Bookshelf: Easter Rising gets a
Welsh perspective
 By Tony Birtill
This book was first published in Welsh last year. Written by journalist and
self-confessed Hibernophile Lyn Ebenezer, Fron-Goch And The Birth Of The
IRA is dedicated to Fron-Goch veteran Joe Clarke who the author befriended
subsequent to attending the Easter Rising commemoration in Dublin in 1966.
The book looks at the history of the 1916 internment camp from a Welsh
perspective and as such it complements Seán Ó Mahony’s
book Frongoch: University of Revolution.
He discusses local Welsh attitudes to the camp and the impact the strength
of the Welsh language in the area had on the attitude of the Irish internees
to their own language.
He in no way attempts to gloss over the oppressive role played by many
Welsh people like Lloyd George in the suppression of democracy in Ireland.
The subsequent careers of a number of Fron-goch graduates like Michael
Collins, Richard Mulcahy, Dick McKee, Tomás MacCurtain and Terence
MacSwiney are examined in some detail and analogies drawn with more recent
events.
There are some historical errors however. For example he states that:
“MacNeill had originally called for the Rising to begin on Easter
Sunday.” And it is not clear that he understands that the Gaelic
League whom he correctly states had a branch in Fron-goch camp is the
same organisation as Conradh na Gaeilge who organised the erection and
unveiling of a monument at Fron-goch in June 2002.
It was, in fact, the Liverpool branch that organised this and although
he mentions that there were a number of Easter Rising volunteers from
Liverpool — such as the Kerrs and the Kings in the camp —
he ignores the fact that it was a nephew of the Kings from Liverpool who
unveiled the monument in 2002.
Instead he links the event to the flooding of a nearby valley by Liverpool
Corporation in 1965 to build a reservoir.
The event in 2002 was a huge success largely because of the support
and kindness of the local Welsh population and it is interesting to read
that this was also the attitude of many local people in 1916.
All in all a very readable history.
Fron-Goch And The Birth Of The IRA by Lyn Ebenezer is published
by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, price £7.75.
District and Circle, Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney’s new collection starts “in an age of bare
hands and cast iron” and ends “as the automatic lock/clunks
shut” in the eerie new conditions of a menaced 21st century.
In their haunted, almost visionary, clarity, the poems assay the weight
and worth of what has been held in the hand and in the memory.
Images out of a childhood spent safe from the horrors of World War II
— railway sleepers, a sledgehammer, the heavyweight silence of cattle
out in rain — are coloured by a strongly contemporary sense that
“anything can happen” and other images from the dangerous
present — a journey on the underground, a melting glacier —
are frught with this same anxiety.
But District and Circle which includes a number of prose poems and translations
offers resistance as the poet gathers his staying powers and stands his
ground in the hiding places of love and excited language.
In a sequence like The Tollund Man In Springtime and in several poems
which “do the rounds of the district” — its known roads
and rivers and trees, its familiar and unfamiliar ghosts — the gravity
of memorial is transformed into the grace of recollection.
Seamus Heaney was born in Co. Derry in Northern Ireland. Death Of A Naturalist
— his first collection — appeared in 1966 and since then he
has published poetry, criticism and tranlations which have established
him as one of the leading poets of his generation.
In 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
District and Circle is his 12th collection of poems and his first
new collection for five years.
Irish In The New Century, Micheal Cronin
ThIS bilingual work in Irish and English establihes developmental intercultural
constructs for the Irish language in a new era.
Drawing on a range of analytical tools the author examines the opportunities
afforded by and for the Irish language in a new affirmative vision of
Irish society.
He has written extensively on intercultural issues and the challenges
of modern translation. He is Director of the Centre for Textual and Translation
Studies in Dublin City University.
Four Letters Of Love, Niall Williams
Nicholas Coughlan and Isabel Gore were made for each other but how will
they ever know it?
Four Letters Of Love is a novel about destiny, acceptance and the tragedies
and miracles of everyday life. Most of all it is an unforgettable tale
about the illuminating power of love and how all our stories meet in the
end.
The Times said about this novel: “Occasionally you have the great
good fortune to read a novel which you devour as if it were a thriller,
want to last forever, but finally put down with great whoops of joy.
“Niall Williams’s narrative unfolds with lyrical grace. Four
Letters Of Love rolls with courage and clarity towards a breathtaking
affirmation of magic, miracles and the power of human love.”
While the Sunday Tribune said: “How wonderful to salute the debut
of an Irish male writer willing to take risks in writing about love.
“This is an openly romantic and deeply original book. The plot twists
and spins through intuitions, acts of God and fate and deliberate coincidences.
Irish males be warned. Your wives, partners or lovers will take to the
bed with this book and not surface until every page is read. When they
finally hand it back to you stop all trying to be lumberjacks and do the
same yourselves.”
Eat And Drink in Northern Ireland 2006, FATE
They say change is a good thing and how right they are, when you think
about how much Northern Ireland has evolved and developed over the last
10 years.
From a pessimistic, apologetic country living in fear Northern Ireland
is now alive, full of optimism and has much to be proud of.
When it comes to restaurants and bars, Northern Ireland has some of the
best. Let this guide help you get the most out of what the North has to
offer by providing you with an in-depth insight into each establishment.
FATE Eat & Drink will serve you well. If you are a visitor it’s
an essential addition to your travel bag.
If you live in the North it will be a reference companion for planning
your social diary.
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