Gather From Clery's Clock To Wanderly Wagon – Irish History You Weren't Taught At School Compiled By Damian Corless Readable In Version

stuff from down the back of posterity's sofa,
Great source of wild and wonderful titbits for the pub or chat with friends, With this year being theth anniversary of the Easter Rising, the average reader is likely to be inundated with leaden treatises and ponderous thinkpieces on this episode of Irish history.
Given the industrial levels of guff that are likely to be produced by the usual bloviators, one would fear that many readers will be sick to death of Irish history before the year is out.


Give thanks then for Damian Corlesss “From Clerys Clock to Wanderly Wagon”, which inshort chapters takes a whistlestop tour through the some of the more obscure and overlooked aspects of Irish cultural history.


Along the way Corless takes in Johnathon Swift's savage satire "A Modest Proposal", the origins of the term "Yellow Pack", bootlegging ice cream vendors, moving statues, the trade in counterfeit Mass Cards, and the once ubiquitous collection boxes for "the black babies".


You will learn how JR Ewing of "Dallas"

was once blamed for the decline of the Irish language, and why condoms were once denounced as "instruments of race suicide" by Catholic zealots.
There are also fascinating historical morsels such as how DeValera's "Economic War" with Britain in thes inadvertently led to the Irish whiskey export industry being crushed by the Scots.
In “Clerys Clock ”, this type of analysis rubs shoulders with more prosaic fare such as the mystery of why Irish dancers keep their arms rigidly by their sides.


Corless has a sharp eye for the ridiculousness and absurdity of Irish life, but never at the expense of historical accuracy, The book is not exactly Prof, Joe Lee or R. F. Foster in terms of analytical depth although neither does it pretend to be, but it does manage to be hugely informative on Irish cultural history while also being riotously entertaining.


The overwhelming impression a reader of “From Clerys Clock to Wanderly Wagon” is left with is what a deeply weird country Ireland was for so long.
Enormously amusing and thoroughly recommended, Interesting snippets with some explanations of why things were the way they were, and are, in Ireland Napoleon said history is a version of the past that people have decided to agree upon.
Sometimes those decisions are agreed by the very few, other times by the great many, This book takes in a bit of both, with a nod to those times when everyone agrees that some things are best swept under the carpet.
Some of the objects here capture fleeting moments on the way to modern Ireland, amongst them the CB Radio, the Buntús Cainte booklet, the Jack Charlton mug, the DeLorean sports car and the I Shot JR windscreen sticker.
Old reliables like the Angelus Bell, the Aran Sweater, the Shillelagh and the Irish Elk spring fresh surprises in this hugely entertaining ramble through the history of Ireland you werent taught at school.
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