Irish Voices: Fifty Years of Irish Life - Tapa dura

This is anecdotal history of the most enjoyable kind - a narrative rich in culture, entertaining, fair-minded, poignant, combining humour and tragedy, the politics of poverty and hatred, the history of the Abbey theatre, fishing, shooting and house-parties, Dublin during WW2, peoty and fiction, fact and folklore. . The views of Republicans, countrymen, islanders, teachers, clerics, Loyalists, politicians, poets, writers and journalists are represented, as the author quotes from the memories of those who lived during the 50 years highlighted here and draws on contemporary newspapers and periodicals, diaries and fiction. These are the years of Eamon de Valera - rebel, outcast, politician and president - who came to public notice after the Rising in 1916 and died aged 92 in 1975. And they are the years in which Ireland irrevocably changed.

on de Valera arrived on the Irish scene and as a result, so we are told, the fairies left. Such combining of fact and folklore is the essence of this fascinating history which describes the tragedies and poverty of those years, yet brims with cultural, domestic and political detail. Comments by contemporary writers, both famous and obscure, are seamlessly woven into the text, as are direct memories of those who lived through the events described.
From the Trade Paperback edition.