New Titles, Autumn 2020 ~ Merrion Press | Irish Academic Press

MERRION PRESS

NEW TITLES 2020

MERRION PRESS

New Title • IRISH INTEREST

OLD IRELAND IN COLOUR John Breslin & Sarah-Anne Buckley

Old Ireland in Colour brings to life the rich history of Ireland and the Irish through the colour restoration of these stunning images of all walks of Irish life throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

From the chaos of the Civil War to the simple beauty of the islands; from legendary revolutionaries to modest fisherfolk, every image has been exquisitely transformed and every page bursting with life.

Using a combination of cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology and his own historical research, John Breslin has meticulously colourised these pictures with breath-taking attention to detail and authenticity.

HARDBACK SEPTEMBER 2020 €24.95 / £22.99 9781785373701 330 pages 190 x 230mm

With over 190 photographs from all four provinces, and accompanied by fascinating captions by historian Sarah-Anne Buckley, Old Ireland in Colour breathes new life into the scenes we thought we knew, and brings our ancestors back to life before our eyes.

John Breslin is a Professor at NUI Galway, where he has taught engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship over a twenty-year period. He has written over 200 publications and co-authored two books. He is co-founder of boards.ie, adverts.ie, and the PorterShed.

Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley is a lecturer in History at NUI Galway and President of the Women’s History Association of Ireland. She has published two monographs, four edited volumes and numerous articles. She is co-founder of the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class and Senior Research Fellow in the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre.

MERRION PRESS

New Title • FICTION

TERRY BRANKIN HAS A GUN Malachi O’Doherty

‘A deftly spun tale of dreadful intricacy and bewildering insight into a paramilitary world in denial of its own duplicitous logic.’

June Caldwell Terry Brankin loves his wife, but it’s a bloody nuisance that a cold-case investigator is trying to pin him for a long past IRA bombing that killed a young girl. His wife Kathleen can’t take it. He tells her that things were different then. She tells him he must confess.

He’d only get two years under the Belfast Agreement and she’ll stand by him, but she leaves him to give him time to mull it over.

But then Kathleen is attacked. Every house in the Brankin property portfolio is petrol-bombed on the same night. Something is going on that’s even bigger than they reckoned. And Terry thinks it’s to do with the cold case, the bombing and the dead child. He reckons old friends in the IRA are telling him to keep quiet. It’s time to talk to old comrades. And Terry still has a gun.

PAPERBACK FEBRUARY 2020 €16.95 / £14.99 9781785373107 256 pages 234 x 156mm

Fast-paced and thrilling, this powerful Troubles novel explores significant legacy issues of the northern conflict and how past deeds can never truly be forgotten.

Malachi O’Doherty has been a teacher to Libyan soldiers, a ghostwriter for an Indian guru, a contributor to BBC Northern Ireland and a regular writer for the Belfast Telegraph. He has written numerous books about the Northern Ireland Troubles including Fifty Years On: The Troubles and the Struggle for Change in Northern Ireland (Atlantic Books, 2020) and Gerry Adams: An Unauthorised Life (Faber and Faber, 2018).

MERRION PRESS

New Title • CHILDREN’S

GIRLS PLAY TOO

INSPIRING STORIES OF IRISH SPORTSWOMEN

Jacqui Hurley

Irish sportswomen have been breaking the mould for a very, very long time. In 1956, Maeve Kyle became our first female Olympian, and in 1978 rally driver Rosemary Smith broke the country’s landspeed record! Through the 1990s and 2000s we had world champions in Sonia O’Sullivan, Derval O’Rourke and Olive Loughnane, and more recently, the fantastic Katie Taylor, Kellie Harrington and Annalise Murphy have been among those who have put Irish sportswomen on the map. This book breaks the mould once more, as a first ever compendium of stories for children about our best contemporary sportswomen.

With a fairytale touch, RTÉ’s Jacqui Hurley tells the stories of women who have proved that being a girl is not a barrier to sporting success. Each story is one of overcoming big challenges, and the role models celebrated here are sure to inspire the next generation of Irish sportswomen. Featuring twenty-five dazzling athletes, and with delightful drawings by five wonderful female Irish illustrators, Girls Play Too is a celebration of some of our brightest and best sporting stars, and of all that you can achieve if you try your best and never give up on your dreams.

Jacqui Hurley is one of Ireland’s leading sports broadcasters. In 2009, she became the first ever female anchor of Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio One. She presents the daily sports bulletins on RTÉ’s Six One News and is also a regular anchor of RTÉ’s soccer output on television. She lives in Dublin with her husband Shane and her children, Luke and Lily.

