David Monagan has always dreamed of relocating to Ireland, the land of his forebears. With humour and candour, he describes the pleasures and pitfalls, challenges and frustrations of moving a feisty family to a foreign land. Jaywalking with the Irish isan honest, penetrating and often hilarious portrait of a contemporary Ireland that is so often portrayed through the wistful lens of cliches that no longer apply. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.

The pub has been at the centre of Irish life for centuries. It has played many roles: funeral home, restaurant, grocery shop, music venue, job centre and meeting place for everyone from poets to revolutionaries. Often plain and unpretentious, it is a neutral ground, a leveller – a home away from home. From the feasts of high kings, through the heady gang-ruled pubs of nineteenth-century New York, right up to the gay bars and superpubs of today, this is an entertaining journey through the evolution of the Irish pub. Our 'locals' have become a global phenomenon: the export of the Irish pub, its significance to emigrants and its portrayal in cinema, television and literature are engagingly explored. The story of the Irish pub is the story of Ireland itself. "Fascinating ... endlessly surprising." – Irish Independent. "Full of brilliant anecdotes, packed with legal, literary, religious and historical bits and pieces that will keep you talking in the pub all night." – Neil Delamere, Today FM. "An enjoyable romp through the ephemera and facts surrounding that most Irish of institutions." – Irish Examiner. "Fascinating ... a great gift." – Mark Cagney, TV3

"This is the first volume to fully explore the relationship between Tourism and National Identity and multiple ways in which cultural tourism, events and celebrations contribute to national identity. By doing so the book provides important insights into how planners and managers can better manage attractions and events in the future. The book achieves this by reviewing core topics critical to the understanding of this relationship including: tourism branding, stereotyping and national identity; tourism-related representation and experience of national identity (such as when tourists travel to particular nations and what this means in relation to their identity); tourism visitation/site/event management; and, the relationship to cultural tourism. The book looks at a range of international tourist sites and events, combines multidisciplinary perspectives and international cases to provide a solid thorough academic analysis. Written by an international team of leading academics this book will be of interest to students, researchers & academics in Tourism and related disciplines such as Events and Cultural Geography"--

Successfully navigate the rich world of travel narratives and identify fiction and nonfiction read-alikes with this detailed and expertly constructed guide. Just as savvy travelers make use of guidebooks to help navigate the hundreds of countries around the globe, smart librarians need a guidebook that makes sense of the world of travel narratives. Going Places: A Reader's Guide to Travel Narratives meets that demand, helping librarians assist patrons in finding the nonfiction books that most interest them. It will also serve to help users better understand the genre and their own reading interests. The book examines the subgenres of the travel narrative genre in its seven chapters, categorizing and describing approximately 600 titles according to genres and broad reading interests, and identifying hundreds of other fiction and nonfiction titles as read-alikes and related reads by shared key topics. The author has also identified award-winning titles and spotlighted further resources on travel lit, making this work an ideal guide for readers' advisors as well a book general readers will enjoy browsing.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. A fresh anthropological look at a central but neglected topic: the profound changes in rural life throughout Western Europe today. As locals leave for jobs in cities they are replaced by neo-hippies, lifestyle-seekers, eco-activists, and labour migrants from beyond the EU. With detailed ethnographic examples, contributors analyse new modes of living rurally and emerging forms of social organisation. As incomers’ dreams come up against residents’ realities, they detail the clashes and the cooperations between old and new residents. They make us rethink the rural/urban divide, investigate regionalists’ politicisation of rural life and heritage, and reveal how locals use EU monies to prop up or challenge existing hierarchies. They expose the consequences of and reactions to grand EU-restructuring policies, which at times threaten to turn the countryside into a manicured playground for escapee urbanites. This book will appeal to anyone seriously interested in the realities of rural life today.

Where is Ireland's soul? This is the question that surface time and again in Ireland Unhinged, a searching, sometimes scathing, often hilarious journey through a country that in the space of a few years has fallen from the dizzy heights of the 'bouncy-castle' boom to the bewildering depths of the crash. Ireland Unhinged is a story of reverse emigration to Cork City and then rural Waterford, from cosy US confines to the true Wild West of these last years. David Monagan's sharp eye pinpoints the excesses and absurdities of modern Ireland. But his real search is for the enduring essence of his adopted country, as revealed in his meetings with literary legends, with witches and monks, with property developers and gnomic farmers. Itis a riveting memoir of a family adapting to a strange land, and an unflinching portrait of Ireland today.

This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

Sara Walsh was born in 1919 in the west of Ireland, in a land of storytellers. In prose that is neither history nor memoir but something larger and brighter than both,Remembering Ahanagrancaptures her memories of her early years in Ireland, her migration to the United States, and her marriage to Harry White, the Harvard-educated son of Russian Jewish emigrants. Her son, eminent historian Richard White, in collaboration with Sara, forces history as it is traditionally written into conversation with personal recollections. Richard Whiteis Margaret Byrne Professor of American History at Stanford University. "Richard White gives us a beautifully rendered account of his mother's life, tracing her journey as a young girl from Ireland toward the new identities she forged for herself in Boston and Chicago. Subtly weaving memory and history to suggest how the two reinforce but also challenge each other,Remembering Ahanagranis a powerful meditation on the immigrant experience in America. It is an absolutely wonderful book." - William Cronon "In this brilliant book, Richard White proves that he is not only one of the finest historians in America but also one of the most eloquent and ambitious. Through a loving but clear-eyed examination of the tales his immigrant mother tells of her early life in Ireland and the United States, he has managed to uncover a host of surprising truths--about his own family, about the complex, often poignant relationship between history and memory, and about what it means to be an American." - Geoffrey C. Ward "Remembering Ahanagranis a rare and remarkable achievement: a book that carries as great a charge in emotional power as it does in intellectual energy. Sara Walsh's 'memory' and Richard White's 'history' travel through terrain from the most urgent American concerns of immigration and intermarriage to the most elemental, universal issues of love and death. This book gives its readers access to the company of two people with extraordinary gifts for life's basic enterprise: taking in experience, and making sense of it." - Patricia Nelson Limerick "With equal and equally tender respect for document, memory, and lore, Richard White recreates and joins his Irish and his Jewish ancestry. An extraordinary book." - Lore Segal

A disarming novel that asks a simple question: Can gentle people change the world? In this charming and truly unique debut, popular Irish musician Ronan Hession tells the story of two single, thirty-something men who still live with their parents and who are . . . nice. They take care of their parents and play board games together. They like to read. They take satisfaction from their work. They are resolutely kind. And they realize that none of this is considered . . . normal. Leonard and Hungry Paul is the story of two friends struggling to protect their understanding of what’s meaningful in life. It is about the uncelebrated people of this world — the gentle, the meek, the humble. And as they struggle to persevere, the book asks a surprisingly enthralling question: Is it really them against the world, or are they on to something?

Anne is a TV star with big regrets and very little direction. Desperate to shake off her guilt, she goes to confession. And only after does she recognize the priest. Ciaran is in trouble with his superiors for marching in support of gay marriage, but he's in no real danger from the woman who left him heart-broken at seventeen. Anne's clearly in the middle of a crisis and, as a priest, he can't turn her away. The attraction between them is as strong as ever, but Anne's only in Dublin for the theater festival—such a short time. Reconnecting could satisfy their curiosity and give a little closure, or that's the plan. Before long, the pair come to rely on one another. While rumours mount, it becomes clear how badly Ciaran is needed in his church, and Anne would never ask him to give up the precious community she's seen there. How can you be sure when leaving is the most loving thing to do?