the idea of social construction, distinguishing ideology, situational determination, shallow socialization, and deep socialization. He argues for a meticulous skepticism about gender differences and a view of sexuality as evolved but also contingent and highly variable. The variability of sexuality and the near absence of gender fixity--and the imperfect alignment of practical and categorical identities in both cases--give rise to the social practices that Judith Butler refers to as "regulatory regimes." Hogan goes on to explore the cognitive and affective operation of such regimes. Ultimately, Sexual Identities turns to sex and the question of how to understand transgendering in a way that respects the dignity of transgender people, without reverting to gender essentialism.
For Colm Toíbín and Carmen Callil there is no difference between literary and commercial writing - there is only the good novel: engrossing, inspirational, compelling. In their selection of the best 200 novels written since 1950, the editors make a case for the best and the best-loved works and argue why each should be considered a modern classic. Enlightening, often unexpected and always engaging this tour through the world of fiction is full of surprises, forgotten masterpieces and a valuable guide to what to read next. Authors in the collection include Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Daphne du Maurier, Patrick Hamilton, Carson McCullers, J. D. Salinger, Bernard Malamud; Flannery O'Connor, Mulk Raj Anand, Raymond Chandler, L. P. Hartley, Amos Tutuola, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Samuel Beckett, Patricia Highsmith, Chinua Achebe, Isak Dineson, Alan Sillitoe, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Grace Paley, Harper Lee, Olivia Manning and Mordecai Richler.
From the internationally celebrated author of The Master, winner of the 2006 International Dublin Literary Award. Mothers and Sons is a deeply penetrating and beautifully written meditation on the dramas surrounding this most elemental of relationships. Each of the nine stories focuses on a moment in which an unspoken balance shifts; in which a mother or son do battle, or experience a sudden crisis, thus leaving their conception of who they are subtly or seriously altered. A son buries his mother and goes out to a drug-fuelled rave on a remote beach near Dublin. A mother sings about treacherous love to a rapt crowd of musicians in a local pub. And in “A Long Winter,” Colm Tóibín’s finest piece of fiction to date, a man goes searching for his mother in the snow-covered Pyrenees. Psychologically intricate and emotionally incisive, each finely wrought story teases out the delicate and difficult strands woven between mothers and sons. This is an acute, masterful, and moving collection that confirms Tóibín as a great prose stylist of our time.
In his essay on Tennessee Williams, the author reveals an artist profoundly tormented by his sister's mental illness. Through the relationship between W.B. Yeats and his father, he examines a world of family relations, and in Roddy Doyle's writing on his parents illuminates an Ireland reinvented. From John Cheever's journals he makes flesh this darkly comic misanthrope and his intimates. Educating an intellectual woman, Cheever remarked, is like letting a rattlesnake into the house. In pieces that range from the importance of aunts (and the death of parents) in the English nineteenth-century novel to the relationship between fathers and sons in the writing of James Baldwin and Barack Obama, the author illuminates the intimate connections between writers and their families, but also articulates the great joy of reading their work.
Teachers and Football' explores the origins of schoolboy football in England and the factors influencing its development. It assesses the impact that schoolboy football has had on the development of the national game and on the development of sport in the community at large.
Along with Mother Teresa and John Paul II, Padre Pio is one of the most beloved and inspirational figures for both Catholics and people of belief throughout the world. Now, in Padre Pio - The Scent of Roses, award-winning journalist Colm Keane, brings accounts of the saint's wonderful influence up to date. Using first-hand accounts of healing and recovery from illness, and through the stories of miracles and cures attributed to Padre Pio, this book provides new insights into the power and reach of the saint, who for fifty years bore the five wounds of Christ. The author retells personal stories of recovery from various cancers (including tumours and leukaemia), heart problems, depression, arthritis and multiple sclerosis and remarkable revivals from brain injuries, infections, accidents, kidney failure, blood clots and problems in childbirth. 'A remarkable book' - Brendan O'Connor, The Saturday Night Show, RTÉ One on We'll Meet Again 'A beautifully crafted book' - Sunday Independent on Going Home Colm Keane's writing on life, death and spirituality has touched readers in profound ways over many years and many of his books have been number one bestsellers. His latest, Padre Pio - The Scent of Roses is a deeply spiritual book on a much loved and revered saint.
