Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Book Launch: Patrick Pearse - The Making of a Revolutionary

Image from Amazon.
I attended the book launch of Dr Joost Augusteijn's new biography of Patrick Pearse at The Pearse Museum last Saturday. The launch was held in the recently opened Great Hall and kicked-off by Brian Crowley (director of the museum). He introduced Professor Mary Daly who formally launched the book. She gave an interesting speech about Pearse and gave us insights into some of the new material that is contained in the book. It is the first major biography on Pearse in 30 years (since Ruth Dudley Edwards' book - A Triumph of Failure, which I have previously reviewed), and is therefore an important contribution to the literature about Pearse.

Dr Augusteijn then spoke about how he came to write the book (which took him 10 years to do). He is a scholar on Irish history and has several publications on the IRA, War of Independence, and Ireland in the 1930's. He had not intended to write a biography, but over time this is what he ended up doing. He did not tell us much about the contents of the book - preferring (rightly) to let us read it ourselves. After his speech I got him to sign a copy of the book. I also had the opportunity to chat to the Director Brian Crowley, who is equally as passionate about Pearse.

I look forward to reading this book and to compare it with Dudley Edwards' controversial versions. I have several other books in my queue of books to read, but I will post a review when I have read it.

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