HARDBACK SEPTEMBER 2020 €14.95 / £13.99 9781785373374 64 pages 238 x 170mm

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New Title • MEMOIR

BURNING HERESIES

A MEMOIR OF A LIFE IN CONFLICT, 1979-2020

Kevin Myers

In this remarkable sequel to his critically acclaimed memoir Watching the Door, journalist Kevin Myers reflects on his roller-coaster career in the Irish media, from the European conflicts he reported from to the personal conflicts he fought.

Fresh from the horrors of 1970s Belfast, Myers took a job with The Irish Times, and brilliantly evokes the chaos of life in the smoky newsroom of Ireland’s paper-of-record. Having taken over An Irishman’s Diary, he single-handedly pioneered the campaign to rehabilitate the memory of the Irish soldiers of the Great War. In the process, Myers fell foul of the paper’s editor, the legendary Douglas Gageby, so he was sent back to the frontline of European warzones.

While Myers is at his brilliant best dodging bullets on the battlefields of Tel Aviv, Beirut and Sarajevo, he also keenly and unapologetically participates in the many cultural conflicts erupting within a rapidly changing Ireland, all explored in his inimitable prose and sardonic wit. This courageously trenchant account of journalistic conflict and hubris also forensically examines his very public fall from grace in 2017, and his legal battle with RTÉ for a public apology.

Journalist, broadcaster and novelist Kevin Myers wrote for The Irish Times, The Spectator, Sunday Telegraph, Irish Independent and The Sunday Times in a career that spanned over thirty years. He reported from Africa, Central America, India and Japan, covered the wars in Lebanon and Bosnia, and was journalist of the year for his despatches from Beirut. His first memoir, Watching the Door: A Memoir, 1971–1978, was published in 2006. In 2017, he was sacked from the Irish edition of The Sunday Times for allegedly anti-Semitic observations.

PAPERBACK SEPTEMBER 2020 €19.95 / £18.99 9781785372612 320 pages 226 x 153mm

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New Title • MEMOIR

MY LIFE IN LOYALISM Billy Hutchinson

with Gareth Mulvenna

Growing up in the Shankill area of Belfast and living through the sectarian turmoil of the late 1960s, Billy Hutchinson joined the UVF in the early 1970s. In 1974, at the age of just 19, he was sentenced to life in prison, and it was in the cages of Long Kesh that he first came under the influence of loyalist icon Gusty Spence.

Hutchinson spent much of the 1980s as overall Commanding Officer of UVF/Red Hand Commando prisoners, and upon his release, became involved with the recently established Progressive Unionist Party.

As an authentic link between the UVF and the PUP, he was at the forefront of negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement and was the UVF’s point of contact during the weapons decommissioning programme. Written with candour and honesty, this is a lively first-hand account of an extraordinary life and reveals previously hidden episodes of both the Northern Ireland Troubles and the high-profile negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement of 1998.

From Tartan gang member to leading loyalist paramilitary, and from progressive unionist politician to respected Belfast City Councillor, My Life in Loyalism is Billy Hutchinson’s remarkable story.

PAPERBACK OCTOBER 2020 €18.95 / £17.99 9781785373459 300 pages 226 x 153 mm

Billy Hutchinson is the current leader of the Progressive Unionist Party and a Belfast City Councillor. In the early 1970s he was involved in the formation of the Young Citizen Volunteers and was later influential in brokering the loyalist ceasefire of 1994.

Gareth Mulvenna has held a Visiting Research fellowship at the School of Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. His first book, Tartan Gangs and Paramilitaries: The Loyalist Backlash was published in 2016.

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New Title • MEMOIR

IN ANOTHER WORLD VAN MORRISON & BELFAST

Gerald Dawe

‘A lovely and lively little book … all about lost moments, fleeting possibilities and half-forgotten histories … Another world indeed, a past captured in these bittersweet essays that might also stand for a possible future.’

Fintan O’Toole, The Irish Times In Another World is a unique trip through Belfast, mapped into the mystic through the timeless music of Van ‘the Man’ Morrison. The aptly soulful and inventive prose stems from the electric wit of acclaimed poet and fellow Belfast man, Gerald Dawe.

Struck by the extraordinary brand of rhythm and blues that was Morrison’s brainchild, Dawe’s book is a celebration of the inspirations that underline Morrison’s music. Silhouetted in the work is Belfast, moody and vibrant, and the formative influence of the pre-Troubles northern capital on Morrison’s musical direction.

NEW IN PAPERBACK

Dawe’s writing transmutes the tender and unforgettable strains of Morrison’s work, from the release in 1968 of Astral Weeks to the publication in 2014 of Lit Up Inside: Selected Lyrics. A powerful tribute to mark Van Morrison’s accomplishments, In Another World taps into his legacy’s eclectic soul and is kin to its enchantments.

