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Irish CENTURY Series  One
of the most ambitious projects in recent Irish fiction will be completed
when Morgan Llywelyn’s 1999: A Novel of the Celtic Tiger and the
Search for Peace is published in February ($24.95 / 400 pages / Forge).
This is the fifth and final entry in Llywelyn’s Irish Century series,
in which the prolific author traces the history of 20th-century Ireland
through a single family. Llywelyn’s feat is a remarkable one, which
will help countless readers come to terms with the complexities of the
Irish century, from the Easter Rising right up to the new millennium.
You’ll just need a little bit of time to take it all in. Llywelyn’s
five books weigh in at a total of over 2,500 pages. Llywelyn’s accomplishment
is all the more impressive because she continues to publish other books
in a variety of genres. Perhaps most famously, her book Grania was the
source material for the Broadway musical The Pirate Queen.
But the Irish Century series is Llywelyn’s most impressive creation.
It is true that these books represent a relatively traditional example
of historical fiction. Don’t come to 1999 – or the earlier
books, 1916, 1921, 1949 or 1972 – looking for postmodern historical
fiction in the vein of Roddy Doyle’s Star Called Henry. Llywelyn
dramatizes the well-known events of Irish history through real life figures
as well as her own sharply drawn fictional characters.
She even provides footnotes and capsule biographies so that readers know
a little bit about each character. 1999 revolves around Barry Halloran,
a crippled photographer and former IRA member who was in Derry during
Bloody Sunday in 1972. By the 1990s, Barry, like so many on the island
of Ireland, has renounced violence.
As she has in the series’ four previous novels, Llywelyn spirals
back in time, covering the fallout from Bloody Sunday, the Troubles through
the 1980s and, finally, the peace process and rise of the Celtic Tiger.
Particularly striking in 1999 is Llywelyn’s handling of the Hunger
Strikes, which made Bobby Sands an international icon. Ironically, Llywelyn’s
series actually began in 1999 with the publication of 1916. Llywelyn’s
main character is Barry’s grandfather, Ned Halloran. Ned’s
own parents died on the Titanic.
Aimless, Halloran finds a purpose in life when he attends an Irish school
with a poet and headmaster by the name of Padraic Pearse. Ned comes of
age as a man as well as an Irish patriot, to the point where he is willing
to collaborate with those plotting a rebellion in Dublin. Ned’s
love life, and life as a soldier, culminate on Easter Monday, 1916.
Next came Llywelyn’s 1921, which catches up with Ned Halloran
after the Rising. He has married Sile, but she has caught they eye of
Ned’s best friend, a journalist named Henry Mooney. Henry is a study
in political and personal moderation. He supports Republican aims but
not in extreme forms.
Similarly, he does not want to hurt Ned but he can’t deny his feelings
for Sile. One of Llywelyn’s great strengths throughout this series
is her ability to balance the love affairs of her fictional characters
with the broader events of history. Henry eventually finds a beautiful
woman of his own, but she is a Protestant, further complicating his feelings
about Ireland, religion and revolution, as the creation of the Irish Free
State and the Irish Civil War loom.
Ned Halloran’s daughter Ursula is a key player in Llywelyn’s
third book, 1949. The focus here is post Civil War Ireland, which has
achieved a level of independence, yet seems to have done very little with
this newfound freedom.
Ursula works in the fledgling medium of radio, before moving to the League
of Nations prior to the outbreak of World War II (during which Ireland
was controversially neutral).
Overall, Ursula is a symbol of the kind of woman 1940s Ireland has trouble
fulfilling. When she becomes pregnant without a husband, she must flee
the very nation her father helped create. Ultimately, Ursula must choose
between two lovers, and, in a sense, choose if she wants to remain in
Ireland.
The somewhat sedate air of 1949 is cast aside in Llywelyn’s fourth
book, 1972, which explores the events surrounding Bloody Sunday and the
reemergence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Llywelyn’s main character this time around is Ursula’s son,
Ned’s grandson, Barry Halloran, who joins the IRA in an effort to
liberate what he sees as Ireland’s last slice of colonized land,
the six counties of the North.
Aside from the political turmoil, once again there is romantic entanglement.
Barry falls in with a volatile Irish American singer, before ending up
in Derry on that fateful Sunday in 1972.
Finally, of course, we learn what comes of Barry, his lover, and Ireland
as a whole in 1999. Llywelyn’s Irish series is far from perfect.
It is very long and her prose can seem quite breathless at times. There
is also a Forrest Gump-ish quality to some of the cameos of historical
figures. But make no mistake about it, Llywelyn’s books stand as
one of the more important works of recent Irish fiction.
