Delightfully entertaining with an educational twist

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	• 1949: A Novel of the Irish Free State Morgan Llywelyn, 2003 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Freedom with constraints

Llywelyn takes her historical fiction of "The Irish Century" through the depression and WWII in the third volume. As with the earlier installments, Llywelyn's balance between historical detail and just plain story-telling is near pitch-perfect. The most intriguing character from the second installment (1921), Ursula Halloran is central to the '1949' story, as she struggles with the conflict between her un-stinting support of the revolution and her desire to see newly won freedoms equally available to women as well and men.

A strong effort with understandable flaws.

I enjoyed the novel part of this book, I respected the Irish history part of this book, and I retched at the background history part of WWII. For me, it was still a five star book, because I read questionable history all the time, and sometimes I think the authors' compromises are the only way to get the really good ideas published. How much compromise between author and publisher is a part of every book, a commercial endeavor after all?

The lead character, Ursula, is consistent and well developed. She carries the book. Her strength is apparent, and, yet, her concessions at the end keep her human. Ned is a wonderful warrior, and his role is imaginative yet real at the same time. The Irish? Well, they wear, though uneasily, the Norman Yoke, sometimes with patience and sometimes in full possession of their anarchic tendencies.

The mythology of the book was the Manichean version of WWII,--- just poor history. I proffer: Hitler`s a bad, bad even evil guy, Stalin's glossed over, Roosevelt and Churchill are heroes, America was isolationist, Ireland was neutral and The League of Nations with teeth could have saved us from Europe's second Civil War of the last century. Well, one doesn't have to be a surly revisionist to question these emphases. Yes, it's a synthesis, just not a historically accurate one. You can't discuss the evil of WWII without highlighting the evil inherent in the provocation and "peace" of WWI.

The Irish history part of the book was thought provoking. However, at the end, I was left wondering: does the word "republican" have a definition? Just as an oath of allegiance negates a "free state", a centralized somewhat theocratic state negates a "republic". And the sacral IRA are socialists, not republicans of any stripe. They don't nearly subscribe to the political philosophy that has created The Celtic Tiger.

But bad history does not a bad book make. Llywelyn has a terrific pen, and she isn't the first author to write a valuable book with glaring errors. (Eric Foner has made a career of it.) I've read her 1916, and I am reading 1999; I like to think I value my time. She's got a lot to say, and learning is more often than not--- uncomfortable.

Finally, even though I'm in the John Stuart Mill camp of Women's Liberation, I tolerated much of the Amazon-like hyperbole of Ursula and her need to avoid subjugation---well, at least, the male variety. Llywelyn, in the end, makes Ursula independent in Clare, because she and the IRA never gained the power to implement their utopian delusions, replete with confiscatory inheritance taxes. "Freedom" and "liberty" are surely not found in the warp and woof of modern feminism. `Tis mere privilege in those threads, not the property rights which created her freedom.

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Third in an Intriguing Series

Just completed the third volume of Morgan Llywelyn's series on "the Irish Century", and it enlightened me greatly on a little-known period of Irish history. The Easter Rising and the Troubles have been extensively chronicled, but the 1923-1949 period has had little written about it. Her dramatic story, while a bit overblown at times, continues the saga of the Hallorans and the Mooneys over a quarter century, while the world outside hurtles into WWII. I would assume that if the series does indeed have a fourth volume yet to come, it would probably be set around 1972 and the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and would likely have Michael and Bella Kavanaugh from the US return to Ireland and get involved in the Republican struggle against the Unionist tyranny in the North. At any rate, I have learned numerous things about modern Irish history that I did not know before, and enjoyed most of the author's dramatic characters. I would look forward to a final volume chronicling the 30-year conflict in the North leading up to the Good Friday Agreement, paralleled by the growth of the "Celtic Tiger" giant economy of the Republic to the South. While the author's sympathies are definitely Republican, she can portray the feelings of all sides in the century-long conflict and the common humanity of the characters makes the background struggle all the more poignant. My only criticism is her constant sniping at the Catholic Church as the major force in keeping Ireland "repressed and backward". Her anti-clericalism gets a bit much at times, but overall the story is very enjoyable.

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Delightfully entertaining with an educational twist

1949 is the third book in Morgan Llywelyn's Historical Fiction series around Ireland's struggle for independence. It is not necessary to read 1916 and 1921 to follow 1949, although it might help when reference is made to significant events from previous periods, especially if you have little knowledge of Irish history.

1949 picks up approximately two years after the Irish Civil War. Red haired, blued eyed Ursula Jervis Halloran is 16 years of age and riding her horse Saoirse (Irish for 'Freedom') in Clare, Ireland, where she grew up on a farm with her father Ned (lead character 1916) and his Aunt Norah. She has received a letter from her pseudo-uncle Henry Mooney (lead character 1921) beckoning her to visit him and his wife Ella in Dublin. Against her fathers wishes she disappears to Dublin without a word to anyone.