In this collection of essays, ten leading writers from different countries consider the conflicts that have informed their own literary lives. 1914-Goodbye to All That borrows its title from Robert Graves's "bitter leave-taking of England" in which he writes not only of the First World War but the questions it raised: how to live, how to live with each other, and how to write. Interpreting this title as broadly and ambiguously as Graves intended, these essays mark the War's centenary by reinvigorating these questions. The book includes Elif Shafak on an inheritance of silence in Turkey, Ali Smith on lost voices in Scotland, Xiaolu Guo on the 100,000 Chinese sent to the Front, Daniel Kehlmann on hypnotism in Berlin, Colm Toibin on Lady Gregory losing her son fighting for Britain as she fought for an independent Ireland, Kamila Shamsie on reimagining Karachi, Erwin Mortier on occupied Belgium's legacy of shame, NoViolet Bulawayo on Zimbabwe and clarity, Ales Steger on resisting history in Slovenia, and Jeanette Winterson on what art is for. Contributors include: Ali Smith - Scotland Ales Steger - Slovenia Jeanette Winterson - England Elif Shafak - Turkey NoViolet Bulawayo - Zimbabwe Colm Toíbín - Ireland Xiaolu Guo - China Erwin Mortier - Belgium Kamila Shamsie - Pakistan Daniel Kehlmann - Germany
Mathematical card effects offer both beginning and experienced magicians an opportunity to entertain with a minimum of props. Featuring mostly original creations, Mathematical Card Magic: Fifty-Two New Effects presents an entertaining look at new mathematically based card tricks. Each chapter contains four card effects, generally starting with simple applications of a particular mathematical principle and ending with more complex ones. Practice a handful of the introductory effects and, in no time, you’ll establish your reputation as a "mathemagician." Delve a little deeper into each chapter and the mathematics gets more interesting. The author explains the mathematics as needed in an easy-to-follow way. He also provides additional details, background, and suggestions for further explorations. Suitable for recreational math buffs and amateur card lovers or as a text in a first-year seminar, this color book offers a diverse collection of new mathemagic principles and effects.
Given Ulysses’ perhaps unparalleled attention to the operations of the human mind, it is unsurprising that critics have explored the work’s psychology. Nonetheless, there has been very little research that draws on recent cognitive science to examine thought and emotion in this novel. Hogan sets out to expand our understanding of Ulysses, as well as our theoretical comprehension of narrative—and even our views of human cognition. He revises the main narratological accounts of the novel, clarifying the complex nature of narration and style. He extends his cognitive study to encompass the anti-colonial and gender concerns that are so obviously important to Joyce’s work. Finally, through a combination of broad overviews and detailed textual analyses, Hogan seeks to make this notoriously difficult book more accessible to non-specialists.
Literary style is something many people talk about, but few could define. Yet it is crucial for our response to narrative art. Style can facilitate or obscure the events of a story or the motivations of a character, enhance the aesthetic appeal of a narrative or complicate its emotional impact, and even inflect the political or ethical implications of a work. It is precisely this complex operation of style that Patrick Colm Hogan explains in Style in Narrative. Drawing on recent psychological research, this book proposes a new and clear definition of style and provides a systematic theoretical account of style in relation to cognitive and affective science. Hogan's definition stresses that style varies by both scope, or the range of text or texts that may share a style, and level, the components of an individual work that might involve a shared style. The book uses rich examples from literature, film, and graphic fiction, including analysis of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Shakespeare's canon, William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and Art Spiegelman's Maus, as well as visual analysis of films by Robert Rodriguez, Deepa Mehta, Eric Rohmer, M.F.Husain, Yasujiro Ozu, and Chuan Lu. Through these studies Hogan identifies stylistic concerns common across mediums as well as the most consequential stylistic differences between them. Bringing together three often separated mediums within a coherent framework, Style in Narrative makes an important contribution to and necessary intervention in the field of stylistics.
Couples. Couples at war. Couples apparently at peace - with war simmering beneath the surface. Desire frustrated. Desire, satisfied - but in surprising ways. Revenge at its most creative. Reconciliation at its most tender. Love. Perhaps. Here is the story of how couples are forever tripped up by the missteps of love and sex. This delightfully playful and highly original work gets under the skin of relationships through the ages - showing the infinity of ways men and women drive each other crazy, yet remain essential to one another.
Ulcerative colitis is a disease characterized by its chronic nature, exacerbation, and remissions. The disease is of unknown etiology and has stimulated a substantial amount of research into the condition and its cause. This book provides a comprehensive review of the subject, covering topics such as the immunological, infective, psychological and dietary factors of its etiology; clinical presentation; extraintestinal manifestations; histopathology; mediators of inflammation; medical treatment, including dealing with the acute attack, maintenance of remission, and a review of new treatment; surgical methods; and the social toll and prognosis for the future. Ulcerative Colitis is a useful reference resource for internists, gastroenterologists, gastrointestinal surgeons, gastrointestinal researchers, nutritionists, dieticians, the pharmaceutical industry, and medical undergraduates.
Couples. Couples at war. Couples apparently at peace - with war simmering beneath the surface. Desire frustrated. Desire, satisfied - but in surprising ways. Revenge at its most creative. Reconciliation at its most tender. Love. Perhaps. Here is the story of how couples are forever tripped up by the missteps of love and sex. This delightfully puckish and highly original work gets under the skin of relationships through the ages - showing the infinity of ways men and women drive each other crazy, yet remain essential to one another.
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