From the Eucharistic Congress to the lost world of Arranmore

LOCAL HISTORY: The lavishly illustrated The Eucharistic Congress of Dublin 1932: An Illustrated Historyby Rory O'Dwyer (Nonsuch Publishing, 160pp. €17.99) details the enormous outpouring of public devotion during the congress.

Hundreds of thousands of people took part in ceremonies in Phoenix Park, there were special shrines and other constructions on public streets, public buildings were illuminated, there was “sky-writing” of devotional messages at night, and even special laws were passed to permit transportation by unlicensed drivers. The 2RN radio station was given an official “hurry-up” to its schedule so that its high-powered transmitter would be ready in time to relay the events – and Count John McCormack’s singing – to the rest of the world.

The congress brought many exotic and unusual people to Ireland, none more so, perhaps, than Fr Philip Gordon, a Native American of the Chippewa tribe of Wisconsin, who wore his ceremonial head-dress, to the delight of the small children who saw him. Alongside him were nine cardinals, 37 archbishops and more than 150 bishops, as well as many other dignitaries from all over the world.

O’Dwyer captures all this in an admirably succinct way. He also lets people who remember taking part speak for themselves in a 12-page section of personal recollections. It is perhaps a pity that the book comes without an index, but it is so well organised that finding anything in it is quite easy.

The Irish Crusade: A History of the Knights Hospitaller, the Knights Templar and the Knights of Malta in the South East of Irelandby Niall Byrne KM (Linden, 470pp. €75) is a meticulously researched, detailed and scholarly work that will appeal to anyone with an interest in the chivalric world of the knights. Events outside Ireland are drawn on to explain why the orders developed as they did in Ireland, where they cleared vast tracts of land for their own use, set up intensive farms around their houses and turned themselves into mini-industries, providing goods and services for the surrounding countryside.

The knights arrived in Ireland with the Normans, and it is likely that one of the first Normans, Maurice de Prendergast, had served in Palestine as a knight before coming to Ireland. He later became master of the knights’ central hospital, at Kilmainham, outside the walls of Dublin. He was accompanied by a force of Flemish troops, from whose language the distinctive Yola dialect, peculiar to some parts of Co Wexford, is thought to have sprung. The book is lavishly and lovingly illustrated with maps, photographs and reproductions.

The Splendid Cause: The Missionary Society of St Columban 1916-1954by Neil Collins (Columba Press, 325pp. €30) details the setting-up of the mission to provide priests for an Irish vicariate in China between 1916 and the order's expulsion from communist China in 1954. It is partly based on Dr Collins's PhD thesis for NUI Maynooth. It draws on previously unpublished archives of the order and traces the setting-up of the organisation not only in China but in the Philippines, Korea and Burma. It is particularly interesting about the lives of the missionaries in China and the reasons – cultural, historical, political and philosophical – why their success was limited.

Róise Rua(Mercier Press. 286pp. €19.99), an island memoir by Padraig Ua Cnáimhsí, translated by JJ Keaveny, is a reprint of a book first published in 1986. The book's pervading voice – bright, witty and insightful – belongs to Arranmore woman Róise Rua MacGrianna, who grew up on the island and lived there for most of her life. It was a simple life. One-roomed cottages were lit by firelight, with dirt floors covered in fresh sand from the nearby seashore for Sundays and high days. Half-doors let in daylight and fresh air; tiny windows allowed in only a little sunshine.

A section is devoted to the lives of the “tatie hokers” in Scotland – Róise’s description of the voyage from Donegal to Glasgow, where seasickness and homesickness combined to produce misery in equal measure, is riveting. The detail of island life, with its shipwrecks, the secret societies that tried to counter the power of the local landlords and their often overbearing agents, the coming of the folk music collectors from Radio Éireann, and wartime memories are all fascinating elements of a book that, with its flexible and lively translation, will appeal as much to the general reader as it will to students of local history.

The Big House in the North of Ireland: Land, Power and Social Elites 1878-1969by Olwen Purdue (UCD Press, 279pp. hbk €60/pbk €28) uses diverse sources, from personal diaries and correspondence to estate papers, rent rolls, census data and Land Commission papers, to build a picture of the 110 great estates in the North and it also explains why only about 40 were left in the hands of their original owners by 1960. By that year 25 were derelict or had been demolished, 23 were being used for other purposes, four belonged to the National Trust and 11 had been bought by other families. The reasons – cultural, political and economic – why this state of affairs had come about are the subjects of the book, a very impressive achievement. With Dr Terence Dooley's The Decline of the Big House in Ireland, which deals with the landed estates south of the Border, one of Purdue's sources, it provides a wealth of useful information.

The Turbulent Life of Dean Morgan O'Brienby Tom O'Donnell (Carraig Print, 299pp. npg) tells the story of Dean Morgan, an interesting character, whose life reflected much of the history of the country in the 19th century. Morgan, as parish priest, spent the Famine years in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, where he acted heroically to counteract hardship for his parishioners. His appointment as a trustee of the Gould Fund by its founder and benefactor, the Portuguese-born Sr Magdalena, Angelina Gould, who wished her considerable fortune to be devoted to funding convent schools for poor girls, shaped the rest of his life. It's lively and well written, perhaps overly detailed, but well worth reading.

Noeleen Dowling is a journalist and a local historian