Irish America’s picks of the best CDs, DVDs, and books for stocking fillers this holiday season.

CD

Van Morrison
Pay the Devil
Lost Highway Records

Pay the Devil sees Van the Man turn in a quite astounding album of country and western classics with a handful of originals thrown in. The CD has garnered mixed reviews, but after seeing Mr. Morrison on the tube perform a set from the album, live from Nashville, there is no doubt that these interpretations are sheer genius; the audience went wild. One of the most exuberant albums of the year, Van is finally having some real fun, God bless him.

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Solas
Reunion: A Decade of Solas
Compass Records

A band that has always had lots of fun, Solas celebrated their tenth anniversary in 2006 with a concert in Philadelphia and released a live CD/DVD showcasing the event. Solas is most certainly the finest Irish-American band out there, a powerhouse of virtuoso performers that reunited old and current members for the concert. They revisit the best of their catalogue and the result is thrilling. If you need waking up after Christmas dinner, slip the DVD in the slot and prepare to hoolie.

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk 

Iarla Ó Lionáird
Invisible Fields
Real World Records

Iarla Ó Lionáird’s Invisible Fields is a brooding, stunningly beautiful set of English and Gaelic songs sung by one of Ireland’s foremost contemporary Sean Nós singers. Be warned though, this is not Easy Listening music; Iarla weaves a path from traditional to avant-garde styling with a voice so ethereal and haunting it takes several plays to grasp how amazing this lead singer of Afro-Celt Sound System really is.

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
Daybreak: Fáinne an Lae
Compass Records

The lead singer of Danú, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, has her first solo album out, and it is a beauty. Daybreak: Fáinne an Lae, as the title suggests, is a mix of Gaelic and English traditional and contemporary songs, with a few sets of tunes thrown in to showcase her considerable whistle and fluting talents. Muireann is one of the most dynamic young singer/musicians out there today, and her stunning voice with its impeccable phrasing is truly exhilarating.

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Pauline Scanlon
Hush
Compass Records

Pauline Scanlon has just released her second album, Hush, on the Compass label, and like Paul Brady, with the talents of the Compass stable to back her up, to great effect. Ms. Scanlon has a quirky, often breathless voice that fades in and out but never loses control of what she is expressing. From the haunting “Demon Lover” to John Spillane’s contemporary classic “When You and I Were True” this is a spellbinding effort that promises a great career ahead.

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Paul Brady
Say What You Feel
Compass Records

Paul Brady returns to top form with Say What You Feel. Recorded at Compass studios with the best of Nashville’s session men, this is white Irish soul at its finest, with a host of new original songs sung with renewed passion by one of Ireland’s most popular performers.

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

DVD

Cinderella Man
Starring Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger.
Directed by Ron Howard.

For the sports enthusiast on your list, Cinderella Man is a must. Based on the true story of James J. Braddock, the film tells the tale of an impoverished out-of-luck ex-prizefighter during the Great Depression. Unable to support his family and worried for their well-being, Braddock returns to the ring. Fueled by hunger and desperation Braddock fights his way to the top and tackles the unthinkable task of going against heavyweight champ of the world, Max Baer. An instant classic with amazing performances by both Crowe and Zellweger.

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Ryan’s Daughter DVD
(Two-Disc Special Edition)
Starring Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard.
Directed by David Lean.

Fancy a torrid love story set against a sweeping Irish landscape? Look no
further than David Lean’s classic Ryan’s Daughter. Starring Robert Mitchum and Sarah Miles, it is set during WWI on the Irish peninsula of Dingle and tells the tale of a widower named Shaughnessy and his love for the much younger Rosy, whose scandalous affair with an English officer leads to her being accused of betraying local Republicans to British authorities. The Special Edition DVD presents the film in its original 206-minute running time and features commentaries from directors John Boorman and Hugh Hudson.

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Mise Éire
Directed by George Morrison.
English Subtitles

George Morrison’s 1959 Mise Éire (I Am Ireland) is a stunning film which, using archival film, recounts the history of Ireland between 1896 and 1918 in three sections, Awakening (1896 - 1915), The Rising (1916) and The Dawning of the Day (1917 -1918). The movie was produced by Gael Linn, an Irish language and culture advocacy group, and is the first Irish language movie feature over ninety minutes. The film’s stirring musical score was composed by Sean O’Riada, who revived and invigorated Irish traditional music in the 1960s. Highlights abound in this homage to those who shaped the history of the Irish nation, and the re-released DVD is a must for those interested in Irish history.

Available from:
- Amazon.co.uk

The Matador
Starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear.
Directed by Richard Shepard.

