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bloodygranuaileI picked up Jill and Leon Uris’ Ireland: A Terrible Beauty with the intention of giving it a quick skim; the book is part of my dad’s motley collection of old Irish stuff that he’s decorated the “camp” in Maine with. Much of this stuff is at least as old as I am; it includes a collection of VHS tapes about Irish emigration, and a lot of signs and wall hangings that I recall as fixtures in the basement of our first house, the one in which I shared a room with my little brother.
Ireland: A Terrible Beauty was published in 1979, right in the middle of the “Troubles,” after Bloody Sunday but before Bobby Sands’ hunger strike. The book is largely, though not entirely, a photo book, almost as big as a coffee-table book. The photos are gorgeous, some in color and some in black and white, taken all around Ireland during the seventies. There are breathtaking landscapes and shots of Ireland’s numerous ancient ruins and old castles; there are also pictures of and interviews with locals of various areas of the country.
The text, bless it, does not pull any punches. The Uris’ have OPINIONS about how shit was being run in Ireland and they are going to tell you about them. While the Uris’ aren’t Irish, they really did seem to fall deeply in love with the country and its people, and most of their strongest opinions are disdain and ire for those parties that they deem to have been oppressing the Irish people and subverting their ability to prosper—the historical British government, the authoritarian, sex-phobic Catholic Hierarchy, and the Protestant Ulstermen. Their descriptions of the “Orangemen” or “Orange Order,” as is the common name for Ulster Unionists, sound very like some analyses of the Tea Party that I’ve seen around on progressive sites. Most of their judgments seem to square pretty well with what I already did know of Irish history (the Church giveth and the Church taketh away…), so I am inclined to give them credit for putting their biases out in the open and to figure that they are a trustworthy enough source on factual matters.
The first half of the book is about the Republic of Ireland, and it’s alternately sweet and sad, full of lovely lovely pictures and detailing Ireland’s weirdly mixed history of glory and oppression, of poets and warriors, of art and of famine. The second half of the book is about Ulster, and features a lot of pictures of graffiti-covered ghettos patrolled by military and paramilitary men with big guns. There are some sections about awesome historical things and the beautiful geography in Northern Ireland as well, but most of it focuses on the Troubles, both the history leading up to them and the situation as it was when the book was written. My favorite bit is a short interview with a very young pIRA leader named Martin McGuinness, talking about him living on the run and his hope to one day have a steady job. Martin McGuiness is now Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.
While it’s obviously not the most current source of information on Ireland and her many woes, it’s still very informative, both as a solid introduction to the geography and older history of the island and as a snapshot of the island in the mid-seventies. I’m very glad I read it.
Ireland: A Terrible Beauty was published in 1979, right in the middle of the “Troubles,” after Bloody Sunday but before Bobby Sands’ hunger strike. The book is largely, though not entirely, a photo book, almost as big as a coffee-table book. The photos are gorgeous, some in color and some in black and white, taken all around Ireland during the seventies. There are breathtaking landscapes and shots of Ireland’s numerous ancient ruins and old castles; there are also pictures of and interviews with locals of various areas of the country.
The text, bless it, does not pull any punches. The Uris’ have OPINIONS about how shit was being run in Ireland and they are going to tell you about them. While the Uris’ aren’t Irish, they really did seem to fall deeply in love with the country and its people, and most of their strongest opinions are disdain and ire for those parties that they deem to have been oppressing the Irish people and subverting their ability to prosper—the historical British government, the authoritarian, sex-phobic Catholic Hierarchy, and the Protestant Ulstermen. Their descriptions of the “Orangemen” or “Orange Order,” as is the common name for Ulster Unionists, sound very like some analyses of the Tea Party that I’ve seen around on progressive sites. Most of their judgments seem to square pretty well with what I already did know of Irish history (the Church giveth and the Church taketh away…), so I am inclined to give them credit for putting their biases out in the open and to figure that they are a trustworthy enough source on factual matters.
The first half of the book is about the Republic of Ireland, and it’s alternately sweet and sad, full of lovely lovely pictures and detailing Ireland’s weirdly mixed history of glory and oppression, of poets and warriors, of art and of famine. The second half of the book is about Ulster, and features a lot of pictures of graffiti-covered ghettos patrolled by military and paramilitary men with big guns. There are some sections about awesome historical things and the beautiful geography in Northern Ireland as well, but most of it focuses on the Troubles, both the history leading up to them and the situation as it was when the book was written. My favorite bit is a short interview with a very young pIRA leader named Martin McGuinness, talking about him living on the run and his hope to one day have a steady job. Martin McGuiness is now Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.
While it’s obviously not the most current source of information on Ireland and her many woes, it’s still very informative, both as a solid introduction to the geography and older history of the island and as a snapshot of the island in the mid-seventies. I’m very glad I read it.