When Ursula returns to the farm she informs her family she is going away to school in Switzerland, thanks to Ella's kind gift. Ned forbids it but she reminds him she is only his foster child and that she will do as she pleases, a path she follows throughout her life. Despite being adopted she has a strong bond with Ned and is deeply hurt by his anger. She leaves with business left unfinished between them.

On arrival in Switzerland, she learns it is finishing school, much to her chagrin. Being of beauty and great personality she nevertheless quickly befriends the upper crust whom she continues to correspond with after she leaves at age 18. She returns to an impoverished Ireland with its strong views on religion and politics.

Llywelyn is successful in painting the life of Ursula, a working class woman in a country trying to free itself from "foreign domination." With each chapter Llywelyn brings the reader into the fold to watch a girl blossom into a woman. She is strong willed from the beginning. In a society where women are to be seen and not heard Ursula stands on her own two feet in full sun, determined to make it on her own. She does not let anyone push her into the shadows of male servitude. Llywelyn has created a memorable role model for women.

Ursula was not without her own role models. Constance Markievicz' who encouraged her to be independent, choose her own path and only trust in herself for courage and honesty. This is true to Ursula's code to life.

Ursula is reminded that she is just a woman at every opportunity but she doesn't allow it to sway her own views and desires. While other women's interests revolve around hair and beauty products, Ursula cultivates her strong feminine and political views. Her contacts, interest in politics and occurrences abroad land her a job at the 2RN Radio Station. She is not permitted to broadcast as "Only the male voice is really suitable." Her schooling, meticulous letter writing to Henry, and to her acquaintances abroad, contribute to her success at 2RN and later with the League of Nations in Geneva. To work women had to be single or widowed, otherwise they were told to stay home with their children. Ursula vowed never to marry but that didn't stop the love triangle formation between traditional Irishman Finbar Cassidy and extravagant Englishman Lewis Baines.

1949 contains plenty of Irish politics as well as British propaganda, and covers the emergence of Hitler and the Second World War from an Irish perspective that is just as horrifying as all others. Llywelyn doesn't focus on the Catholic Church's impact on Irish society like other authors have in the past but its presence is clear. Politics and freedom from state are crucial. Llywelyn's characters are not idle bodies but great thinkers.

Tension mounts as the war hits closer to Ursula, affecting her and the people she holds dear. 1949 is not all doom and gloom. Morgan's wit is seen throughout in subtle glimpses as are tenderness, sexual fire and intense anger. One of my favourites is her mention of the "traditional Irish savings bank: under the mattress."

You can expect to learn a few Irish words like goster (chat; small talk) and seisiun (traditional music session) or learn of Irish traditions like keening (an "eerie singsong cadence, and unearthly wail" by women for the dead.)

Passages of Ursula's life are entwined with passages of Ireland's history. There are large patches without dialogue and I often felt I was getting a history lesson rather than reading a novel but this was fleeting.

There is a "Dramatis Personae" of fictional and historical characters in the first few pages. Another nice feature is the historical date markers. You are never without a doubt as to the timeline. Research and sources appear in the back. Not having grown up in the confines of Ireland's history I found it hard to keep the different groups and parties straight. It would have been nice to have a break down of each party, what they represented, length of existence etc... to refer to. The chapters are short, making it a great book for people on the move with limited time.

Llywelyn finishes this story with the inauguration of the Republic of Ireland on April 18th 1949. There are no loose ends but possibilities exist to gently tug the reader into the next book. I look forward to reading about the period leading up to 1972.

[...]

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1949 - A Liberated Woman, A Liberated State.

Equal parts fiction and history, lines blur as award-winning author Morgan Llywelyn weaves fictional and real-life characters into her masterful novels. The third work in her Twentieth Century Irish State trilogy, 1949, is a fiction-based glimpse into the evolution of the Irish Republic as seen through the eyes of the indomitable, self assured Ursula Halloran. Equally captivating, the first two novels of the Irish State series, 1916 and 1921, don't necessarily exist as prerequisites to 1949, yet it wouldn't hurt to read them first.

Young Ursula is the adopted daughter of IRA foot soldier Ned Halloran, a man deeply involved in Irish Republican skullduggery. Living on the family farm, the Hallorans are a montage of typical Irish dysfunctionality. Requisites drunks exist, but 1949 avoids focusing on caricatured, woe-is-me Irish alcoholics. Living with an unforgiving and unbending father who wants her to inherit and manage the farm, Ursula is surrounded by a number of shiftless male relatives. Female Hallorans don't fare much better, as Ursula's sister marries into the dregs of Clarecastle's Irish society. 1949 boasts the gamut of vanished Irish colloquialism that one would expect to find in a post-famine rural Irish setting, including occasional stock-in-trade Irish wakes, imposing parish priests, stifling poverty and rampant melancholy.

