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Book Reviews "1921"by Morgan Llywelyn
The Irish fight for Independence is one of the most captivating tales of the twentieth century. Morgan Llywelynn, the acclaimed historical writer of books like The Lion of Ireland and The Horse Goddess, is a writer born to bring this epic battle to life. Having created an entire body of work chronicling the Celts and Ireland, she now turns to recent Irish history to create a multi-volume saga: The Irish Century. Read one of the reviews on this book below.
1921 tells the heartbreaking story of the Irish Civil War. Henry Mooney, a reporter for the Clare Champion and The Irish Bulletin, is a self-described "moderate nationalist" who struggles to see the truth in the news of the day, and to report it fairly. Lacking the more radical Republican beliefs of his dear friends Ned Halloran and Sile Duffy, Henry reports the political - and later, bloody - actions of his fellow Irishmen from the ashes of the failed 1916 Rising to the creation of the Irish Free State to the tragic and wide-ranging battles of the Irish Civil war.
Meanwhile, Henry feels the impact of these history-changing events in his own personal life. Hid friendship with Ned falters when their political beliefs diverge, and an unexpected tragedy leaves then further apart then ever. Henry struggles with his passion for a well-bred Protestant Englishwoman, Ella Rutledge, and as he dutifully reports the happenings in the political battle for independence, he comes to realize that the Irish struggle for freedom will leave no life untouched - and no irish citizen with a dry eye or and untroubled heart.
Review - 1921 by Morgan Llywelyn
Forge Books, March 17, 2001, 445 pagesBook review by Kilian Melloy | March 19, 2001
The second volume in Morgan Llywelyn's series "The Irish Century," 1921 picks up a year after the Easter Rising of 1916. From the first pages, in which journalist Henry Mooney plays midwife in delivering an over-large foal at the expense of its mother's life, Llywelyn's book is an examination of the bloody, turbulent, tragic road to nationhood which Ireland had to traverse, and the role journalism - and propaganda - played in recording, and sometimes creating, history as it unfolded.
The birth of the free Irish nation was beset with dangers of all sorts, the gravest of which came from imperial England. With the Great War recently ended and subjugated lands like India and Egypt bucking against British rule, England was determined to keep its hold over Ireland, to the point of sending in brutish, trigger-happy former soldiers with no better prospects to terrorize and pillage the land.
This force was known as the Black and Tans; their reign of atrocity pushed the Irish rebels into more and more violent forms of response until the good, fair fight led by early Irish nationalist leaders fell by the wayside and bombs, ambushes, and arson came into effect as the preferred fighting style - a combination of tactics which continued to hold currency even after Ireland's treaty with England, in 1921, gave the fledgling free state its first limited taste of independence. The IRA, born in the Rising of 1916, became its own stubborn, murderous force after the partial success in 1921, and civil war between the IRA and the struggling new government was the result.
Paralleling political developments in Llywelyn's book are the continuing stories of her fictional characters. While 1916 was Ned Halloran's book, 1921 belongs to Ned's best friend, Henry, a free-ranging newspaperman who has charged himself with the difficult task of steering clear of factional entanglements and writing down the truth of events as they happen. As Henry notes at one point, "In another generation, or two at the most, the men and women who are experiencing these events will be gone. Words printed on paper will be all that remains. We owe it to the future to tell the truth, not the politically expedient truth." Even as Henry searches for a balance between his heartfelt patriotism and his need to serve the truth, Ned strikes out once again as a warrior. This time, though, Ned is no fresh recruit dazzled by high philosophy; he's full of rage and bitterness, guilty over having survived the Rising where so many of his friends and colleagues died and smoldering with hatred at more recent outrages against his country.
As was the case in 1916, Llywelyn's use of fictional characters is carefully designed to clarify, rather than obscure, historical facts and events. It's no accident that Henry Mooney is a journalist: his duties take him first-hand into historic situations and put him in the company of figures like Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera. So artfully and passionately envisioned are the fictional characters that even when they interact with and speak to actual historical persons, the effect is convincing and seamless. Llywelyn's use of authentic headlines from the era reinforce the story and keep things moving along: the novel, beginning in 1917 and ending in 1923, crystallizes, rather than trivializes, the years in between within the scope of its 445 pages.
Just as convincing and emotionally gripping are the ways in which the fictional characters move among themselves, enabling the reader access to a complex and troubled time and symbolizing the throes of their nation in its desperate attempt at self-realization. The partitioning of Ireland which separated the six northern counties from the rest of the island - the central sticking point in the 1921 treaty between Ireland and England against which the IRA fought in the Irish civil war - is reflected in the split which occurs between Henry and Ned; Ireland's nationalistic spirit, splendid and resurgent despite the turmoil and butchery it calls down, is summed up with the thriving of the foal born at the book's beginning; the fine young horse which results is named "Freedom." Llywelyn allows her fictional elements to do more than serve as guides for the reader. The literary elements also bring shape and sense to the highly dramatic, but chaotic, historical setting. Moreover, while the journalistic viewpoint Llywelyn adopts places Ireland and her history in the context of the times - America's President Wilson proves willing to sacrifice Irish independence to preserve his vision of a "League of Nations"; already, by the end of the book, Adolph Hitler is rising to power and World War II has been foreseen by at least one of the novel's characters - the novelistic traits Llywelyn endows upon her book preserve the story's immediacy, even generating an intimacy with and affection for the characters. (The only way Llywelyn has to bring the reader to understand the enormity of England's vicious use of the Black and Tans is to allow one of her major characters to die at their hands: a hard, effective tactic with dramatic consequences that the author does not ignore.)
For Irish Americans as well as anyone with an interest in history and politics, 1921 is well documented, richly observant, literarily rewarding: a flawless combination of tasks, in which the historian's charge to make credible interpretation is wedded to the storyteller's gift for creating relevant, effective drama.
Reviewer's Rating: 5 out of 5
Since 1978 Morgan Llywelyn has written twenty-six novels and numerous short stories. In 1998 the first of five books about the Irish struggle for independence. This series of books is called THE IRISH CENTURY.
"1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion"
"1921"
"1949",
"1969"
"1999".Awards that Morgan Llywelyn has received for her books include:
1978 The Wind from Hastings Doubleday Book Club Selection.
1980 Lion of Ireland New York Times Bestseller.
1982 The Horse Goddess Book of the Month Club Selection; Best Novel of the Year: National League of Women and The American Literary Association.
1984 Bard Poetry and Prose Award.
1992 The Last Prince of Ireland Book of the Month Club Selection, and the History Book Club Selection.Morgan Llywelyn is an Honorary Member of Celtic Women International
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