Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Authentic First-Person Accounts from a Period of Drastic Change, 9 Jan 2007
County Lines: A Portrait of Life in South Dublin County allows thirty-four contributing residents of Tallaght, Lucan, Clondalkin, Palmerstown, Templeogue and other surrounding towns to share their reminiscences, insights and poetry. As noted novelist Dermot Bolger points out in his introduction, the collection is not intended as a complete social history of the land surrounding Dublin. Its anecdotes provide enlightening first-person accounts of a period of drastic change. Between 1960 and the present day, Ireland has transformed from a rural, isolationist, homogenous nation into a wealthy multicultural Celtic Tiger. The population has doubled. Entire new towns have sprung up. "In 19XX my new husband and I moved from our beloved home in Inner-City Dublin to the new estate way out in Y or Z," begins most County Lines accounts. Y or Z is inevitably a place that I, arriving here in the 1990's, have always considered an integral part of Dublin city. The true, human, Irish stories in County Lines provided a deeper understanding of this region.
The contributors are chiefly attendees from Dermot Bolger's writing workshops. As with the Streetwise collection edited by Neville Thompson, the fact that these are not professional authors lends an authenticity. I was impressed by the viewpoint and description of several shorts.
Two selections are available from local poet Eileen Casey. The title piece from her collection Seagulls is included alongside prose that brings the bleak 1980's back with immediacy and drama. "A Life in the Night" relates the years Casey worked as night packer in a local supermarket. Vivid language relives the hard work, cigarette break camaraderie and a few much-needed quid. Then there was the unforgettable night that masked raiders burst into the store, locked the women in an office and lifted thousands from the safe. Desperate times.
Young Clondalkin-based author Colm Keegan's account, "The Apology," begins like many in County Lines, with a baby pram. But this tale includes a crime twist, and Keegan recollects himself as " a young, dumb, `Where's-me-Mum' type of twenty-one" racing the buggy downhill with his toddler in his lap. "The Apology," is autobiography that reads like tight fiction, its sharp description portraying an underside of mitching school, drugs, nightclubs and punch-ups unseen in other accounts of these South Dublin suburbs. In this 1997 episode, Keegan is on his way to the Garda station to make amends with the officer he struck. It's strong material, one of the collection's finest. Keegan also presents several notable poems in County Lines.
For readers looking to gain a deeper understanding of the real lives of real people in this corner of modern Ireland, County Lines is a good place to start.
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