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February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

IRELAND GUIDEBord Fáilte, Irish Tourist BoardIf you’re intent on getting lost in Ireland, bring a good guide along. And if you’re intent on getting your hands on a good guide, you would do well to buy a copy of the 4th edition of the Bord Fáilte book that reveals Ireland’s treasures, known and not so well known, page by glossy page. The guide divides Ireland into seven tourist regions. The border is ignored, so Northern Ireland is one of the seven. Much information on local history, wildlife, art and architecture is provided, in addition to the usual information on prime tourist sights and where to bed down at night after a hard day’s touring. Plenty of color photos and maps are thrown in along with the advice, experience and recommendations of a number of writers who have made traveling in Ireland a job for life. Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press. 432 pp. $18.95.A SENSE OF PLACEIrish Lives Irish LandscapesRoslyn Dee and Gerry SandfordAnd at the end of a hard day’s touring around the Irish countryside it might do the exhausted traveler well to settle into a cozy chair with a wee drop and this book, which contains interview with well-known Irish people talking about their favorite places in the old sod. The authors have lined up the likes of activist and journalist Eamonn McCann at Free Derry Wall in Derry, poet Paul Durcan in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin and chef supreme Darina Allen in her herb garden at Ballymaloe, Co. Cork. In all, more than 30 people in their favorite Irish spots are covered. From Dufour Editions, Chester Springs PA 19425 ([610]458-5005). 110 pp. $34.95.FLASHBACKSA Half Century of Cork HurlingPat NolanElvis didn’t play full-forward for Cork as far as we know, but "The King" is featured on the cover of this book nevertheless and sure why not? Indeed, this book is laced with references to culture, popular and otherwise, over the last 50 years though the main story line has to do with the passionate embrace of hurling in County Cork. The story of Cork hurling and the personalities who often made Cork teams one of the hardest to beat are dealt with on a year-to-year basis beginning in 1950. There’s an introduction by the great Jimmy Barry-Murphy and the great Mr. Presley is in there too. Dufour Editions, Chester Springs PA 19425 ([610]458-5005). 376 pp. $19.95. IT’S WHAT HE WOULD HAVE WANTEDSean HughesWhat’s this? An Irish writer writing about a man who has a hard time growing up. He’s on familiar ground and Dublin-born comic-turned-novelist Sean Hughes makes the most of the familiar with this dark but humorous urban gothic tale of Shea Hickson, a 30-year-old inhabitant of London whose world is turned upside down just at a point in life when he is most reluctant to embrace change. This book received a number of favorable reviews from British and Irish newspapers. Scribner. 288 pp. $25.

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