Through Irish Eyes: A Visual Companion to Angela McCourt's Ireland

by David Pritchard, David Ross (Editor), Malachy McCourt (Foreword)

A collection of photographs depicting Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s which aims to evoke the times captured in Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes". The book also contains extracts from the writings of authors such as Yeats, Thackeray, Myles na Gopaleen, Sean O Riordain and Kate O'Brien.

Genres: Irish Literature, Ireland, Nonfiction

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Vera Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

17 years ago, [author Frank McCourt] (1930–2009) surprised the world with his touching, glowing, sometimes funny but also melancholy memoir of an Irish family that moved to New York City, where he was born, but returned to Limerick, where he was raised. The book became a best seller. McCourt won a Pulitzer prize for Angela s Ashes A Memoir, and spawned a generation (or two) of people trying to repeat his success by writing their memoirs.

Now the British company Haldane Mason Ltd. has compiled a companion to that book with archival photographs and documents from the 1920s through the 1940s. (Published in the U.S. by Glitterati). In the foreword to Through Irish Eyes, Frank McCourt’s brother,Malachy McCourt (who is also a writer) says he didn’t want to look at this new book because he assumed it would be the Ireland of “Shure Begorrah Brigades” that “…pollute the papers and indeed all the media around the green ghetto days surrounding the feast of St. Patrick…” But the book surprised him, he says.

There will be some on this side of the Atlantic who will sigh and say, “Ain’t it quaint” and plan a trip to the “old sod” in search of slums ans slummery and the charming characters who can spout poetic sayings and colorful prose at the appearance of a pint. The lanes are gone, the people are not, and the inquiring visitor may be told that what is pictured and prosed in ‘through Irish Eyes never existed, that those in the life of Angela’s Ashes are imagination figments.

But they are not “imagination figments”, the family in Angela’s Ashes, and these pictures capture with a disturbing mix of beauty and despair the reality of their lives.

It is a great credit to Frank McCourt that when I looked at the pictures in Through Irish Eyes, they took me back directly to Angela’s Ashes. It all looked familiar because he had painted it so well with his words.

This is part of a review I wrote at my website. To see the entire review, please go to A Traveler's Library.

[Michelle Stimpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This made me want to reread "Angela's Ashes," one of my all-time favorite books.

[Ed Zaremba · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pictorial companion to "Angela's Ashes" (part of Frank McCourt's trilogy) with a forward by his brother Malachy McCourt It vividly shows the poverty of his home town giving ample reasons for the Irish to emigrate to America.

[Patty Marvel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a happy picture book. Malachy McCourt, brother of "Angela's Ashes" author Frank McCourt, writes in the foreword he initially didn't want to do so because he thought the book would "show an Ireland that exists only in the minds of the Shure Begorrah Brigades that pollute the papers and indeed all the media around the green ghetto days surrounding the feast of St. Patrick." But these are photos of a real and raw Ireland featuring children in filthy, threadbare clothes - not filthy and threadbare because they were just playing, but because indoor plumbing and proper baths were not an option and you wore what you wore because THAT was ALL you HAD.

"Through Irish Eyes" is organized according to the text and order of events from "Angela's Ashes," so you'll get more out of this book if you read the other one first. Better still, have the picture book next to you as you read Frankie McCourt's life story.

[Jeanine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a photographic companion to "Angela's Ashes" which shows the grinding poverty of Limerick from the first half of the last century. This seems to be a true picture of life at that time. It is easy to understand why so many emigrated to Canada, the U. S. and elsewhere. Am glad to have read this book as it does not seem to be "prettied up" at all.