February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
AWAY YE GO NOW
Morning Star
The latest release by Morning Star, one of the most popular Irish bands in the tri-state area, features 15 traditional numbers performed in the group’s distinctive style. Morning Star is Mary Courtney, John Reynolds, Margie Mulvihill and John Nolan and the band is of the view that it has embarked in a new direction with this release which they have dedicated to family members, friends and supporters. Works by the likes of Dougie McClean and Dominic Behan are dished up with fiddles, guitars, bodhrans and a range of additional instruments that accompany Courtney’s vocals. Details from the group’s website: www.morningstar.iuma.com.
JUNO & JULIET
Julian Gough
Julian Gough’s debut novel has done well in Ireland, a competitive market indeed for young fiction writers. It helps, of course, to be compared in reviews to the likes of Roddy Doyle and Jane Austen. Gough’s novel is based around the narration of 18-year-old Juliet Taylor, who, along with her sister, has arrived in Galway to begin university. What follows is a love story set in a place that is generously treated by the author. Gough is intent on producing a serious piece of literature, but that doesn’t mean that the reader can’t laugh along the way. Nan A. Talese Doubleday. 288 pp. $23.95.
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CELTIC JOURNEYS
A Traveler’s Guide to
Ireland’s Spiritual Legacy
Steve and Lois Rabey
The authors discover in this book an irony. While reflecting on their very favorite holy place in Ireland, Glendalough in County Wicklow, they make the point that places such as this, where hermits, monks and religious thinkers once hid from the world in order to find God, people now flock in large numbers to find, if not God, then at least what it was that made the place seemingly so close to God in the first place. Covering 100 sites, this book is an ideal guide for those who want to discover Ireland in a particular context, that of its misty and mystical past. Citadel Press, New York. 225 pp. $12.95.
THE MOON IS A BULLET HOLE
Mundy
Mundy is a songwriter from Birr, Co. Offaly, who was discovered busking on a Dublin street by ’80s English punk star Hazel O’Connor. With luck running against the odds, he would be expected to come up with the goods and this he seemingly has with a series of sold-out performances in Ireland and the UK. To promote this, his latest EP, in the U.S., Mundy is lined up for a series of performances in New York and Boston this month including stops at the popular Arlene’s Grocery in Greenwich Village. Details on the EP and upcoming shows at www.mundy.ie.