Sign-In
Cart
We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland
Hardcover
Biographies GeneralGeneral World HistoryIrish History
Publisher Price: $32.00
ISBN13: 9781631496530
Publisher: Liveright Pub Corp
Published: Mar 15 2022
Pages: 624
Weight: 2.22
Height: 1.56 Width: 6.45 Depth: 9.71
Language: English
Fintan O'Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government--in despair, because all the young people were leaving--opened the country to foreign investment and popular culture. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity. In We Don't Know Ourselves, O'Toole, one of the Anglophone world's most consummate stylists, weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary backwater to an almost totally open society--perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history.
Born to a working-class family in the Dublin suburbs, O'Toole served as an altar boy and attended a Christian Brothers school, much as his forebears did. He was enthralled by American Westerns suddenly appearing on Irish television, which were not that far from his own experience, given that Ireland's main export was beef and it was still not unknown for herds of cattle to clatter down Dublin's streets. Yet the Westerns were a sign of what was to come. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish, women in particular. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism. In O'Toole's telling, America became a lodestar, from John F. Kennedy's 1963 visit, when the soon-to-be martyred American president was welcomed as a native son, to the emergence of the Irish technology sector in the late 1990s, driven by American corporations, which set Ireland on the path toward particular disaster during the 2008 financial crisis.
A remarkably compassionate yet exacting observer, O'Toole in coruscating prose captures the peculiar Irish habit of deliberate unknowing, which allowed myths of national greatness to persist even as the foundations were crumbling. Forty years in the making, We Don't Know Ourselves is a landmark work, a memoir and a national history that ultimately reveals how the two modes are entwined for all of us.
Also in
Irish History
How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe
Cahill, Thomas
Paperback
The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge and the Phoenix Park Murders That Stunned Victorian England
Kavanagh, Julie
Hardcover
Finding Ireland: A Poet's Explorations of Irish Literature and Culture
Tillinghast, Richard
Paperback
On Bloody Sunday: A New History of the Day and Its Aftermath - By the People Who Were There
Campbell, Julieann
Hardcover
The Great Book of Ireland: Interesting Stories, Irish History & Random Facts About Ireland
O'Neill, Bill
Paperback
Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America's First Humanitarian Mission
Puleo, Stephen
Paperback
Ireland's Secret War: Dan Bryan, G2 and the Lost Tapes That Reveal the Hunt for Ireland's Nazi Spies
McMenamin, Marc
Paperback
Possessed by the Devil: The Real History of the Islandmagee Witches and Ireland's Only Mass Witchcraft Trial
Sneddon, Andrew
Paperback
101 Things You Didn't Know about Irish History: The People, Places, Culture, and Tradition of the Emerald Isle
Kimmer, Garland
Hackney, Ryan
Blackwell, Amy Hackney
Paperback
Irish Brigade in the Civil War: The 69th New York and Other Irish Regiments of the Army of the Potomac
Bilby, Joseph G.
Paperback
Making Sense of the Troubles: The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland
McKittrick, David
McVea, David
Hardcover
The Everything Irish History & Heritage Book: From Brian Boru and St. Patrick to Sinn Fein and the Troubles, All You Need to Know about the Emerald Is
Blackwell, Amy Hackney
Hackney, Ryan
Paperback
Iona, Kells and Derry: The History and Hagiography of the Monastic Familia of Columba
Herbert, Máire
Paperback
The Family Tree Irish Genealogy Guide: How to Trace Your Ancestors in Ireland
Santry, Claire
Paperback
Developing Rural Ireland: A History of the Irish Agricultural Advisory Services
Ó. Fathartaigh, Mícheál
Hardcover
No Digas NADA / Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Paperback
Lincoln and the Irish: The Untold Story of How the Irish Helped Abraham Lincoln Save the Union
O'Dowd, Niall
Hardcover
The Twelve Apostles: Michael Collins, the Squad, and Ireland's Fight for Freedom
Coogan, Tim Pat
Hardcover
In Search of Ancient Ireland: The Origins of the Irish from Neolithic Times to the Coming of the English
McCaffrey, Carmel
Eaton, Leo
Paperback
Lincoln and the Irish: The Untold Story of How the Irish Helped Abraham Lincoln Save the Union
O'Dowd, Niall
Paperback
All Standing: The Remarkable Story of the Jeanie Johnston, the Legendary Irish Famine Ship
Miles, Kathryn
Paperback
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (Large Print Edition)
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Paperback
The Sacred Isle: Belief and Religion in Pre-Christian Ireland
Hogáin, Dáithí O.
O. Hogain, Dáithí
Paperback
Scota, Egyptian Queen of the Scots: An analysis of Scotichronicon, the chronicle of the Scots
Ellis, Ralph
Paperback
Celtic Hand Stroke by Stroke (Irish Half-Uncial from the Book of Kells): An Arthur Baker Calligraphy Manual
Baker, Arthur
Paperback
Ireland the Best 100 Places: Extraordinary Places and Where Best to Walk, Eat and Sleep
McKenna, John
Paperback
The Guises of the Morrigan: The Celtic Irish Goddess of Battle & Sovereignty: Her Myths, Powers and Mysteries
Rankine, David
D'Este, Sorita
Paperback
The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal and the Search for Peace: Ireland's Ordeal and the Search for Peace
Coogan, Tim Pat
Paperback
An Irish Rebel in New Spain: The Tumultuous Life and Tragic Death of William Lamport
Martínez Baracs, Andrea
Paperback
The Trimble Families of America 2021 Edition Volume 1: Genealogy, History and Tales of Trimble Families of America
Trimble, John Farley
Trimble, Stanley Barry
Hardcover
Children of the Troubles: The Untold Story of the Children Killed in the Northern Ireland Conflict
McClements, Freya
Duffy, Joe
Hardcover
Portals Through Time - Irish Doorways & Windows: Mystical Moods of Ireland, Vol. VI
Truett, James a.
Hardcover
Shadows from the Trenches: Veterans of the Great War and the Irish Revolution (1918-1923)
Destenay, Emmanuel
Paperback
A Woman Lived Here: Alternative Blue Plaques, Remembering London's Remarkable Women
Vale, Allison
Hardcover
Towards Ireland Free: The West Cork Brigade in the War of Independence 1917- 1921
Deasy, Liam
Paperback
Burning the Big House: The Story of the Irish Country House in a Time of War and Revolution
Dooley, Terence
Hardcover
Unintended Consequences: The Story of Irish Immigration to the U.S. and How America's Door Was Closed to the Irish
O'Hanlon, Ray
Paperback