MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Left Lives in 20th-century Ireland, Vol 2
Invaluable biographies of trade union and labour movement activists ignored in mainstream histories
Unsung heroine: Sylvia Meehan, women’s rights campaigner
[Eamonn Farrell]
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
THIS second volume of biographies of leading left-wing figures in or from 20th-century Ireland is a valuable follow-on from the first.
Its 12 essays fills a huge gap, given that much of history taught at school or fed via the media is about monarchs, generals, prime ministers, top politicians or celebrities, with the valuable contribution made by men and women in the trade union and labour movement invariably ignored or marginalised.
The lives of some of the selfless heroes of the working-class and progressive movements are illuminated and given their rightful place in the pubic record, among them Rodney Bickerstaffe, Dominic Behan, banner-makers WL Reynolds, Thomas Kain and Jer O’Leary, trade unionist and politician Brendan Corish, Irish Labour Party politician Pat Devlin and Irish Workers League and Communist Party of Ireland member John Swift.
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