But some have paused to wonder whether the vibrant memoir credited with inventing the lucrative genre of “misery literature” is in fact a true and authentic account of his childhood. Or is it largely a creation of McCourt’s undoubtedly fertile imagination?
The book is the subject of a scathing attack in the latest edition of the
Dublin Review of Books. Alan Titley, emeritus professor of Irish at University College Cork, denounces McCourt as a “chancer”.
He accuses him of peddling a book that was “trashy” and “cringe-inducing”; a “sham” with a “concocted narrative”.
To say that the professor is unimpressed by the man once hailed as the “Irish Dickens” would be a dramatic understatement.
Dogs are mostly having a good Covid. Ours certainly is. Lola has gone from being a cuddly pet who simply brightened up our lives to being at the very heart of the family. Knows so too.
It’s not that we formally welcomed or encouraged her. But one day – I can’t be sure which one – she seemed to have bestowed on herself all the rights and privileges homo sapien Coughlans took for granted.
Things like which couch she sprawled on, bed she dozed on, what food she ate and what company she kept.
Lola no longer takes it as a given that she lives in the kitchen, her traditional place of domicile, while the rest of us go about our business elsewhere.
History is our true novel, says Roy Foster, Ireland s leading historian. In An Irish History of Civilization, the world s foremost scholar of the Irish diaspora, Don Akenson, fuses history and fiction into an iconoclastic narrative of a people and their influence around the globe.
In a sprawling chronicle of civilization through Irish eyes, Akenson takes us from St Patrick to Woodie Guthrie, from Constantine to John F. Kennedy, from India to the Australian outback. In two volumes of masterful storytelling he creates ironic, playful, and acerbic historical miniatures - a quixotic series of reconstructions woven into a helix in which the same historical figures reappear in radically different contexts as their narratives intersect with the larger picture.
Opinion: Film and Irish History – the fine lines between fact and fiction
Dr Seán Crosson of NUI Galway looks at the treatment of historical Irish figures on film and says history will often suffer at the hands of dramatic effect. By Seán Crosson Saturday 23 Jan 2021, 8:30 AM Jan 23rd 2021, 8:30 AM 17,770 Views 37 Comments Seán Crosson
FILM AND HISTORY have had an uncertain and at times contested relationship. This is perhaps all the more so in the Irish context, where the depiction of our history and culture on film has been heavily influenced by forces outside of this country.
Perhaps one of the most controversial examples is Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins, the 1996 film that has been the subject of renewed interest given its depiction of th
History is our true novel, says Roy Foster, Ireland s leading historian. In An Irish History of Civilization, the world s foremost scholar of the Irish diaspora, Don Akenson, fuses history and fiction into an iconoclastic narrative of a people and their influence around the globe.
In a sprawling chronicle of civilization through Irish eyes, Akenson takes us from St Patrick to Woodie Guthrie, from Constantine to John F. Kennedy, from India to the Australian outback. In two volumes of masterful storytelling he creates ironic, playful, and acerbic historical miniatures - a quixotic series of reconstructions woven into a helix in which the same historical figures reappear in radically different contexts as their narratives intersect with the larger picture.