The Lie of the Land: Irish Identities

By Fintan O'Toole

Book Overview

The Lie of the Land is a highly engaging study of Ireland's fractured and shifting identities by one of its most talented writers. From its sometimes confused sense of place, caught somewhere between Europe and America, Ireland has redefined itself in the 1990s. Fintan O'Toole highlights the contradictions and the mythologies at work in Ireland's ever-changing idea of itself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1859841325
• ISBN13: 9781859841327
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: Verso
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

A wounded church

As I write this, in early 2009, the Irish church is expected soon to release what the archbishop of Dublin describes as a shocking report on clergy sex abuse. Thousands of children, said Diarmuid Martin, were abused by Irish priests, and at least two bishops covered up the problem. I note this because I think that this book by Fintan O'Toole, written almost a decade ago, provides telling context for the Irish scandal. Already back then, he writes, priests were disappearing from parishes and bishops were fleeing the country. And the "lie"? Almost no one talked about what so many of the Irish people knew, that there was a severe problem of pedophilia in the church. I came along later, last year, to produce a book on the impact of that problem today, "An Irish Tragedy: How sex abuse by Irish priests helped cripple the Catholic church." In Ireland and America. O'Toole's book, "The Lie of the Land," was of great help to me in my research.=--Joe Rigert, author.