135 pages 205 x 130mm

Gerald Dawe has published ten books of poetry, including The Lundys Letter, Sunday School, Lake Geneva, Points West, Mickey Finn’s Air and The Last Peacock. His other publications include The Wrong Country: Essays on Modern Irish Writing, The Sound of the Shuttle: Essays on Cultural Belonging & Protestantism in Northern Ireland and Looking Through You: Northern Chronicles (2020). He is the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including the Macaulay Fellowship in Literature.

AUGUST 2020 €12.95 / £9.99 9781785373657

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New Title • MEMOIR

LOOKING THROUGH YOU NORTHERN CHRONICLES

Gerald Dawe

Looking Through You: Northern Chronicles, the sequel to renowned Belfast poet and author Gerald Dawe’s critically acclaimed In Another World: Van Morrison & Belfast, is the evocative record of the musical, literary and artistic influences that inspired and forged Dawe’s awakening as a poet, and his career in Irish literature.

Taking its bearings from Belfast in the 1960s, The Beatles’ Rubber Soul album and the energising shock of reading the great American poets Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, Dawe’s engagingly lyrical style has produced an evocative and memorable record of the music, poetry and culture of growing up in the northern capital.

Featuring the stunning photography of Euan Gébler, this literary memoir is a must-have for fans of Dawe’s work, a superb introduction to his world for new readers, and, in his own words, may help ‘renew Belfast and the ordinary life and lives of the city, and allow its people to overcome as best they can the seemingly irreconcilable and unsolvable conflicts of the past’.

HARDBACK AUGUST 2020 €16.95 / £14.99 9781785372810 130 pages 205 x 130mm

Merrion Press received financial assistance from The Arts Council for this publication.

Gerald Dawe has published ten books of poetry, including The Lundys Letter, Sunday School, Lake Geneva, Points West, Mickey Finn’s Air and The Last Peacock. His other publications include The Wrong Country: Essays on Modern Irish Writing, The Sound of the Shuttle: Essays on Cultural Belonging & Protestantism in Northern Ireland and In Another World: Van Morrison & Belfast. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including the Macaulay Fellowship in Literature.

MERRION PRESS

New Title • BIOGRAPHY

PSYCHIATRIST IN THE CHAIR THE OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY OF ANTHONY CLARE

Brendan Kelly & Muiris Houston Born in Dublin in 1942, Anthony Clare was the bestknown psychiatrist of his generation. His BBC Radio 4 show, In the Psychiatrist’s Chair, which ran from 1982 to 2001, brought him international fame and changed the nature of broadcast interviews forever.

Famous interviewees included Stephen Fry, Anthony Hopkins, Spike Milligan, Maya Angelou and Jimmy Saville, each of whom yielded to Clare’s inimitable gentle yet probing style.

Clare made unique contributions to the demystification and practice of psychiatry, most notably through his classic book Psychiatry in Dissent: Controversial Issues in Thought and Practice (1976). This book, the first official biography of this much-loved figure, examines the man behind these achievements: the debater and the doctor, the writer and the broadcaster, the public figure and the family man. Using extensive public and family records, we ask: Who was Anthony Clare, really? What drove him? And what is to be learned from his life, his career, and his unique, sometimes controversial legacy to our understanding of the mind? This is the remarkable story of a remarkable person.

HARDBACK OCTOBER 2020 €22.95 / £19.99 9781785373299 300 pages 234 x 156mm

Dr Brendan Kelly is Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. His books include Hearing Voices: The History of Psychiatry in Ireland (IAP, 2016) and Coping with Coronavirus (Merrion Press, 2020).

Muiris Houston is a medical writer and health strategist, a specialist in occupational medicine, Adjunct Professor of Narrative Medicine at Trinity College Dublin, and writerin-residence at Evidence Synthesis Ireland at NUIG. He is a columnist with the Medical Independent and The Irish Times.

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New Title • BIOGRAPHY

KEVIN BARRY

AN IRISH REBEL IN LIFE AND DEATH

Eunan O’Halpin

On 1 November 1920, eighteen-year-old UCD medical student Kevin Barry was hanged in Mountjoy Jail for his role in an IRA raid that killed a British soldier. The reaction to his execution was incensed and international, and to this day, he remains a vibrant icon of patriotic, idealistic death, his name synonymous with youthful republican sacrifice. The persistence of his memory is singular, not only within Irish republicanism but also in the wider world.

Eunan O’Halpin, esteemed historian and grandnephew of Kevin Barry, explores his ancestor’s short but significant life, the dynamics of growing up with ‘a martyr in the family’, and why Barry’s name has continued to resonate in Ireland and beyond.

