Suggestions for Reading List

[Allan]

Two fiction titles that most will be aware of, including one that was a Quarterly Read last year:

At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill

Fallen by Lia Mills

A couple of other fiction titles off the top of my head:

A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle

Trinity by Leon Uris (which apparently finishes with the Rising)

Also another fiction title and previous monthly read:

The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargus Llosa

The only specific non fiction I have on my shelves that I can see at present is Tim Pat Coogan's 1916: The Easter Rising

[Julian]

I did a lot of research when writing my own novel, which though set in 1920, has a backstory in 1916. Anyone with an interest in the history of Ireland in the twentieth century owes a huge debt to Tim Pat Coogan. His books are gossipy and partial but unfailingly entertaining and informative. Easter 1916, Ireland in the Twentieth Century and Michael Collins can all be recommended. Peter Hart’s Mick provides a healthy counterbalance to Coogan’s somewhat hagiographical approach to Collins. Charles Townsend’s Easter 1916 and The Republic are both definitive and invaluable. Clair Wills’s Dublin 1916: the Siege of the GPO is wonderfully evocative, as is Annie Ryan’s Witnesses. Michael T. Foy’s Michael Collins’s Intelligence War was a treasure trove of information, while Joseph E.A. Connell’s encyclopaedic Dublin In Rebellion was never off my desk. Sebastian Barry’s A Long Long Way and Roddy Doyle’s A Star Called Henry are both superb fictional recreations of the period. In film, Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins is sentimental and highly inaccurate, but at least had the merit of putting the other side of the Irish question to a British audience; Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley is more honest, and better drama.

Easter 1916
Dublin 1916: The Siege of the GPO
Mick: The Real Michael Collins
Witnesses: Inside the Easter Rising
Michael Collins's Intelligence War: The Struggle Between the British and the IRA 1919–1921
Dublin in Rebellion: A Directory 1913-1923[
[book:Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland|314387]
A Long Long Way
A Star Called Henry