Ireland and the Olympic Games

Gold, Silver and Green: The Irish Olympic Journey, 1896-1924 will be published on January 14th.

The standard of athletics sports in Ireland in the latter half of the nineteenth century was phenomenal. A huge proportion of the great athletes in this period came from a small pocket of rich countryside know as the Golden Vale. North Cork, west Tipperary and much of County Limerick may well have produced more world records, more international and Olympic champions than any other rural are in modern times- Gold, Silver and Green: The Irish Olympic Journey, 1896-1924 (ISBN 978 185918458 5, Hbk, 428 pp, 234 x 156mm, €39/£35).

The first modern Olympic champion, James Connolly, might well have represented the USA but both his parents came from the Aran Islands. The first brothers to win Olympic athletic medals were Irish; the first time gold, silver and bronze medals in an athletic event were won by men from the same country involved three Irishmen from neighbouring counties; the first athlete to win five Olympic titles was Mayoman Martin Sheridan. It is amazing to think that seven of the first eight Olympic hammer-throwing titles were won by men born in the Golden Vale, or within a hammer-throw of it.

Gold, Silver and Green is a book about sport but also about the politics of sport. Dealing with the first quarter century or so of the modern Olympic Games, the book examines how Irish participants fought not only sporting battles but often significant political ones too, given the fact that Ireland did not have independent nation status. The famous efforts of decathlon champion Tom Kiely to represent 'Tipperary and Ireland' in 1904, and of world long-jump record holder Peter O'Connor to climb a flagpole armed with an Irish flag are given ample coverage in the work. The GAA's attitude to the Olympic Games is also explored.


Kevin McCarthy is a Senior Inspector with Department of Education and Science

Further details at:
http://www.corkuniversitypress.com/Gold,_Silver_and_Green:_The_Irish_Olympic_Journey_1896_1924_/304/

For more information please contact:
Mike Collins, Cork University Press, Youngline Industrial Estate, Pouladuff Road, Cork, Ireland
Tel: 00 353 (0) 21 490 2980 Fax: 00 353 (0) 21 431 5329
Email: mike.collins@ucc.ie  web: www.corkuniversitypress.com

Manuscript missing for 300 years describes the Natural History of Ireland

 Philip O’Sullivan Beare, who was from West Cork, wrote the Zoilomastix in 1626 while he was in exile in Spain to refute a book written in 1188 by Giraldus Cambrensis, which was very derogatory of Ireland and the Irish people. Cambrensis’s book underwent a revival at the end of the sixteenth century as a form of propaganda to justify the Elizabethan conquest and cruel suppression of Ireland. The English wanted to give the impression that the Irish were barbarous so that Spain and France would not send help to support the Irish rebellions against the English. —The Natural History of Ireland   (ISBN 978 185918 439 4, hbk, 384 pp, 234 x 156mm, €39/£35).

 The handwritten manuscript of the Zoilomastix was lost for nearly 300 years; it was found at the University of Uppsala, Sweden in 1932. The manuscript was written in Latin and it appears here for the first time in English.  The Natural History of Ireland highlights Philip O’Sullivan Beare’s reaction to these propagandist texts denigrating Ireland. The book starts with a description of Ireland from twenty-one authors followed by sections on the natural habitat and features, such as rivers, plants, animals, fish and birds and the geology of Ireland. Species listed are named in four languages, including Irish. There is a description of Ireland by the regions. The book finishes with a section on the purgatory of St Patrick’s including a description of how St Patrick expelled snakes from Ireland. An introduction by Denis O’Sullivan gives an overall history of the O’Sullivans and Philip in particular. 
 
 Denis C. O’Sullivan was a consultant urologist at Cork University Hospital and the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork and a Clinical Lecturer in Urology at University College Cork. After retirement he graduated in Ancient Classics from University College Cork.

For more information please contact:
Mike Collins, Cork University Press, Youngline Industrial Estate, Pouladuff Road, Cork, Ireland
Tel: 00 353 (0) 21 490 2980 Fax: 00 353 (0) 21 431 5329
Email: mike.collins@ucc.ie  web: www.corkuniversitypress.com

Knock:  The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland by Eugene Hynes and  published by Cork University Press has been selected as a co-winner of the tenth annual  James S. Donnelly, Sr. award for  Books in History and the Social Sciences presented by the American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS).   - Knock: The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth- Century Ireland  (ISBN 978 185918 440 0, Hbk, 400 pp, 234 x 156mm, €49/£39).

On August 21, 1879 in a poor rural village in the western county of Mayo over a dozen people saw a bright silvery-white light outside the gable of the local Catholic church and within the light the Virgin Mary, St Joseph and St John the Evangelist. From a neglected memoir dating from 1880 Hynes steps inside the shoes of a local man who describes the scene in Knock for half a century before the apparition. The timing and location of the apparition is explained by the combination of several factors.

Hynes shines an important new sociological light on nineteenth century Ireland. He provides a readable and scholarly account of rural Catholic life in the time leading up to the apparition at Knock. He weaves a rich description of the people and events into a comprehensive analysis of the social, political and economic context within which the apparition occurred.

Eugene Hynes is a native of east Galway and is Associate Professor of Sociology at Kettering University, Michigan

For more information about Knock: The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth- Century Ireland  please contact:
Mike Collins, Cork University Press, Youngline Industrial Estate, Pouladuff Road, Cork, Ireland
Tel: 00 353 (0) 21 490 2980 Fax: 00 353 (0) 21 431 5329
Email: mike.collins@ucc.ie  web: www.corkuniversitypress.com