Life
b. Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford; sister of Colm Tóibín; author of The Rising
(Dublin: New Island Press 2001), 284pp., dealing with the period between
the fall of Parnell and the 1916 Rising.
[ top ]
Criticism
Vincent Banville, reviewing The Rising (Dublin: New Island Press
2001), 284pp., in The Irish Times [Weekend], 27 Oct. 2001), calls
it ‘muted, even underplayed rendering of how the great historical
event affected the citizens of her native Enniscorthy’. The novel
concerns a tenant farmer Michael Carty who settles in the town after the
death of his Fenian father, marries Margaret Dempsey (dg. merchant family
(who dislike the marriage), and their three sons of whom Michael joins
the Irish Volunteers and is arrested for removing recruitment posters
in 1914, later becoming a member of the force that takes the town over
in 1916 and is afterwards deported to Frongoch but released Christmas
Eve, with the others. Captures the snobbishness of small-town life and
keeps the bloodshed off stage
[ top ]
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)