Description
The Reconstitution of Ireland
“How did Ireland move from the authoritarian, stultifying and cruel country of much of the twentieth century to the relatively liberal state we now enjoy? The bad old days gave us mother-and-baby homes, Magdelene laundries, institutional child abuse and its egregious coverup, and the attempted blocking of the free movement of citizens to maintain state control over women’s bodies. This book charts that journey, through the author’s letters in The Irish Times that were contemporaneous with the subjects addressed, and in commentary and autobiographical prose that accompanies each letter.
The book deals with such things as church and state in education and public life; hare coursing; divorce and abortion referendums; EU membership; the physics of raindrops; politics; economics; international affairs; noise pollution; the wars in Gaza and Ukraine; Irish neutrality; and many other matters.
Seamus McKenna has been having his letters published in The Irish Times since 1978. That’s 46 years of putting pen to paper and, later on, fingers to keyboard. The Reconstitution of Ireland reproduces many of these letters, and includes memoir and commentary by the author.”
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Recommended for anyone who wants to understand the transformation of Ireland over the last 50 years
This volume is a salutary lesson to any writer of any kind: throw nothing away. McKenna has compiled, through the dozens of letters he has had published in The Irish Times over the last 46 years, an overview of the gradual revolution that has taken place in Ireland over that time. The themes of divorce, contraception, the Celtic Tiger, clerical child abuse, weaselly politicians, the separation of Church and State (and in the case of state education, the shameful failure to achieve that separation) are all covered, and more. McKenna frames his letters with commentary to help the reader (whether new to the subject, having forgotten just how far we have come or needing a reminder of how much better life now is – in some respects) understand the context in which they were written. Those letters have a pithy style and are forensically well argued. The book is also illustrated at key points: my favourite amongst those images is Brian O’Driscoll showing off the Heineken Cup to an ecstatic little girl, Michaela Morley, in her bed in Temple Street Children’s Hospital. Read this book to understand modern Ireland.
Katherine Mezzacappa,
Author of The Maiden of Florence