A Novel of Genteel Alienation The sheltered lives of those who inhabit the crumbling Majestic Hotel are about to be blown apart emotionally and physically. This is an Ireland teetering on the brink of revolt but still clinging awkwardly to a faded past. A past where tradition and ritual are paramount, but which are now forced to rub up against a new and increasingly violent way of doing things. To me this is reminiscent of Nancy Mitford's later novels where the genteel society of old England is smashed up against the effects of... more info
Fantastic Just back from the trenches of World War I, the retired Major Brendan Archer travels out to the Irish village of Kilnalough to meet his fiancée Angela Spencer, whose family runs the (once renowned) Majestic hotel. But once there she proves first elusive and then sick, and before long she dies. But although afterwards there's nothing much keeping him there, the Major finds himself strangely unable to leave the Majestic hotel. But this is Ireland in 1919, and remote as Kilnalough may be, there are... more info
"Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel Among the bathtubs and the washbasins
A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole." "A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford". Derek Mahon. Irish poet Derek Mahon dedicated the haunting poem quoted above to J.G. Farrell, author of "Troubles". It is a marvelous poem that pays tribute to an absolutely marvelous book; one of the finest books I have read in recent memory. Farrell, born in Liverpool in 1935 is best-remembered for three books. "Troubles", "The Siege of Krishnapur" (which won Farrell the... more info
"A war without battles or trenches." Originally published in 1970 and newly reprinted, Troubles, the story of Ireland's fight for independence, from the close of World War I through 1922, illuminates the attitudes which led the Irish to fight for their freedom. Farrell also, however, focuses on the personal costs to the residential Anglo-Irish aristocracy as they find themselves being driven out of their "homes."
Edward Spencer, a conservative Protestant loyalist, runs a decaying 300-room hotel on the coast of County Wexford. Regarding... more info
