On a fine calm morning in September 1852, a strikingly handsome man and his beautiful wife stepped onto a hired boat in Howth Harbour, Dublin, to set out on a day trip. The destination was Ireland’s Eye, a small uninhabited island less than a mile to the north of the harbour. He was an artist, she a keen and adventurous swimmer. By sunset, when the boat returned to fetch them, she would be dead. Despite certain gruesome features, the inquest ruled that it was a drowning, and Maria Kirwan was laid to rest. Then a startling secret emerged about the private life of her husband, the artist William Burke Kirwan. After an exhumation, he was arrested for her murder. The case caused a sensation, the public fascinated by its extraordinary elements. Added to this and almost eclipsing the murder was the scandal: a sexual triangle that aroused the full force of Victorian moral outrage. The trial was destined to become steeped in controversy and a veil of mystery has hung over the death of Maria Kirwan for the last 160 years. But now, at last, a forgotten medical paper has thrown light on what really happened on that fateful day.
In a remote—and superstitious—village in County Cork, Ireland, Garda Siobhán O'Sullivan must solve a murder where the prime suspects are fairies . . . Family is everything to Siobhán, which now includes her fiancé Macdara Flannery. So when his cousin Jane frantically calls for help, the two garda rush from Kilbane to the rural village where Jane and her mother have recently moved. When they arrive, they find Jane in a state outside the cottage. Inside, Aunt Ellen lies on her bed in a fancy red dress, no longer breathing. A pillow on the floor and a nearby teacup suggest the woman has been poisoned and smothered. The local villagers, who are devout believers in Irish folklore, insist the cottage is cursed—built on a fairy path. Although the townsfolk blame malevolent fairies, Siobhán and Macdara must follow the path of a murderer all too human—but just as evil . . . “Plenty of surprising twists and oodles of Irish charm make this an entertaining read.” —Kirkus Reviews
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SOON TO BE AN FX LIMITED SERIES STREAMING ON HULU • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. One of The New York Times’s 20 Best Books of the 21st Century "Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review "Reads like a novel ... Keefe is ... a master of narrative nonfiction. . .An incredible story."—Rolling Stone A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, and more! Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.
A tragic death, a murder trial and a 170-year-old mystery – but what really happened? Shortly after Maria Kirwan died in a lonely inlet on Ireland's Eye, it was decided that she had drowned accidentally during a day spent with her husband on the picturesque island. This inquest verdict appeared to conclude the melancholy events that consumed the fishing village of Howth, Co Dublin, in September 1852. But not long afterwards, suspicion fell upon Maria's husband, William Burke Kirwan, as whispers of unspeakable cruelty, an evil character and a secret life rattled through the streets of Dublin. Investigations led to William's arrest and trial for murder. The story swelled into one of the most bitterly divisive chapters in the dark annals of Irish criminal history. Yet questions remain: Does the evidence stand up? What role did the heavy hand of Victorian moral outrage play? Was William really guilty of murder, or did the ever-present 'moral facts' fill in gaps where hard proof was absent? Now, this compelling modern analysis revisits the key evidence, asking sober questions about the facts, half-facts and fantasies buried within the yellowed pages of the Ireland's Eye case files.
This book examines the relationship between Britain and Ireland, specifically the central role played by print and broadcast media in communicating political, cultural, and social differences and similarities between the two islands. The relationship between Ireland and Great Britain has a long and complex history. Given their geographical proximity and shared language one key dimension of this relationship has been the communication media – print and electronic – that have mediated this relationship. This book addresses this important, but relatively neglected, topic at a critical time in Anglo-Irish relations. Taking the long view, as well as looking in detail at specific episodes, the contributors map British-Irish interactions in print and broadcast media. This volume assesses the proprietorial and journalistic connections between various media institutions, the conditions under which media organisations operated and distribution channels employed. It considers media influences in terms of the role of media organs in constructing national identity and promoting social change. Furthermore, this book also considers news flows between the two islands, censorship in times of conflict, cross-border influences of television, and the relationship between cinema and television. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Media History.
On August 28, 1922, the martyred Irish patriot Michael Collins was buried. Businesses across Dublin closed as thousands came out to pay their respects. On the same day, Michael Lyons, a cooper from the Guinness factory, drowned in Dublin's Royal Canal. This peculiar confluence is Mark Anthony Jarman's starting point for a meditation on the intertwined history of a nation and his family. Jarman's pursuit of the circumstances of his grandfather's drowning leads him through a modern Ireland that teems with ghosts from the past. Thwarted by family gossip, aunts who can't drive a stick shift, cousins more interested in pubs than lore, and his own fascination with the many Irelands that have been, Jarman finds what he's seeking despite, or perhaps because of, the antics and the unreliable histories. What he reconfigures is a revelation, and an enchanting and engrossing read.
Tory gangs, madmen, war criminals, frauds, anarchists, duelists, kidnappers, and more scandal-makers throughout four centuries of Irish history. Dublin is a wonderful, energetic cultural center—the pride of Irish achievements in architecture, arts, and literature. But it is also a city of paradoxes and conflicts—and a long, fascinating history of crime. Stephen Wade now reveals Dublin’s “strange eventful history” in this thrilling collection of murderers, thieves, daredevil highwaymen, libelers, seducers, and bloody avengers—from eighteenth-century turncoats to Victorian-era rogues to a twentieth-century parliamentary candidate with a killer past. Amid tales of sensational investigations and infamous courtroom trials, readers will discover the truth behind the disappearance of the Crown Jewels in 1907; the bizarre motives of nineteenth-century serial killer John Delahunt; and the startling charges leveled against Oscar Wilde’s father, a revolutionary doctor embroiled in a felonious and sexual cause célèbre of his own.
Irish is more than a nationality—it’s a state of being. What other cultural background allows you to demand a kiss, celebrate the wearing of a color, toast the wee folk, and take pride in one’s readiness to fight? What other land is celebrated by parades and parties and allows even the non-blessed to declare themselves countrymen for one day? From sports to poetry, and from rock ‘n’ roll to Wilde and Shaw, Ireland’s Most Wanted™: The Top 10 Book of Celtic Pride, Fantastic Folklore, and Oddities of the Emerald Isle gives you loads of delightful tidbits and trivia from the homeland of saints, sinners, and the greatest beverage ever brewed, Guinness. Brian M. Thomsen provides an irreverent but fact-filled look at Ireland and the Irish, leaving no stone—Blarney or otherwise—unturned in bringing her gifts to you. With a bushel full of top-ten lists on all things Irish, Thomsen takes you on a journey through the greenest of lands and provides tales and anecdotes on everything from Irish pubs, Irish castles, leprechauns and banshees, heroes and kings, and the influence of the Irish on culture. Whatever their nationality, everyone has a wee bit of the Irish in them. Ireland’s Most Wanted™ is a true pot of gold!
