Fintan O’Toole (born 16 February 1958) is an Irish journalist and drama critic for The Irish Times for which he has written since 1988. O’Toole was drama critic for the New York Daily News from 1997 to 2001 and is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. He has also written history, literary criticism and political commentary.
This book is an excellent recommendation for anyone who wishes to understand modern Ireland. It combines recent history with memoir.
Ireland has been transformed at breakneck speed over 60 years. Within a single lifetime, it has gone from a Catholic backwater to an almost totally open society welcoming international investment. Tracing the course of the nation from 1958, the year he was born, into the 21st century, O’Toole shows with forensic detail how the Irish people’s secretive disposition shielded them from developments in the wider world. This powerful book is a lucid, highly informative amalgam of economic, social, cultural and personal observation, plus behind-the-scenes political intelligence. O’Toole is superb in describing how a nation of steadfast traditionalists remained determinedly oblivious to the mind-boggling coverups, scams, property speculations and financial schemes that brought down both the Church and the economy.
Recovery was miraculous. Now (11 April 2024) Ireland is third in a global league table for GDP per capita with an enviable standard of living (List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita – Wikipedia) It’s a remarkable story and it’s worth reading about it.
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624 pages in Apollo
First published 2022
ISBN-13 : 978-1784978341