O’Halpin examines Barry’s ideological formation and the impact of his religious education, and challenges common misconceptions about educated, privileged men who were just as willing as rural Volunteers to do what they saw as their duty. Indeed, Barry’s life in the IRA in Carlow and Dublin was a surprisingly active one, despite his age, and his story tells us a great deal about the young men who joined the IRA to fight against British rule, and later each other, and the families left behind to keep their memories alive.

Eunan O’Halpin is Bank of Ireland Professor of Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College Dublin, specialising in Twentieth-Century Irish and British History. He has published seven books on Irish history and intelligence, including Spying on Ireland: British Intelligence and Irish Neutrality during the Second World War (2008) and The Dead of the Irish Revolution, 1916-1921 (2020).

PAPERBACK OCTOBER 2020 €16.95 / £14.99 9781785373497 250 pages 215 x 135mm

MERRION PRESS

New Title • NATURE

A NATURAL YEAR

THE TRANQUIL RHYTHMS AND RESTORATIVE POWERS OF IRISH NATURE THROUGH THE SEASONS

Michael Fewer Foreword by Éanna Ní Lamhna In A Natural Year, critically acclaimed travel writer Michael Fewer celebrates the everyday wonder of Irish nature in these beautifully written diaries, observed from his homes in south Dublin and rural Waterford, in which he delights at the startling beauty and extraordinary complexity of the natural world through the tranquil rhythms of the passing seasons.

Fewer’s infectious passion for his subject simply inspires our own observation, and suggests how careful study of the natural world around us can be a sure antidote to the stresses of modern life.

At a time when it’s essential for us to understand the crisis that faces our wildlife and environment, we need to know more about the natural world around us, the treasures that are being needlessly lost, and the threat to our very way of life.

A Natural Year will open eyes and hearts to a greater understanding of the world around us, and its innate beauty and fragility.

Michael Fewer combined architecture with academia for many years before focusing on writing about history, the environment, landscape, travel and walking. Author of more than twenty books about walking and nature in Ireland and over 400 articles, he is a regular Irish Times columnist and broadcast contributor.

PAPERBACK MARCH 2020 €17.95 / £15.99 9781785373183 296 pages 215 x 135mm

MERRION PRESS

New Title • MIND, BODY, SPIRIT

COPING WITH CORONAVIRUS HOW TO STAY CALM AND PROTECT YOUR MENTAL HEALTH – A PSYCHOLOGICAL TOOLKIT

Dr Brendan Kelly How worried should I be? What information can I trust? What should I tell the children? Can I survive the panic, let alone the virus?

These are certainly challenging, unprecedented times. Allow pre-eminent psychiatrist Dr Brendan Kelly to help you understand and cope with the unique stresses of today, as we all try to deal with the threat of COVID-19 within our homes, communities and throughout the world.

The anxiety associated with the coronavirus crisis is different to the anxiety seen in traditional disorders, because demonstrably there is something to fear, and that’s what makes this worry so ubiquitous, so persistent and so challenging to manage.

The good news is that, just as we are capable of finding sophisticated ways to make ourselves more anxious, we are equally good at finding sophisticated ways to manage our mental health, once we put our minds to it.

PAPERBACK MARCH 2020 €4.95 / £3.99 9781785373640 61 pages 178 x 110mm

Anxiety-management techniques help hugely once they are modified to suit the new situation that we face, and in Coping with Coronavirus, Dr Brendan Kelly will give you all the practical tools you and your family need to navigate these dark, uncertain days.

Dr Brendan Kelly is Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin and Consultant Psychiatrist at Tallaght Hospital, Dublin. He is the author of Ada English: Patriot and Psychiatrist (IAP, 2014), Hearing Voices: The History of Psychiatry in Ireland (IAP, 2019), and Psychiatrist in the Chair: The Official Biography of Anthony Clare (Merrion Press, 2020).

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New Title • HISTORY

THE ENIGMA OF ARTHUR GRIFFITH ‘FATHER OF US ALL’

Colum Kenny Almost a century after his untimely death in 1922, this lively and insightful new assessment explores the man Michael Collins described as ‘father of us all’ and reclaims Arthur Griffith as the founder of both Sinn Féin and the Irish Free State.

Since his death when President of Dáil Éireann, Griffith’s role has often been misrepresented. Too radical for some, he was not militant enough for others.

His legacy belongs to no single political party today.

Colum Kenny argues that efforts to ‘other’ Griffith as ‘un-Irish’ raise uncomfortable questions about Irish identity.

