February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
. The trio is yet another variation of three-tenor format, but one more rooted in popular music that the original international threesome or the Irish Tenors. “So Strong” is produced by Mike Moran, who has worked with some of the world’s most famous singers and musicians, including Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder. Available in stores on the Angel label.
BIRTH OF THE BRAVEST
A.E. Costello
Augustine Costello’s history of the New York Fire Department is something of a bible, and like the bible it has been revised and edited over time. The result is a hefty enough tome but one only about half the size of the first edition, which was published in 1887. The new edition also bear’s a different name from Costello’s original “Our Firemen — A History of the New York Fire Departments Volunteer and Paid.” Costello’s work, republished as a result of 9/11, is a timely reminder that the courage so clearly evident a year ago has its roots in generations gone by but not to be forgotten. Forge Publishing. 476 pp. $24.95.
FATHER MATHEW’S CRUSADE
Temperance in Nineteenth Century
Ireland and Irish America
John F. Quinn
The Irish and their relationship with alcohol has been frequently documented and often stereotyped. The story less familiar to many is the emergence of a strong abstinence movement on both sides of the Atlantic and the growth to prominence in Irish society, native soil and emigrant, of the entire abstemious teetotaler. John Quinn, associate professor of history at Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I., documents in detail the life and times of Father Theobold Mathew, the pioneering Franciscan who more than anyone of his time stemmed the inclination of not a few Irish towards alcohol, an inclination often rooted is poverty and hopelessness. University of Massachusetts Press (www.umass.edu/umpress). 262 pp. $18.95 (paperback), $60 (hardcover).
SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN
The Inside Story of
Ireland’s Industrial Schools
Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan
Now in paperback, this meticulously researched book has been a key element in blowing the lid off arguably the most notorious chapter in the history of the modern Irish state. It is a stark and compelling chronicle of places where children lived and childhood perished. The co-authors were in the U.S. for the launch of the hardcover edition in 1999. In the intervening period even more cases of state-tolerated cruelty toward the weakest and most vulnerable have come to light. Continuum Books (www.continuumbooks.com). 424 pp. $16.95.