Harry Clarke S War

Ireland’s Memorial Records, 1914-1918 contain the names of 49,435 enlisted men who were killed in the First World War. Commissioned in 1919 by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and published in 100 eight-volume sets, the Records are notable for stunning and elaborate page decorations by celebrated Irish illustrator Harry Clarke. Drawing from published and unpublished sources, Marguerite Helmers’ ground-breaking study provides a fascinating insight into the work of Harry Clarke as an extraordinary war artist and examines the process that led to the Records being commissioned through to the eventual placement of the Records within the Irish National War Memorial at Islandbridge, Dublin. With Harry Clarke’s illustrations taking center stage in the story, the Records and their genesis are of vital importance to our understanding of how art and commemoration can come together in a powerful visual creation.

"The work and career of the celebrated artist Harry Clarke is inextricably linked to the complex nature of early-twentieth-century Irish culture and of modernism. This beautifully designed and fully illustrated book assesses how Clarke and his studios responded to public and private commissions in glass and in illustration. Clarke's contribution is analysed in the context of the quest for a cohesive identity by the new Irish Free State and situated within international art and design movements. The book examines the complex relationship between visual art and literature that lies at the heart of Clarke's contribution to post-independence society in Ireland. Its scholarly essays highlight the impact of patronage, public reception, advertising, propaganda, war and memory on Clarke's work, placing it within a larger political, artistic and cultural context. Essential reading for art lovers and scholars alike, Harry Clarke and Artistic Visions of the New Irish State will appeal to anyone interested in the arts of Ireland, and the history and development of early- to mid-twentieth-century visual and material culture"--Inside front flap.

Harry Clarke is the story of a shy midwestern man who feels more himself when adopting the persona of cocky Londoner Harry Clarke. Moving to New York and presenting himself as an Englishman, he charms his way into a wealthy family’s life, romancing two family members as the seductive and sexually precocious Harry, with more on his mind than love. With his spellbinding and emotionally nuanced storytelling, Cale has created a riveting story of a man leading an outrageous double life.

Dark Beauty focuses on the minute detail in Harry Clarke’s stained-glass windows, particularly in the borders and lower panels of his work. Clarke’s brilliance as a graphic artist is clearly visible in his book illustrations, which are imbued with precise attention to intricate designs, and he applied the same lavish focus to every facet of his stained glass. The title ‘Dark Beauty’ refers to the duality of Clarke’s work that sees delicate angels juxtaposed with macabre, grotesque figures, and represents the partially hidden details that dwell in the background of his windows – motifs, accessories, flora, fauna and diminutive characters – which may be missed in light of the dominance of the central subjects. The authors spent many years photographing Clarke’s windows in Ireland, England, America and Australia, and the resulting 60,000 photos have been carefully whittled down to 500 glorious images. Dark Beauty will provide lovers of Clarke’s stained glass with the opportunity to view previously obscured or unnoticed details in all their unique beauty and inspire their own travels to view Clarke’s work.

In the Hugo-award winning, epic New York Times Bestseller and basis for the BBC miniseries, two men change England's history when they bring magic back into the world. In the midst of the Napoleonic Wars in 1806, most people believe magic to have long since disappeared from England - until the reclusive Mr. Norrell reveals his powers and becomes an overnight celebrity. Another practicing magician then emerges: the young and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell's pupil, and the two join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wild, most perilous forms of magic, and he soon risks sacrificing his partnership with Norrell and everything else he holds dear. Susanna Clarke's brilliant first novel is an utterly compelling epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two magicians who, first as teacher and pupil and then as rivals, emerge to change its history.

Nuala C. Johnson explores the complex relationship between social memory and space in the representation of war in Ireland. The Irish experience of the Great War, and its commemoration, is the location of Dr Johnson's sustained and pioneering examination of the development of memorial landscapes, and her study represents a major contribution both to cultural geography and to the historiography of remembrance. Attractively illustrated, this book combines theoretical perspectives with original primary research showing how memory literally took place in post-1918 Ireland, and the various conflicts and struggles that were both a cause and effect of this process. Of interest to scholars in a number of disciplines, Ireland, The Great War and The Geography of Remembrance shows powerfully how Irish efforts to collectively remember the Great War were constantly in dialogue with issues surrounding the national question, and the memorials themselves bore witness to these tensions and ambiguities.

Paul Murray's Skippy Dies is a tragicomic masterpiece about a Dublin boarding school Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010 Ruprecht Van Doren is an overweight genius whose hobbies include very difficult maths and the Search of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Daniel 'Skippy' Juster is his roommate. In the grand old Dublin institution that is Seabrook College for Boys, nobody pays either of them much attention. But when Skippy falls for Lori, the frisbee-playing siren from the girls' school next door, suddenly all kinds of people take an interest - including Carl, part-time drug-dealer and official school psychopath. . . A tragic comedy of epic sweep and dimension, Skippy Dies scours the corners of the human heart and wrings every drop of pathos, humour and hopelessness out of life, love, Robert Graves, mermaids, M-theory, and everything in between. 'That rare thing, a comic epic. . . Murray is a brilliant comic writer, but also humane and touching, and he captures the misery and elation, joy and anxiety of teenage life' David Nicholls, Guardian 'Novels rarely come as funny and as moving as this utterly brilliant exploration of teenhood and the anticlimax of becoming an adult . . . one of the finest comic novels written anywhere' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times 'I loved Skippy Dies . . . three novels fused into one ignited tragicomic tour de force' Ali Smith, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year 'An unforgettably exuberant saga set in an Irish boys' school. The insulting repartee is Shakespearean, the minor characters hilarious, and Murray captures the fleeting joys and lasting sorrows of adolescence perfectly' Emma Donoghue, Daily Telegraph 'A triumph . . . brimful of wit and narrative energy' Sunday Times 'The sprawling brilliance of Paul Murray's darkly comic second novel works on many different levels . . . When you finish the last page, you may be tempted to start all over again' Metro Paul Murray is the author of An Evening of Long Goodbyes, shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2005, and Skippy Dies, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010.