A dedicated activist and intellectual, as well as a skilled editor and balladeer, Griffith knew what it meant to be poor. He encouraged women to get involved in the struggle for Irish independence, and, unusually for his time, distinguished between Oscar Wilde’s private life and his work. Griffith’s complex relationships with Maud Gonne, W.B. Yeats and James Joyce are revealed here in significant new ways.

PAPERBACK JANUARY 2020 €19.95 / £17.99 9781785373145 544 pages 225 x 155mm

The Enigma of Arthur Griffith brings the ‘father of us all’ into focus for a new generation.

Colum Kenny is Professor Emeritus at Dublin City University. A barrister, journalist and historian, he has written widely on culture and society. His books include An Irish-American Odyssey (2014) and Moments that Changed Us: Ireland after 1973 (2005). A founding board member of the E.U. Media Desk in Ireland, he served on the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.

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New Title • HISTORY

A BLOODY VICTORY

THE IRISH AT WAR’S END: EUROPE 1945

Dan Harvey

Post D-Day, with the Allies on the newly created ‘Second Front’ driving fast eastwards beyond Paris, and the Russians on the ‘Eastern Front’ pressing westwards, the fervour of the fascist Nazi regime remained undiminished. For the Third Reich it was intolerable to believe that they must now concede.

Instead of ending the war, the levels of hostility, brutality and terror increased. The resistance to the Allied advances across Europe, first towards, then inside, Germany intensified, and every inch of the Fatherland was bitterly contested. With the Allies, in their thousands, were the Irish.

A Bloody Victory unearths these people from the corners of Irish history and transports them back to the D-Day beaches and the bridge at Arnhem, to the frozen landscapes at the Battle of the Bulge, the banks of the River Rhine, to the unimaginable horrors of Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald concentration camps, and finally to the ruinous Battle of Berlin.

There was no one ‘Irish narrative’ in the Second World War, but there was a narrative of Irish individuals, and in A Bloody Victory, Dan Harvey pays due tribute to their significant contribution.

Lt Col. Dan Harvey is the author of A Bloody Summer: The Irish at the Battle of Britain; A Bloody Week: The Irish at Arnhem; A Bloody Dawn: The Irish At D-Day; Soldiering against Subversion: The Irish Defence Forces and Internal Security During the Troubles, 1969–1998; Into Action: Irish Peacekeepers Under Fire, 1960–2014; A Bloody Day: The Irish at Waterloo; A Bloody Night: The Irish at Rorke’s Drift; and Soldiers of the Short Grass: A History of the Curragh Camp.

PAPERBACK JUNE 2020 €16.95 / £14.99 9781785373336 150 pages 234 x 156mm

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New Title • HISTORY

A BLOODY SUMMER

THE IRISH AT THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

Dan Harvey

The Battle of Britain, regarded by historians as one of the greatest air battles in the history of warfare, was an early turning point in the Second World War. In the summer of 1940, the German army had, with astonishing speed, mercilessly swept aside all before them and were perched on the northern coastline of France. Outright victory over all of Europe was impeded only by the expanse of the English Channel.

The supremely confident, yet-to-be defeated Luftwaffe (German Air Force) were eager for continued action, to claim air superiority and victory over an outnumbered RAF and clear the skies for the amphibious invasions of Britain and Ireland. It was vital that the RAF deny them, and so a ferocious and highly strategic aerial battle began that was to rage for more than three months.

Among those in the RAF’s Spitfire and Hurricane fighter squadrons were Irishmen, who were in the thick of the aerial exchanges, daring ‘dog-fights’, and intrepid interceptions of German bombers. A Bloody Summer: The Irish at the Battle of Britain for the first time tells the true and full story of their heretofore underestimated involvement in this epic aerial encounter.

Lt Col. Dan Harvey is the author of A Bloody Victory: The Irish at War’s End, Europe 1945; A Bloody Week: The Irish at Arnhem; A Bloody Dawn: The Irish At D-Day; Soldiering against Subversion: The Irish Defence Forces and Internal Security During the Troubles, 1969–1998; Into Action: Irish Peacekeepers Under Fire, 1960–2014; A Bloody Day: The Irish at Waterloo; A Bloody Night: The Irish at Rorke’s Drift; and Soldiers of the Short Grass: A History of the Curragh Camp.

PAPERBACK JULY 2020 €16.95 / £14.99 9781785373251 150 pages 234 x 156mm

MERRION PRESS

New Title • BIOGRAPHY

MAY TYRANTS TREMBLE

THE LIFE OF WILLIAM DRENNAN, 1754–1820

Fergus Whelan

William Drennan, founder and leader of the Society of United Irishmen, is long overdue a comprehensive biography. May Tyrants Tremble fills that gap and obliterates the historical consensus that, after being acquitted at his 1794 trial for sedition, Drennan withdrew from the United Irish movement. In fact, Fergus Whelan proves that Drennan remained a leading voice of Presbyterian radicalism until his death in 1820, and his ideals, along with those of Wolfe Tone and other pivotal United Irishmen, formed the basis of Ireland’s republic.