Ursula occupies her time reading books and riding her horse Saoirse. In Saorise she witnesses a mirror image of her own shackles-Ursula runs free, but only to a point, for at night they both remain tethered, Saoirse in a stall, Ursula in an oppressive environment. Ursula rails against limits placed on her by male-dominated Irish society. She promises herself she will never marry, for married women in Ireland were banned from working outside the home during the period.

A distant and uncommunicative Pa, Ned Halloran frequently absents himself from the farm while performing the business of the IRA in the North. Like Ned, Ursula is headstrong and they frequently fall-out. But unlike her step-relatives, Ursula is at once smart as a whip, blossoming into an attractive, passionate young woman. Ursula finds a benefactor in her doting uncle, Henry Mooney, a protagonist of the novel 1921. Mooney sees smoldering in Ursula the portent of success he himself achieved in the literary world. Thus Henry is as determined as Ursula is to free her from rural, backward Ireland. Following a visit to Uncle Henry and Aunt Ella, the stage is set for the ultimate break with Ned. Henry convinces Ursula to accept Ella's offer to send her to finishing school in Switzerland. Ned's reaction is to disown his stepdaughter. With nary a glance backward, Ursula is off to the continent where she is taken under the wing of Constance Markevicz, a real-life heroine of Ireland's independence movement.

In Switzerland Ursula matures into a rough diamond of the young woman she is destined to be. Hobnobbing with the titled, the landed and the idle rich, she yet suffers under the prejudices bestowed on the Irish by the English. Nevertheless, she develops great friendships among Britons of both sexes, including the dashing pilot Lewis Baines, for whom physical desire courses through her loins.

Upon returning to Ireland Ursula takes a position with radio station 2RN writing news copy ticketed for the airwaves. No amount of talent will allow her to crack the male-only news reporting clique and Ursula's informed that she'll never read her own copy on air. Against a backdrop of Nazi fires burning on the continent, she meets an Irishman, Finbar Cassidy, a civil servant and man who represents much of what she rebels against. Lacking ambition, he further urges Ursula to accept status quo at 2RN. He pursues Ursula with uncommon determination, and exhibits kindness to a fault. After the suave Lewis Baines reappears on the scene, Ursula casts the Catholic Church's teachings regarding sexual forays outside marriage to the wind. Not surprisingly, Ursula finds herself pregnant with child.

In Dublin an unmarried pregnant woman stands about as much chance finding work as a statue honoring Cromwell appearing on O'Connell Street, so Ursula is again off to Switzerland where the doomed League of Nations seeks to stave off the Nazi horde threatening Europe. Much of Llywelyn's thoroughly researched World War II history comes to play here, as Ursula takes a job with the League. Real-life characters show up, along with their real-life frailties and failures. Chamberlain boasts that `we will have peace in our time.' Eamon De Valera's former employee, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is on scene. Special dishonor is reserved for the lionized Winston Churchill. Profiling the Irish brand of World War II neutrality, Llywelyn offers a glimpse into what it really was, and what it meant to Anglo-Irish relations. It's terrific reading as marauding Germans roll over Europe.

With young son in tow, Ursula's back in Ireland in time to witness the post-war chartering of the Irish Republic, which occurs, understandably, in 1949. There's more of course: more farm, more Ned, more Lewis, more Finbar. Read it. You can't miss on this natural fit for the silver screen. If your cup of tea is history interspersed with titillating, finely woven fiction, 1949 is a must.

Laying claim to the unofficial title of Novelist Laureate of Ireland, Morgan Llywelyn boasts a body of fiction-based history, a dramatis personae, profiling the Irish condition.

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1949 tells the story of Ireland's progress as seen through the eyes of one woman, from the bitter aftermath of civil war to the controversial dawn of a modern state. Ursula Halloran, the daughter of a famous revolutionary, comes of age in the turbulent 1920s. An education in Switzerland broadens her world view, but Ireland has become a repressive Catholic state where women are second-class citizens. Married women cannot hold jobs and divorce is illegal.

Fighting against the stifling constraints of church and state, Ursula forges an exciting career in the fledgling Irish radio service. Her life is torn apart when she finds herself caught between two men who love her in very different ways. Refusing to surrender her hard-won independence to marriage, or her illegitimate infant to an orphanage, she flees to Europe to bear her child. There she takes a job with the League of Nations and is caught up in the terrifying outbreak of World War II. Hard decisions and desperate situations stand between her and any hope of returning to the land she loves.

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