THE IRISH WAY: A Walk Through Ireland's Past and Present

THE IRISH WAY: A Walk through Ireland’s Past and Present. By Robert Emmett Ginna. Random House. 298 pp. $24.95

The walk through Ireland’s past promised in the subtitle of this book is far more compelling than the author’s walk through the present. Robert Emmett Ginna, who calls himself a "history-besotted writer," has a sharp eye and a sure feel for the castles, forts, great houses, monasteries, and other places that contain so much vivid Irish history. He is adept at bringing to life the narratives embedded in the landscape, and especially at summoning up a sense of "the dust of distant battles." Visiting the Famine Museum in County Roscommon is an occasion for an abridged history of Ireland’s worst catastrophe. Elsewhere he recaps the 1798 Rebellion (the so-called Year of the French), and artfully recounts the battles waged at Birr Castle in County Offaly and the legends surrounding the Rock of Cashel, which include everyone from St. Patrick himself to Brian Boru. He is also gifted at resurrecting the memory of a select crew of departed luminaries, including Ireland’s most renowned composer, the blind harper Turlough O’Carolan (1670–1738), and Oliver Goldsmith (c. 1730–74), author of the stilltreasured poem "The Deserted Village."

Most of Ginna’s book, however, is not so colorful and memorable as these sporadic history lessons. Noting the recent economic prosperity that has made Ireland the "Celtic Tiger," he tells us early on that "I wanted to learn in just what ways this new affluence had affected the land and the people I’d long known.... I was eager to see what the Irish had accomplished, what they had gained for themselves and perhaps had lost, and what they had preserved from a rich and tumultuous past." The problem is that this quest too often leads him into the realm of the ephemeral and dull. Instead of, say, an incisive interview with Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams or even Unionist leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble, we get platitudinous blather from the Lord Mayor of Cork: "He emphasized the resources and opportunities Cork offers to its youth: ‘Each can become an engineer or a window cleaner,’ he said. ‘Each one of these children can become whatever he or she wants to be. The opportunities are there.’ " Ginna never digs under the façades. Everything the various entrepreneurs, politicians, and military men tell him is taken at face value.

What we learn about our author/traveling companion over the course of the book must be extracted from passing comments—he’s 74 when he decides to embark upon this walking tour of Ireland, he "loved toy soldiers as a lad," he’s "reasonably" religious, he’s originally from the vicinity of Fifth Avenue and 50th Street in Manhattan, he was a university teacher, and he "had become close" with playwright Sean O’Casey. But these little details are parsimoniously distributed, and one can’t help but feel that the book would have been far more engrossing if its author had shared more of his own history and interior life. The most inexplicable instance of Ginna’s holding back, especially in a book like this, is a passing reference to "County Cavan, whence my maternal grandmother hailed." And that’s it for poor, nameless granny. A bit of research resulting in a paragraph or two for her is the sort of touch that would have given this book more soul.

—Terence Winch