By 1784, Drennan had already established a national reputation as a leading writer in the radical cause. He composed the United Irish Test and he was the Society’s most prolific literary propagandist. Here, Whelan offers new evidence that Drennan was ‘Marcus’, author of the most seditious material published in Dublin in 1797–8, and he also establishes that Ulster Presbyterian Drennan did in fact champion Catholic Emancipation throughout his life.

May Tyrants Tremble repositions William Drennan as the father of Irish democracy. The brazen walls of separation he so eloquently lamented are with us still, but his story shines a light on one of the great mysteries of Irish history: what happened to Presbyterian republicanism after 1798?

Fergus Whelan is the author of Dissent into Treason: Unitarians King-killers and the Society of United Irishmen (2010) and God-Provoking Democrat: The Remarkable Life of Archibald Hamilton Rowan (2015). He has contributed to History Ireland magazine, An Irishman’s Diary in The Irish Times and the Irish Humanist and Look Left magazines.

May Tyrants Tremble is his third book.

HARDBACK MARCH 2020 €29.95 / £24.99 9781788551212 350 pages 234 x 156mm

New Title • MYTHOLOGY

EARTHING THE MYTHS

THE MYTHS, LEGENDS AND EARLY HISTORY OF IRELAND

Daragh Smyth In Ireland, the link between place and myth is strong, and there is no more enlightening way to understand the rich tapestry of Irish mythology, and its relationship to our true history, than by reading the landscape. Earthing the Myths is an engaging and exhaustive county-by-county guide to the vast number of fascinating places in Ireland connected to myth, folklore and early history.

Covering the period 800 BC to AD 650, this book spans the Late Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the early Christian period, and explores the ways in which the land evolved, and with it our catalogue of myths and legends. Smyth chronicles sites the length and breadth of the country, where druids, fairies, goddesses, warriors and kings all left their mark, in tales both real and imagined.

With over one thousand locations recorded, from Rathlin Island to the Beara Peninsula, Earthing the Myths breathes life into places throughout Ireland that find their origins in our pre-Christian and pre-Gaelic past, and shows that they still possess unique wisdom and vibrant energy.

Daragh Smyth is a retired lecturer from the Dublin Institute of Technology and co-founder of Saor Ollscoil na hÉireann (The Free University of Ireland). He was in charge of the Erasmus programme at D.I.T., where he taught Irish Cultural studies to students from Europe, Australia and North America. Smyth has published two books with Irish Academic Press: A Guide to Irish Mythology (1996) and Cú Chulainn: An Iron Age Hero (2005).

HARDBACK JULY 2020 €29.95 / £24.99 9781788551359 450 pages 205 x 130mm

New Title • ESSAYS

THE SOUND OF THE SHUTTLE ESSAYS ON CULTURAL BELONGING & PROTESTANTISM IN NORTHERN IRELAND

Gerald Dawe ‘…wonderfully written. Dawe has a fluidity in his prose that moves these pieces along at quite a rate’ Andrew Cunning, The Irish Times The Sound of the Shuttle is an eloquent and compelling selection of essays written over four decades by Belfast-born poet Gerald Dawe, exploring the difficult and at times neglected territory of cultural belonging and northern Protestantism. The title, taken from a letter of John Keats during a journey through the north-east in 1818, evokes the lives, now erased from history, of the thousands of workers in the linen industry, tobacco factories and shipyards of Belfast.

Sketching in literary, social and political contexts to widen the frame of reference, Dawe offers fascinating insights into the current debate about a ‘New Ireland’ by bringing into critical focus the experiences, beliefs and achievements of a sometimes maligned and often misread community, generally referred to as Northern protestants.

In making the telling point that ‘The jagged edges of the violent past are still locked within ideological vices’, The Sound of the Shuttle is an insightful and honest report based upon many years of creative and critical practice.

Gerald Dawe has published ten books of poetry, including The Lundys Letter, Sunday School, Lake Geneva, Points West, Mickey Finn’s Air and The Last Peacock. His other publications include The Wrong Country: Essays on Modern Irish Writing, In Another World: Van Morrison & Belfast, and Looking Through You: Northern Chronicles (2020). He is the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including the Macaulay Fellowship in Literature.

