- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Phoenix; New edition edition (4 Nov 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0753808366
- ISBN-13: 978-0753808368
- Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 12.7 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 497,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
Product Description
Product Description
As a culture, the English are familiar with images of Ireland and Irishness. From the romantic to the gritty, from Dublin as a cheap and cheerful weekend getaway to the Irish theme pubs on almost every English high street, no-one can escape the fact that Irish culture is perhaps more popular than ever. Mark McCrum explores the heart of contemporary Ireland, gaining an impression of its culture and politics through meeting its people. Starting in Dublin and roaming south and around the coast before turning northwards and completing his trek at the ruin of the old McCrum family seat, on the way attending the Puck Fair, going to a beach where bones from victims of the Potato Famine lie unburied, meeting the Travelling Folk; all the while experiencing the mix of good conversation, good company, a little Guinness and a lot of fun -- colloquially known as the Craic -- as he comes to an understanding of the country and its inhabitants.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
A friend had told me that the first thing he'd seen in Ireland, disembarking from the ferry at Dun Laoghaire, was a priest being thrown out of a pub. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
A friend had told me that the first thing he'd seen in Ireland, disembarking from the ferry at Dun Laoghaire, was a priest being thrown out of a pub. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Craic,
By C M Burton (Wiltshire, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Craic: A Journey Through Ireland (Paperback)
This is a hugely enjoyable read. The book was written in 1998, but don't let that stop you reading it; it is just as relevant today. It is written from the perspective of a Brit exploring the island from which one side of his family originated, so it is equally entertaining whether the reader is Irish or British. Mark McCrum comes across all strata of Irish life - he is a sympathetic listener and a great teller of tales. The Craic is well written and an easy read (not necessarily the same thing) and will give you a better account of Ireland and the Irish than many an academic tome.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Travel? I don't think so!,
By
This review is from: The Craic: A Journey Through Ireland (Paperback)
If you're thinking of a holiday in Ireland this is not the book to help you plan it. What I imagined was a travel book, is in fact a diatribe by Irish Catholics against Irish Protestants and the British, who, they claim, have never understood the Irish. It is not much more than a pretext for allowing Irish Catholics to vent their the fury at Irish Protestants a) for being in "their country" in the first place, b) for not being as "Irish" as them and for either c) not wanting to be as Irish as them or d) not getting the **** out of there.
This book idolizes the bigots and terrorists among Irish Catholics and vilifies the Protestants who are standing in the way of them getting what they want - a united Ireland of Eire and Northern Ireland (united in what way exactly? Certainly not in peace and harmony if this book is anything to go by). A Protestant would have to be mad to want to join a country in which he is loathed so wholeheartedly as this. I'm amazed that a reputable publisher should have agreed to publish what seems to me to be an incitement to hatred of Irish Protestants. Surely it must contravene the race relations act or some such. And why is Amazon selling such a defamatory book?
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Circling Ireland on the eve of the millenium,
By John L Murphy "Fionnchú" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Craic: A Journey Through Ireland (Paperback)
The cover, with its "sniper at work" sign, prominent statue of the BVM, and grinning red-haired dancing girl, leads you to expect another blarney-ridden series of anecdotes penned by a tourist who'd breezed through one summer. London-based journalist McCrum brings a more nuanced perspective, showing how, beginning in Dublin, going down around the southern and up the western coasts, stopping at market towns, plenty of b&b's and country houses, and ending with the North's urban terrain, he learned a more neutralized position on the "Irish question," if never coming up with one satisfactory answer.
Refreshingly, he spends a bit of time in areas rarely portrayed in detail either in guidebooks or travel accounts. Anglo-Norman memories in the south-east, for example, or Puck, Lisdoonvara, and Ballinasloe fairs. Even when he visits familiar settings, such as the Aran islands, Derry's Bogside, or Belfast's Peace Wall, he notices what most visitors do not, or if they do, rarely record! His skepticism and enthusiasm often mix with intriguing results. Through mysterious set-ups he often stays with well-off Irelanders, and his encounters at a Kerry artist's colony epitomize this type of isolated hothouse setting as opposed to a more gritty scenario such as his meetings with the Travelling community in Tuam, or his frank talks with Loyalists from Shankill Road. My only letdown was that his itinerary does not penetrate the midlands, only easing into Ballinasloe in East Co Galway as the furthest point away from the coast. A look at Longford or Offaly would've been worth it, for certainly these too are less frequented spots in which McCrum might or might not have found tales to tell or people to interview. Sticking to the circle route, he never explains really why he never went into the interior of Ireland as well. And I'm still mystified about what Bord Failte did to compensate his stay--I sometimes felt that he was set up at places free, and at others he had to fend for himself. I got the impression he may have inadvertently wound up endorsing certain hoteliers or hosts with whom he lodged. He avoids easy putdowns of (some of!) his fellow tourists, and keeps his language free of self-indulgent pity or easy sentiment. In the rare instances he describes natural beauty, he conveys its sensations well. And the range of accomodations never fails to keep the reader alert and bemused. A book worth seeking out, an appropriate companion to two concurrently written travelogues also recommended: Pete McCarthy's more humorous McCarthy's Bar and Lawrence Donegan's more localized No News At Throat Lake. |
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
