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LOST IN THE LOOP

Liz Carroll

This is Chicago fiddle player Liz Carroll’s new album, named after the Windy City’s circuitous freeways. It’s her first solo album in more than a decade, produced by Seamus Egan, from the band Solas. He plays fiddle and flute and also brings along some of his band mates to work on the project, guitarist John Doyle and fiddle player Winifred Horan. Altan guitarist Daithi Sproule also joins in. Green Linnet Records.

POLITICS AND PERFORMANCE

IN CONTEMPORARY

NORTHERN IRELAND

Edited by John P. Harrington

and Elizabeth J. Mitchell

This collection of essays covers such diverse topics as theater, music, television and the problems facing the Northern Ireland peace process. Harrington and Mitchell, in their introduction, say the book "shows how individuals have been shaped by the historical context of the Troubles, and even more so how social agents use their performances, in the theater and on the stage of everyday political life, to define identities, to reinforce ideologies and to build institutional support." University of Massachusetts Press-Amherst, and the American Conference for Irish Studies. 234 pp.

I AM OF IRELAUNDE , A NOVEL

OF PATRICK AND OSIAN

Juilene Osborne-McKnight

The real Patrick, not the saint that so many adore, was, according to this book, a tortured soul. Magonus Succatus Patricius was of Roman heritage who was captured by Irish slave raiders at the age of 16. He escaped at 22, fleeing to his homeland. He returns to Ireland at 40, full of anger and is determined to bring Christianity to the people. But something happens to change this resolute missionary. Forge Books. 301 pp. $24.95.

THE KEEPER OF ABSALOM’S ISLAND

Tom Nestor

This memoir is set in the countryside around Rathkeale, Co. Limerick, where the author was born in 1936. He describes his childhood as "a soaring adventure across a rural landscape." The story is peopled with such characters as the mad aristocratic Absalom Creagh, and Miss James and Miss Abigail, who taught through the medium of religion and terror. Then radio opens a whole new world and, in the end, Nestor’s escapism sets the boy at odds with his father. As the idea of leaving for boarding school fills him with dread, he tries to mend the rift but fails. Dufour Editions, Chester Springs, Pa. 242 pp. $17.95.