HARDBACK JANUARY 2020 €18.95 / £16.99 9781788551069 200 pages 205 x 130mm

New Title • HISTORY

WITHOUT A DOG’S CHANCE

THE NATIONALISTS OF NORTHERN IRELAND AND THE IRISH BOUNDARY COMMISSION, 1920–1925

James A. Cousins Covering the years 1920–1925, Without a Dog’s Chance is the first major study of Northern nationalists’ role in the Boundary Commission that they, and their allies in the Irish Free State, had hoped to use to end partition and destroy the new Northern state.

For Northern nationalists, the partition of Ireland was an intensely traumatic event, not only because it consigned almost half a million nationalists to a government that was not of their choosing, but also because they regarded partition as the mutilation of their Irish citizenship and nationhood.

Without a Dog’s Chance fills an important gap in the history of this period by focusing on the complex relationship between partition-era Northern and Southern nationalism, and the subordinate role Northern nationalists had in Ireland’s post-partition political landscape. Feeling under-valued, abandoned and exploited by their peers in the South, Northern nationalists were also radically marginalised within the new Northern Irish state, which regarded them with fear and suspicion.

With December 2020 marking one hundred years since partition, this timely book is essential reading.

James A. Cousins holds a PhD in history from Simon Fraser University, Canada, and master’s degrees in political science and Indigenous public policy. James is originally from the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, and he currently works as a Senior Policy Advisor for the Ontario Ministry of Indigenous Affairs, specialising in matters related to Indigenous governance and self-determination.

PAPERBACK JANUARY 2020 €24.95 / £22.99 9781788551021 380 pages 234 x 156mm

New Title • HISTORY

A HISTORY OF IRELAND IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Owen McGee This essential new history of the Irish state is a study of Ireland’s international profile on the world stage, rather than its party politics.

Against a global backdrop, it offers a fresh and analytical study of the origins of the Irish state, the Irish revolution and the growth of Irish diplomacy, from just six consulates in the 1920s to over sixty embassies by the 2010s.

Through original research and analysis, historian Owen McGee explores how Ireland’s economic performance formed a perpetual context for its role in international relations, and also locates Ireland’s place within evolving European, American and United Nations debates, resulting in the first comprehensive and incisive overview of a century of Irish diplomacy.

By focusing on Ireland’s struggle for independence in a global context, McGee examines how the Irish state slowly came to find a distinct role on the world stage, and raises questions regarding its evolving geopolitical, cultural and economic identities, as it sought to find its place within a globalised economy, not only politically but also in terms of the world of ideas.

Owen McGee is a historian who has contributed articles to Irish Studies in International Affairs, Éire-Ireland and other academic journals. His previous books include Arthur Griffith, the award-winning study The IRB, and a revised edition of Souvenirs of Irish Footprints Over Europe.

PAPERBACK FEBRUARY 2020 €24.95 / £22.99 9781788551137 368 pages 226 x 153mm

New Title • HISTORY

THE BENEDICTINE NUNS & KYLEMORE ABBEY A HISTORY

Deirdre Raftery & Catherine KilBride For one hundred years, Kylemore Abbey has been home to the Irish Benedictine nuns, whose monastery in Flanders was destroyed during the First World War. Known in continental Europe as the Irish Dames of Ypres, the community was founded in 1665 and provided education to the daughters of elite Irish Catholics during the penal era. On arriving in Connemara in 1920, the Benedictines established a monastery and opened a boarding school.

This book provides the first fully illustrated account of the Irish Benedictines and their monastery at Kylemore. It also charts the fascinating history of the castle, built by Mitchell Henry and later home to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester. The stunningly beautiful castle became a national landmark in the nineteenth century. The twentieth century saw the Benedictines develop the gardens, restore the Gothic Chapel and open the castle to the public.

Meticulously researched with material from the Kylemore archives, this book provides a compelling account of a unique part of Irish history, while the images capture the life of the nuns, and the savage beauty of Kylemore and its surroundings under the Diamond Mountain.

Deirdre Raftery is Professor of the History of Education at UCD, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She has thirteen book publications including (jointly) Nano Nagle: The Life and the Legacy (2018) and Transnationalism, Gender and the History of Education (2017).

Catherine KilBride was Principal of Pembroke School (Miss Meredith’s), Education Director of the Marketing Institute, and lecturer in Education Management at University College Dublin. She is now an editor, translator and writer.

This is her fourth book.

HARDBACK JUNE 2020 €19.95 / £17.99 9781785373220 210 pages 225 x 170mm

New Title • HISTORY

RETREAT FROM REVOLUTION THE DÁIL COURTS, 1920–24

Mary Kotsonouris

In the spring of 1920, a remarkable phenomenon occurred in Ireland: the people took over the administration of law and order in their own communities and turned their backs on the enforced British judicial system. It became international news. Small tribunals adjudicated in local disputes about land, the local Volunteer companies abducted and punished thieves and petty criminals, directed public order at race meetings and fair days, and in parts of the country burnt down the existing court houses.