This dark comedy with a twist will surely satisfy the hard to please on your list. Pierce Brosnan plays Julian Noble, a scruffy, unpredictable freelance assassin. At the bar of a Mexico City hotel Julian meets Danny Wright, played by Greg Kinnear, a mild-mannered Denver businessman, and they drink the night away. Months later Julian shows up at Danny’s home in Denver, shattered and desperate. Danny takes the man in as the two unlikely allies find themselves thrown together in a random yet life-altering twist of fate.

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Chronicles of Narnia
(Three-Disc Special Edition)
Starring Richard Dempsey, Sophie Cook.

A first-rate choice of stocking stuffer for kids and adults alike, The Chronicles of Narnia offers a magical escape into the world of fantasy. Based on the novels of C.S Lewis, the film tells the tale of the four Penveses children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy who are evacuated from London during World War II and placed into the country house of an eccentric professor. A game of Hide and Seek leads the children to uncover a wardrobe in the attic that has the ability to transport them to the magical land of Narnia. However, this fantastic world is cursed by the White Witch and remains in perpetual winter. Under the guidance of the lion Asian, the noble ruler of Narnia, the children fight to free the land from the fate imposed on them by the White Witch.

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Based on a novel by Patrick McCabe, Breakfast on Pluto tells the story of Patrick “Kitten” Braden, a foster child growing up in a small Irish town whose homosexuality puts him at odds with the conservative townspeople. Leaving for London, where he hopes to find his mother, Kitten embarks on a series of adventures that include touring with a rock band, being almost murdered, becoming an assistant to a magician and being arrested as an IRA
terrorist. Cillian Murphy like you've never seen him before!

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Books

Easter Rising:
An Irish American
Coming Up from Under
By Michael Patrick McDonald

Michael Patrick McDonald, whose memoir All Souls described a broken community, which, in one way or another, claimed the lives of four of his siblings, has now written a follow-up entitled Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up from Under. In what is another insightful, unflinching memoir, Easter Rising picks up where All Souls left off, as McDonald finally leaves the impoverished projects of the old Irish ghetto behind.
(241 pages / Houghton Mifflin)

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Frank McCourt’s third book, Teacher Man explores how he fell into teaching and the unorthodox methods he used to motivate hard-to-reach students. “In the high school classroom,” he writes, “you are a drill sergeant, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a trafic cop, a priest, a mother-father-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookkeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.”

Teacher Man shows that McCourt still has the unique gift of looking back on his life and telling stories with humor and poetry.
(258 pages / Scribner)

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Anybody Out There?

Anybody Out There? is propelled by the vision which Marian Keyes puts in the reader’s head of lovely Anna Walsh all smashed up, back home in Dublin with her quite eccentric mother trying to nurse her back to health. But relax, lovers of Marian Keyes, this is another score for Keyes, who continues to balance life’s dark and light tones in her works. Extra credit should also go to Keyes for managing to depict both Dublin and New York City in such a comical, yet true-to-life fashion.
(464 pages / William Morrow)

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

If there is a theme in this hefty tome, it is that the Irish did not dissolve into the melting pot, so much as they took possession of it.

Edited by J.J. Lee and Marion Casey, with a contributors list that is a virtual Who’s Who of Irish-American writers, this book compiles original research and excerpts from famous and important Irish books and journals, and explores topics ranging from politics and religion to music and firefighting.
( 736 pages / NYU Press)

Available from:
- Amazon.com - Hardcover
- Amazon.com - Paperback
- Amazon.co.uk - Hardcover
- Amazon.co.uk - Paperback

Lord of the Dance: My Story
By Michael Flatley

In Lord of the Dance: My Story (co-written with Douglas Thompson) Michael Flatley describes his youth as hardscrabble, during which he helped his dad dig ditches. At the age of 11, against his will, he attended Irish dance classes and thus were born Flatley’s famous feet of flames. What is perhaps most interesting about this memoir is Flatley’s take on his rise to stardom. There’s quite a bit of name-dropping, late-night club hopping and elbow rubbing with stars, but the book shows that Flatley’s life story is an inspiring, undeniable example of the Irish-American dream.
(320 pages / Touchstone )

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk

Rural Ireland was John McGahern’s muse. “The people and the language and landscape…were like my breathing,” he wrote. All Will Be Well, his memoir, reveals the often tortured inspirations behind his powerful, beautiful fiction. We read that his father had a violent streak which, invariably, was directed towards his mother who died when John was just nine. However, his mother’s love, her legacy of independence, was so strong that it helped the children survive the hard years.

McGahern, 71, died of cancer this past summer. It is to every reader of Irish literature’s benefit that he managed to complete his memoir before he died.
(304 pages / Knopf)

Available from:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.co.uk