An Age of Innocence: Irish Culture 1930-1960 by Brian Fallon (Gill and Macmillan, £12.99)

This controversial volume is an interesting exercise in revisionism; the thesis it seeks to revise is the (slightly overstated) view that Ireland from 1930 to 1960 was a benighted, essentially rural, backward land, deprived of culture and under the total sway of repressive forces of church and state. Brian Fallon assembles much evidence to the contrary, especially in the cultural field. His general strategy is to accept much of the mythology - yes, there was censorship, writers did go into exile, the Catholic Church was the dominant force, etc - and then to add a number of "buts", pointing out people and areas that did not conform to the stereotype. To some extent this works, but it does seem that those to whom the stereotype did not apply were a very limited and privileged bunch. Leaving aside the dubious major thesis, however, there is much valuable, sometimes quirky information here on the Ireland of the times, and there is always the pleasure, with Fallon, of encountering a genuinely independent and unfaddish mind.