Retreat from Revolution is the first in-depth account of the courts system established by a Dáil decree in June 1920. Presided over by locally elected justices and attached to virtually every parish in the country for ready access, these Dáil courts soon displaced the largely abandoned British court system, on which people turned their backs.

This is the true story of the Dáil Courts as told by the people involved – the litigants, the officials and the judges. Mary Kotsonouris vividly portrays the self-confidence of these men and women, their ability to create structure that answered their needs, and their keen appreciation of their place in the emerging democracy.

Mary Kotsonouris was born in Limerick and educated in Roscrea and University College Dublin. She practised as a solicitor in Dublin before serving as a judge of the District Court for nine years. In 1992 she was awarded an M.Litt degree for legal research by Trinity College and she is the author of Talking to Your Solicitor (1992), The Winding-up of the Dáil Courts, 1922–1925 (2004), and ‘Tis All Lies, Your Worship.:Tales from the District Court (2011).

PAPERBACK JUNE 2020 €18.95 / £17.99 9781788551250 174 pages 234 x 156mm

New Title • HISTORY

WOMEN AND THE IRISH REVOLUTION FEMINISM, ACTIVISM, VIOLENCE

Linda Connolly (ed.)

The narrative of the Irish revolution as a chronology of great men and male militarism, with women presumed to have either played a subsidiary role or no role at all, requires constant vigilance. Women and feminists were in fact extremely active in Irish revolutionary causes from 1912 on, but ultimately it was the men as revolutionary ‘leaders’ who took all the power (and indeed all the credit) after independence.

Women from different backgrounds were activists in not insignificant numbers, and women across Ireland were profoundly impacted by the overall violence and tumult of the era. But they were then relegated to the private sphere, with the memory of their important political and military contribution to the revolution forgotten and erased.

Women and the Irish Revolution examines diverse aspects of women’s experiences in the revolution after the Rising. The complex role of women as activists, the detrimental impact of violence and social and political divisions on women, the role of women in the foundation of the new State, and dynamics of remembrance and forgetting are explored in detail. Important and timely, and featuring previously unpublished material, this book will prompt vital new public conversations about the experiences of women in the Irish revolution.

Linda Connolly is the Director of the Social Sciences Institute at Maynooth University. A Professor of Sociology, her research interests include gender, family studies, and Irish studies. She has published extensively on these subjects, in journals and edited volumes, and has written two books: The Irish Women’s Movement: from revolution to devolution (2003) and Documenting Irish Feminisms: the second wave (with Tina O’Toole, 2005).

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PAPERBACK NOVEMBER 2020 €24.95 / £21.99 9781788551533 288 pages 226 x 153mm

BACK MONTH 20XX €XX.XX / £XX.XX ISBN XXX pages XXX x XXXmm

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New Title • ART HISTORY

ART, IRELAND, AND THE IRISH DIASPORA CHICAGO, DUBLIN, NEW YORK, 1893–1939 CULTURE, CONNECTIONS & CONTROVERSIES

Éimear O’Connor Art, Ireland, and the Irish Diaspora reveals a labyrinth of social and cultural connections that conspired to create and sustain an image of Ireland for the nation and for the Irish diaspora between 1893 and 1939. This era saw an upsurge of interest among patrons and collectors in New York and Chicago in the ‘Irishness’ of Irish art, which was facilitated by gallery owners, émigrés, philanthropists, and art-world celebrities.

Leading Irish art historian Éimear O’Connor, explores the ongoing tensions between those in Ireland and the expatriate community in the US, split as they were between tradition and modernity, and between public expectation and political rhetoric, as Ireland sought to forge a post-Treaty international identity through its visual artists.

Featuring a glittering cast of players including Jack.

B. Yeats, George Russell (Æ), Lady Gregory, and Seán Keating, and richly illustrated in colour with images from archives on both sides of the Atlantic, Art, Ireland and the Irish Diaspora presents a wealth of new research, and draws together, for the first time, a series of themes that bound the Dublin art scene with that in New York and Chicago through complex networks and contemporary publications at an extraordinary time in Ireland’s history.

Éimear O’Connor is an Honorary Member of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts. She is the author of Seán Keating in Context: Responses to Culture and Politics in Post-Civil War Ireland (2009), Seán Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation (IAP, 2013) and Editor of Irish Women Artists 1800-2009: Familiar but Unknown (2010).

PAPERBACK SEPTEMBER 2020 €35.00 / £30.00 9781788551496 400 pages 240 x 190mm

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