2016 TOP TIR Awards

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18 Irish American News “WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN GREEN!” JANUARY <strong>2016</strong> St. Ernan’s Blues-An Inspector Starrett Mystery By: Paul Charles DuFour Editions St. Ernan is a tiny island off the coast of Donegal, near Donegal Honor your loved one’s Irish heritage forever with a beautifully handcrafted wooden urn. www.SteveShannonCollection.com/irishurns.html 1-844-ART-URNS Town. It is reached by a causeway. There are eleven priests living here in a large house. They have been sent here from nearby dioceses. Garda Inspector Starrett is investigating the murder of one of them. He is interviewing Fr. Patrick O’Connell and asks him why he and the others were sent here: …”let’s just say they’d enough on me to have me expelled to St. Ernan…” “Does each of the others know why they are here?” “we all know we are here due to our own…our own…” “Transgressions…” supplies the detective. “Yes indeed, transgressions covers it.” Paul Charles has written 19 novels, most of them police procedurals like St. Ernan’s Blues. I have reviewed several. He was born and raised in County Down. As a delivery boy there he came to know well the drama and intrigue in his village. Charles became a professional music promoter and moved to London where that business is centered. He lives in London with his wife. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 brought peace to Northern Ireland after a 30 year civil war. That peace produced a new generation of crime writers. Paul Charles is one of those writers, along with Brian McGilloway, Adrian McKinty, Stuart Neville and Colin Bateman. Of the many possible quotes, I think you’ll especially like these. As the Inspector and a Ban Garda interview one of the priests, they notice that he talked almost exclusively with the female detective. Afterwards, she says had he, “…not been wearing a very expensive dark blue suit with snow-white clerical collar, she would have considered him a ridiculous flirt.” During the inspection of the murdered priest’s room, the inspector opens the medicine cabinet. “He had never seen as many male pampering products (17 in all). There were two large boxes of Lemsip (cold medicine), one on top of the other…the detective was surprised because…the top box was still in cellophane, the one underneath was minus cellophane and appeared much used.” Inside the older, well used box was another box “…emblazoned with the Durex logo (condoms).” The reader of St. Ernan’s Blues will learn a lot about the priests at St. Ernan’s and a lot about human nature. The 1916 Diaries Of an Irish Rebel and a British Soldier By: Mick O’Farrell Mercier Press and DuFour Editions “I believe I was fated to be here….I could not have escaped it.” This was written in the diary of an Irish Volunteer during the Easter Rising. His name was Seosamk de Brun. “This book isn’t an account of the 1916 Easter Rising as a whole… Instead it’s a tightly focused look at events as happened to two individuals….an Irish Volunteer in Jacob’s factory and a British soldier in Dublin’s city centre.” Jacob’s was one of the positions held by the Volunteers during the Rising. The diary was found in Jacob’s factory after the Rising by an employee who turned it into Jacob’s lost and found. Its existence was only recently learned, “it was rediscovered in the last few years.” What an amazing story! The diary was meant to be pocket size and was only three inches by 2 ½ inches. De Brun kept the diary from 1915 until the Saturday of Easter week, when the garrison surrendered. In it described his union activities and joining the Volunteers. Later, he describe his life as one of the soldiers holding the Jacob’s position. The other diary was kept by Samuel Lomas. He was a Company Sergeant Major in one of the British army units that was hurriedly sent to Dublin. His unit was a battalion of The Sherwood Foresters. Lomas kept the diary from a hurried leaving from England on Tuesday, April 25, 1916 and for the next fourteen days. Only “a typed transcript now exists held by the UK’s National Army Museum.” Fortunately, that copy was made. About the unknown typist, O’Farrell says: “we can be extremely grateful to him or her for helping preserve CSM Lomas’ works. “Lomas was involved in some of the most intense fighting of Easter week.” Sgt. Major Lomas “supervised the building of barricades across several streets…and he led storming parties to break into buildings.” For those actions he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. The commendation says he received this medal “For conspicuous gallantly and devotion to duty. He erected barricades under heavy fire…” Sadly, he was killed a year later during army service in France. Lomas and de Brun were ordinary men “who got caught up in extraordinary events in 1916.” They were like “all the other ordinary men who found themselves…on both sides of the rebellion.” Frank West is a retired teacher and has written book and play reviews since the paper’s inception in 1977. Many are online at irishamericannews.com
JANUARY <strong>2016</strong> Irish American News “WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN GREEN!” 19 Poor Words on Fallen Fireman in Full Ascent I don’t believe for a minute; no, not a bit of it, That a Shaft presumes a full stop, Like a period at the end of some line. At my desk, safe and snug in doors, With Leo’s clacking of boiler just below me I read of the Fall of a neighbor of mine. An east side fire on Baltimore Ave. and a Dad, A husband, a Halligan-fisted friend in full drop Down an unguarded shaft to a stop malign. I’m not buying, not for one minute; no, not a bit of it. Christ ER had a go at denying gravity’s plea For one more ascent to Christ’s arms Icarus enshrine. There was no Fall. This was ascent. The shaft is on on us, expecting full stop. A fireman was winged high; not as we opine. Words fail me, you see I am limited and Limiting runs us off the secured . . .unguarded Smoke befogged level line Not our Call; not our Bell; not our say so, But His who draws up and in the True. I do what what I can here - Dan is fine. By Pat Hickey
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2016 TOP TIR Awards

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