
In Search of Madness
My review of Professor Brendan Kelly's book, In Search of Madness – A Psychiatrist’s Travels Through the History of Mental Illness, was published in the Weekend Section of last Saturday's Irish Examiner. Here it is: ‘At the age of 20, Helen presented to the hospital...
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All at sea on Father’s Day
My friend Glenn Bradley thought he would refresh with a little Father's Day kayaking before the arrival of the family. But then things took a sinister turn... My wife Jo and I awoke early both enthused with a good night’s sleep. The sea air at our holiday home gifts...
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Run Rose Run
My review of Dolly Parton's debut novel (in collaboration with James Patterson) was published in the Weekend Supplement of the Irish Examiner, 7 May. Here it is: A vagabond waif, a young woman with a gun in her bag, walks into a Nashville dive, The Cats Paw Saloon,...
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The Scariff Martyrs
Among all the protagonists to the recent conflict in the North there is one side, above all others, which urgently needs to ‘draw a line through the past’, as if that were ever possible. It’s not that it seriously believes that the stroke of a pen or a piece of...
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CRUEL DEEDS
My review of Catherine Kirwan's new novel, set in Cork, was published earlier by the Irish Examiner. Here it is. What I loved about this fast-paced crime novel was the intimacy of the narration: our access to the rationale, doubts, and suspicions of Cork...
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The Daily Operation of Revolution
Joe Dwyer, Sinn Féin’s representative in Britain, based in the party’s London Office, reviews veteran republican Maire comerford’s memoir, edited by Hilary Dully.* I first discovered Máire Comerford when I was probably fifteen or sixteen and first watched Kenneth...
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The Raptures by Jan Carson
My review of The Raptures by Jan Carson was first published in last Saturday's Irish Examiner. Here it is: BALLYLACK, a one-street village, orbiting an Antrim market town, ‘a bit of a shithole’, home to half a dozen Protestant churches and the God-fearing, and an...
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‘Even More a Book of its Time’
Ciarán Quinn, Sinn Féin's Representative for North America, writing in a personal capacity, reviews Free Statism & The Good Old IRA. (Details of where the book can be bought are at the bottom of this page.) THE GOOD OLD IRA was a pamphlet published in 1985 by Sinn...
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A GOOD LOYALIST STORY
FROM speaking to former soldiers and RUC men I learnt a lot about their perspective on the conflict and the things we had in common. These engagements did not fundamentally alter our political outlooks or rock the foundations of our convictions, nor was that the...
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Remembering A Past
In this personal piece Ciarán Quinn, Sinn Féin Representative for North America, responding to reports of British Government plans to produce an 'official' history of the conflict, explains the importance of remembering all that happened in the past and that no 'one...
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