When de Valera moved from active politics to The Park, and Lemass succeeded him as Taoiseach, a new era in Irish life began. Irish television came into being, and was soon a sine qua non in the average home; literary censorship began to ease up, and in the end was quietly phased out; tourism became a major industry, with Shannon an established international airport; the Congo civil war brought out Irish troops to fight for the UN abroad. There was a new sense of economic adventure, even of well being, and of emotional liberation after the greyness of the Fifties and the austerity of the war years. Perhaps the greatest change of all, however, came with Vatican II and the traditionally reactionary Irish Church had no choice but to follow, however slowly and reluctantly, the inspiring figure of John XXIII (although Humanae Vitae, later in the decade, confirmed the contraception ban and lost many young couples from the religion of their parents). Fergal Tobin's lively, unacademically written study disinters some forgotten controversies - who today, for instance, remembers the Language Freedom Movement? Father McDyer's brave economic initiative in Glencolumbkille is also almost forgotten, and undeservedly. There was also a considerable shake up in Irish education, and a new relationship grew with the North of Ireland - hopeful at first, with the rapprochement between Lemass and Terence O'Neill, but later turning into round after round of violence.