The Summer 2009 (Vol. Eight) issue of the Irish quarterly review, STUDIES has just appeared in a regal purple cover. The theme is ‘Overlooked in Irish History,’ and contains some fascinating insights into the work of Canon Sheehan, novelist, Nano Nagle (her commemorative rooms in Dingle, Co. Kerry, in the old convent, are worth a visit) and Bulmer Hobson, a Protestant Nationalist. Pól Ó Muirí reviews a new book on Northern Ireland in the aftermath of the Troubles, citing as the book’s main weakness that “they do not define what Northern Irish society was like before the Troubles began.” There are numerous book reviews. Fascinating is the essay by Joyce Padbury on Mary Leyden, 1862 - 1942, who, because a woman lecturing would be too strange a thing altogether, was not appointed to a Senior Fellowship of the Royal University in University College. The Autumn issue is themed around ‘Solving our Problems.’ {www.studiesirishreview.com ISBN 02 9 770039 349043. Editor Fergus O’Donohue, S.J. Available (in Galway) at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Middle Street.}
THE EDINBURGH REVIEW 126 has just popped through the door, with a stories by James Kelman and others, poetry, a wonderful black-and-white visual essay by Robin Gillanders, and a screed of book reviews, of poetry and essays and criticism. ‘New Perspectives on the Irish in Scotland’ is a book of a dozen essays on “the impact that immigration from Ireland has had on Scvottish society from entire nineteenth century to the second world war.” One of the essays, by Máirtín Ó Catháin, concerns Sinn Féin in Scotland, from 1905 to 1938 - the date, interestingly, of Hitler’s ‘Anschluss.’ Various communities such as Clydeside, for instance, are examined; it is notable that (the same was true in Canada in the ‘Fifties) that Ulster-born Catholic and Protestant immigrants reached a point by 1901 when segregation, “although intense at first, was negligible.” The Irish did not merely emigrate to Scotland; they shaped that country. (The Edinburgh Review. £5.99 ISSN 0267-6672 Edited by Brian McCabe. www.edinburghreview.org.uk)
Last but by no means least, comes LIRE, for May 2009. This mesmerising French literary magazine covers, as we’ve come to expect from French lit-mags, film, theatre and music too. The theme is Italy this time around; but there is an extract from a new novel by Douglas Kennedy, ‘Quitter le Monde,’ and a very positive review of Kate O’Riordan’s ‘Pierres de mémoire,’ in which she “confirme qu’elle peut se mesurer aux meilleures plumes irlandaises, celles de John McGahern ou d’Edna O’Brien.” Irish writing has always featured strongly amongst Europes movers and shakers, as witness the news, conveyed in an essay on Adolf Hitler’s reading habits (he read voraciously), that he was an ardent fan of Swift and read ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ with energy. What would he have made of The British Library losing 9,000 books, among them an edition of Wilde’s 1891 ‘Portrait of Dorian Gray,’ worth about €1,400? LIRE was not slow to pick up that story from The Guardian newspaper. Elsewhere there are in-depth discussions of contemporary and previous Italian literature, from Dante to our own time to the popular novels of the giftedly-named Loriano Macchiavelli, and a competition for school children, where they are invited to submit made-up words. [LIRE ‘De Dante a nos jours’ - €5.90. Abonnements: B 1104 - 60732 Sainte Genevieve Cedex, France.]
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