Fiction  1
- Frank Delaney had a best seller a few years back with the not-so-creatively
entitled Ireland. Now he’s back with another blandly named but engrossing
read, Tipperary. Delaney explores the life of a 19th-century memoirist
named Charles O’Brien who may (or may not) have rubbed elbows with
the likes of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and Charles Stewart Parnell.
Just as interesting is the time O’Brien spends with more common
folk as he wanders the countryside, claiming he has healing powers and
listening to the locals, who were brimming with rage and revolutionary
energy.
At the age of 40, O’Brien also falls for an eighteen-year-old British
girl. All of this is told by a present-day narrator, who we eventually
learn has as much at stake in this story as O’Brien does.
“Be careful about me. Be careful about my country and my people
and how we tell our history. We Irish prefer embroideries to plain cloth,”
O’Brien says at one point, later adding, “To us Irish…memory
is a canvas—stretched, primed, and ready for painting on.”
Tipperary is an impressive work of art indeed.
($26.95 / 464 pages / Random House)
 2
- Dubliner Niall Williams burst upon the literary scene with Four Letters
of Love, and followed with As It Is in Heaven, The Fall of Light, and
Only Say the Word.
All were epic in nature, dealing with families, God and other powers beyond
our control. Williams has now written a fictional life of John the Apostle.
Entitled John, the novel explores the final years of John’s life,
which were spent on an island in exile. This is a departure from Williams’
earlier works, but not as much as it might seem. In the end, John the
Apostle must hold on tight to his faith in the face of many conflicts,
from his failing body to rebels within his own group of disciples. Williams’
work has always been about themes such as endurance in the face of adversity.
($24.95 / 256 pages / Bloomsbury)
 3
- Peter Tremayne’s latest ancient Ireland mystery (following Master
of Souls) starring Sister Fidelma is entitled A Prayer for the Damned.
This time around, Sister Fidelma is about to get married, much to the
chagrin of those who feel celibacy is the only acceptable state for a
woman of God.
In fact, it may have been one of Fidelma’s opponents who murdered
a wedding guest, leading to the postponement of the marriage ceremony,
and putting Tremayne’s endearing protagonist on yet another case.
Needless to say, though Tremayne’s eye for historical detail remains
sharp, A Prayer for the Damned also touches upon many contemporary issues,
including celibacy, gender and church leadership. Tremayne (the pseudonym
for scholar Peter Berresford Ellis) has produced another winner.
($24.95 / 320 pages / St. Martin’s Minotaur)
 4
- Patrick Taylor gained prominence with An Irish Country Doctor, and he
returns to a colorful Northern Ireland locale for his latest An Irish
Country Village. In this novel, a doctor named Barry works for the famously
quirky Dr. Fingal O’Reilly. Despite some of the difficulties, Barry
feels right at home in Ballybucklebo – that is, until the sudden
death of a patient sullies Barry’s reputation.
Once again, Taylor masterfully charts the small victories and defeats
of Irish village life. He is also the latest author (see the latest books
by Maeve Binchy and Tana French) to explore modernization and its ill
effects on Ireland, by way of the proposed destruction of Ballybucklebo’s
beloved Black Swan pub.
($25.95 / 432 pages / Tor-Forge)
 5
- For the Republican perspective on the recent historical events in Northern
Ireland, pick up An Irish Eye, the latest chronicle of current events
and behind-the-scenes politicking from Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.
In 2005, the IRA ended its armed campaign and, two years later, threw its
support behind a new policing system for Ulster. Adams has been a major
player in these events which, a decade earlier, would have seemed unthinkable.
Adams also weighs in on conflicts which endure across the globe. He tells
this story with clarity, and with much more sly wit than one normally
expects from politicians.
($22.95 / 320 pages /Brandon-Dufour)
 6
- In fact, for some perspective about just how bad the North was not so
long ago, flip through the pages of Hunger Strike: Reflections on the
1981 Hunger Strike, featuring a wide range of writing from the likes of
Edna O’Brien, Christy Moore, Tom Hayden, Ken Loach and over two
dozen other contributors
($23.95 / 267 pages / Brandon-Dufour)
 7
- Dan Barry has worn numerous hats at The New York Times. Until late in
2006, he wrote the About New York column, bringing the heart, soul and
eye of a poet to some of the city’s grittiest corners. It was a
bit odd, then, to see Barry take on the new challenge of a weekend column
called This Land, which sends him out to a very different landscape –
the 50 U.S. states.
Barry responded gamely, filing brilliant columns about farmers and addicts,
police officers and criminals. Still, for those who miss Barry’s
New York stuff, a new book called City Lights collects his columns on
street peddlers, Buddhist monks, the bygone Fulton Fish Market, McSorley’s
Old Ale House and the Plaza Hotel. Barry’s 9/11 columns, meanwhile,
serve as an alternative, small scale history of those dark days.
($25.95 / 320 pages / St. Martins)
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