Modern Irish Lives: Dictionary of 20Th-Century Irish Biography

McRedmond, Louis. Modern Irish Lives. Dictionary of 20th-Century Biography. Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1996. 24.1cm x 16cm. xix, 328 pages. Original Hardcover with original illustrated dustjacket. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Endpaper inscribed by preowner. This is a work of reference which provides brief biographies of over 1,400 Irish men and women who have been notable in their chosen fields, whether in Ireland itself of in the wider world. Unlike most biographical dictionaries, it includes the living as well as the dead, both North and South. Contains a vast panorama of human accomplishment across a wide range of activity. It focuses on people whose principal contribution has been made in the 20th century, so that politicians such as de Valera and Collins and writers such as Joyce and Yeats are here, although they were born in the 19th century. The entries are as various as Irish life itself. They include Van Morrison, James Connolly, Dawson Stelfox, Willie Bermingham, Bernadette McAliskey, Christy Ring, Marian Finucane, Pauline Bewick and Roddy Doyle. Summarises Irish achievement in the last hundred years with brevity, authority and style.