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The Rat-pit (Working Class Biography) [Paperback]

Patrick MacGill
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
RRP: £16.00
Price: £13.60 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Customers buy this book with Children of the Dead End; The Autobiography of an Irish Navvy £9.59

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  • This item: The Rat-pit (Working Class Biography)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Caliban Books; New Ed edition (July 1983)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0904573834
  • ISBN-13: 978-0904573831
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,453,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Patrick MacGill
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Product Description

Product Description

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant and powerful, 5 Nov 2011
By 
This review is from: The Rat-pit (Paperback)
Tells the heartbreaking story of Norah Ryan from her childhood in Donegal to her descent into prostitution and early death at age 22 in Glasgow. Macgills hatred of the role of the Catholic church in the lives of the Irish poor in eighteenth and early nineteenth century Ireland is clearly conveyed and powerfully supported in the subject matter of this tale. However do not be deceived as this is not a political novel but simply a beautifully written story of lost innocence and betrayal which deserves a wider readership. I have long considered Macgill to be one of the greatest(and most unsung) of all Irish writers and urge all who have the chance to read his work.Perhaps Kindle could help by making his work available for free on the Kindle.(just a suggestion). Read, weep and marvel at why you've never heard of Patrick Macgill. Apologies and well done if you have!
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Amazon.com: 4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Forgotten Irish Genius, 27 Jan 2000
By Henry Mcvey - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Rat-pit (Working Class Biography) (Paperback)
Absolutely the most tragic heartbreaking tale i have ever read.A starkly evocative description of irish rural life,a story of lost love and innocence betrayed, set almost a century ago.Find it,read it,and weep at the storytelling of this great unsung author.Magnificent.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening, 20 Dec 2005
By Justice - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Rat-pit (Paperback)
This was a touching tale about the terrible working conditions suffered by the Irish poor around the time of WWI. I learned a lot from MacGill about the plight of Irish immigrant labor at this time. MacGill's socialist politics inspired him to tell this sentimental yet realistic story of an exploited and poverty-stricken woman.

Norah Ryan is a beautiful young girl who finds survival in early twentieth century Ireland and Britain extremely difficult. In Ireland everyone is hungry and poor and worked to the bone (although her community is spirited and hospitable and willing to open their doors to needy neighbors) but in Scotland it is even worse.

Forced to become a potato digger there, Norah is taken advantage of by a Scottish middle-class "intellectual", son of the man who owns the farm she works on, whose pretentions to care about the laboring classes are mocked and derided by MacGill. MacGill does a good job of showing the ways in which power, class, and sexual access intertwine and how vulnerable a poor and naive adolescent girl of the laboring class would be in such a situation.

There is also a sweet love story in this book, and although as a lover of novels from the late-nineteenth to early twentieth century I am very familiar with this kind of story (tragic fall from grace of a woman who "gets into trouble"), the political and historical aspects of this novel gave it new life and interest for me. It was very moving and rich in historical detail.
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