CURRENT AFFAIRS: NIAMH BRENNANreviews The Irish Times 2009 Book of the Year, Edited by Peter Murtagh, Gill & Macmillan, 283pp, €26.99
THINK OF all The Irish Times's editions you meant to read but didn't get time to. This book allows you to catch up on some of what you missed.
The review opens with a piece from Mark Hennessy on the 24 hours in October 2008 that brought the Irish financial system to the brink. Somewhat incongruously, in the middle of this piece there is a photograph of a man examining a horse’s teeth at the Ballinasloe Horse Fair. Farther on there’s another, more congruous photograph of an Indonesian trader weeping on the Jakarta Stock Exchange, illustrating that Ireland’s problems are a world-wide phenomenon. John McManus follows with a piece questioning whether there will be personal accountability by bank CEOs (yes is the answer – by now nearly all have departed).
One area in Irish public life where there is accountability is politics, with regular opportunities for voters to hold our politicians to account. Fintan O'Toole's bafflement is palpable on the 1,400 people who turned out in Thurles in April 2009 to celebrate Michael Lowry's political career. How can Michael Lowry, "a cheat and a liar", be re-elected time and again? Accountability is also at the heart of the Supreme Court's finding in July 2009 that The Irish Timeshad a right to publish information received anonymously in 2006 that the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, had accepted substantial payments from private individuals when he was Minister for Finance. Information is the life blood of democracy. The public are entitled to know what goes on at the highest political levels in our society. And what did the public do with this information? Bertie Ahern received a resounding endorsement from the Irish voters in the 2007 general election. However, Stephen Collins reports on the extraordinary turnaround in public sentiment that saw Bertie's brother Maurice Ahern defeated in the local elections in June 2009, while Mary Fitzpatrick, who had been shafted by the Ahern camp, topped the poll.
There’s lots about Obama, from his election in November 2008, to his inauguration in January 2009, to his award of the Presidential medal of freedom to Mary Robinson this summer.
Animals feature surprisingly often. In addition to that toothy equine mentioned earlier, there’s a laughing horse, a 30-year-old orang-utan, a thorny devil stick insect, a bluefin tuna, a man carrying a pig, Natural History museum animal exhibits, starlings, miniature stallions, Gráinne the fox, Killorglan’s 2009 King Puck. There’s lots of dogs: Digger the dog in the snow in the Sally Gap; Bo, the first dog of the White House; Roy Keane with trainee guidedog Ella; Bella the Jack Russell and his motorcycle goggles; sheepdog pup Maury and Bactrian camels, and a pair of Martyn Turner banking dogs, with Taoiseach Brian Cowan and his €7 billion bone (one of 11 Turner cartoons in the book).
But my favourite image by far is the beautiful Michael Viney illustration of a little traditional cottage in the Irish country side.
All your favourite Irish Timeswriters are there – Miriam Lord (you can never get enough of Miriam), Michael Viney (can't get enough of him either!), Róisín Ingle – how we all followed those nine months before the twins were born. It was great to read the final chapter in this saga, "Countdown to C day", which I missed when it was originally published in April 2009.
Sport also features. That wonderful picture of Munster’s Rua Tipoki doing the haka before the game against his New Zealand country men. Inspiring accounts by Gerry Thornley of Ireland’s grand slam victory in Cardiff; Keith Duggan’s Munster versus Leinster clash, culminating in Leinster becoming European rugby champions (Gerry Thornley again); Tom Humphries’s accounts of Kilkenny all-Ireland hurling champions and Kerry all-Ireland football champions.
The stunning new Samuel Beckett Bridge, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava for the Docklands, being transported up the Liffey from Rotterdam, is pictured, accompanied by Ruadhán Mac Cormaic’s five-act account of the Bridge’s arrival into the capital. Yes, it is great to see the improvements down there in the docklands.
There are some moving pieces. Kathy Sheridan's account of 22-year-old Sebastian Creane's funeral, and the inspiring words of his mother Nuala – so positive and uplifting in such tragic and sad circumstances. Yvonne Nolan's raw, savage piece about her brother Christy Nolan – he wasn't the only one in that family with a way with words. The brutal death of Melissa Mahon and the conviction of her murderer Ronnie McManus. Other passings are covered. There are pieces on Michael Jackson; on 24-year-old Michael Dwyer, machine gunned to death in a hotel room in Bolivia; on Major Thomas McDowell CEO/Chairman of The Irish Timesfor 40 years; on Ted Kennedy, on Tony Gregory.
An attractive aspect of this compilation is that you find yourself reading about finance, fashion, debs dances, politics, sport, moving comfortably from one snippet to the next.
This is the perfect Christmas present to encourage your son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter, niece or nephew to read the newspaper. They will be drawn into the book by the fascinating and beautiful illustrations and cannot but read the journalistic vignettes alongside. Or for yourself – to recall events that happened a mere “yesterday” that you have forgotten already.
This is the best of Irish Timeswriting.
Niamh Brennan is Michael MacCormac Professor of Management at University College Dublin, and Academic Director of the Centre for Corporate Governance at UCD. She is chairwoman of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority
