This is a great book which must have taken a million hours to research and write. If you want to know the main industries of County Carlow, or the location of each of Ireland's heritage sites, or even the details of Garda personnel by numbers, rank and location, or much, much more, then this is the book for you.

And it is not only a boring list of facts and figures. It also contains interesting essays by people as diverse as Riverdance Producer, Moya Doherty and Ken Reid, UTV's political editor.

Quotes of the year, a selection of cartoons and a section of colour photographs also help to liven up the statistics.

This is an excellent - and as comprehensive as you could expect - factual picture of Ireland. Of course nothing is ever objective - show me a book like this which could be - but this one tries hard. It is a welcome addition to our office and by this time next year I expect it to be very dog-eared indeed. And I imagine that's the type of compliment it would like.

One quibble: on a number of occasions it refers to Sinn Féin as `Provisional Sinn Féin', a name long lost in the mists of time.

By Brian Campbell





By Aengus O Snodaigh

The fascination with the elusive historical figure Michael Collins continues with the publication of two new books (one of which, ATQ Stewart's Michael Collins The Secret File, was reviewed here three weeks ago), both of which I have found lacking; ATQ Stewart's because of his sheer audacity in charging £10.99 for writing 36 pages and photographing intelligence files. Money for old rope. There is no analysis worth commenting on done of the documents presented.

Vincent McDowell's book could be said to be in the same vein, in that the RIC records in Stewart's book are often unverifiable tittle-tattle, which McDowell presents to us in the pages of his book as `facts'. He makes intriguing claims that once and for all he can reveal: why Michael Collins suddenly agreed to sign the 1921 Articles of Agreement, the Treaty; why Emmet Dalton resigned; why was there no inquest or military inquiry into Collins' death; or his unreported dalliances and the resultant off-spring.

The title is misleading and the pre-publicity and the jacket blurb obscures McDowell's questionable `historical' methodology which outlines his opening sentences:

``This book is not a simple historical novel, nor is it an official, documented chronicle of agreed facts. It is a hybrid - faction, tailored to fit the facts on the sound scientific principle that the simplest hypothesis that fits all the facts is usually the right one.''

The topic, the IRB and Michael Collins, or just the IRB, is an area of history which still needs further in depth research. It is not sufficient to dress tittle -tattle up as facts.

File this one as fiction.