LOCAL HISTORY:EVEN IF you have no ties with Birmingham, if you are interested in culture or history, you'll enjoy Irish Birmingham: A History, by James Moran (Liverpool University Press, 256pp, £16.95). This meticulously researched book tells how, in the mid-1800s, largely as a result of the Great Famine of the 1840s in Ireland, Birmingham had the fourth-highest Irish-born population of any English or Welsh town, writes NOELEEN DOWLING
By the 1960s, one in six children born there had at least one parent from Ireland. Today, its St Patrick’s Day Parade is attended by an estimated 100,000 people.
But it was only in the latter half of the 1700s that Irish people began to settle in any numbers in Birmingham, which was then a large town. It was not until the turn of the 18th/19th century, with the advent of the Irish theatrical actor manager William Charles Macready, that a recognisable "Irish" cultural identity began to emerge, thanks to his masterly exploitation of the stage Irishman. In his play The Magic of British Liberty, Macready "presented an impression of Irishness that Birmingham's spectators would find palatable" Moran writes. The beginning of the book helps to illustrate a range of attitudes to Irishness and sets the scene of the Napoleonic wars, the French adventure in Ireland in 1796, and the doomed Robert Emmet rising in Dublin in 1803.
This way of viewing history is most effective, and holds the reader’s interest. The book charts a timeline through the major developments of the next two centuries, from the Daniel O’Connell-led Birmingham Political Union, through the Murphy Riots and the career of Joseph Chamberlain, through the impact of the war to the pub bombings of the 1970s and the miscarriage of justice in the case of the Birmingham Six and its effect on political discourse. Moran is a splendid writer, and a very engaging one.
Tyneside Irish: The 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th (Service) Battalions of Northumberland Fusiliers,by John Sheen (Pen and Sword Books, 515pp, £25), is a military history of the Irish battalions raised from among Irish immigrants on Tyneside during the first World War. The conditions under which the battalions fought were terrible and are outlined very rigorously in chapters on the Somme and Arras. Many of the soldiers were killed or wounded very early on – some had been in France for only one day. Lavishly illustrated, the book will appeal most perhaps to military historians, but it will also be enjoyed by anyone with a Tyneside connection.
The author of Majestic Shrines and Graceful Sanctuaries: The Church Architecture of Patrick Byrne 1783-1864(Irish Academic Press 195pp, €35), Brendan Grimes, is an architect who can also write about his subject for non-architects in a lively way . He charts Irishman Byrne's career through his work on neo-classical and neo-Gothic churches which are described and discussed. Three of Parick Byrne's best known churches are perhaps St Paul's, Arran Quay, the Three Patrons of Ireland in Rathgar, and Our Lady of Refuge, Rathmines, all in Dublin.
Offaly Through Time and Its Townlands, by Thomas Lee (Ottait Publishing, 263pp, €11.99and currently available widely in Offaly), is a geological history of the county, as well as a compilation of its 1,136 townlands, explaining the origins of their names, and describing its ancient monuments.
The Road to Avondale,by Thomas Briody (Choice Publishing, 372pp, €20, available from joanbriodymurphy@gmail.com or from 041-9837314), is the first volume of the memoirs of Thomas "Tosty" Briody, one of the oldest foresters in Ireland. He's also the only one so far to write a history of the forestry service. It's a leisurely book and at the end we are still only at the beginning of Tosty's career.
Haslam's Gold, by Joe Curtis (First Return Press, 118pp €9.99), is an account by his grand-nephew of the life of Pete Haslam of Co Laois, who emigrated in 1895 and never saw his Irish family again. He made his fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush and became a founder of Alaska. Curtis traces the lives of the family who were left behind in addition to looking at the twists and turns of Haslam's American career. He died in 1946.
Ríocht na Midhe: Records of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society for 2010(374pp, €22) is a volume full of good things in which I was particularly taken with Sonja Tiernan's Hidden in Plain Sight – Uncovering the History of Meath Women, which as well as being a useful overview of sources for study, also suggests some fascinating projects for the under-employed historian. Also well worth the cover price is Patrick Fagan's Growing Up in Westmeath, Musings of an Octogenarian, a gentle but historically rigorous memoir of his early life.
Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies: The Journal of the Irish Georgian Society Volume XII(Available from igs.ie, 223pp, €25 for non-members ) is a lovingly produced edition that includes 'The Painter and the Poet', an account of the romance and engagement of Michael George Brennan, a painter from Co Mayo, and Laura Catherine Redden. Brennan went to Italy in the 1860s suffering from consumption and in Capri met Redden, an American poet, journalist and author, who was deaf.
They got engaged within 10 days of their first meeting, but though they discussed arrangements for the wedding, the engagement was to be called off. The article does not recount why – it may have been that Redden did not feel like giving up her successful career. In 1871, Brennan, whose health had been deteriorating, died. Brendan Rooney, Curator of Irish Art at the National Gallery, has written an article about them that is full of atmosphere.
Noeleen Dowling is a freelance journalist and local historian
