2013 Press Releases
Your Place or Mine?
Husband and wife, and former UCC lecturers, Dr. Jim Mac Laughlin and Dr. Ethel Crowley have had major works published within the same week.
“Your Place or Mine? Community and Belonging in 21st Century Ireland” by Dr Ethel Crowley, was recently published by Orpen Press, Dublin.
Dr. Crowley, a sociologist who has lectured for many years at UCC and Trinity College Dublin, contributes regularly to Irish media discussion on social change. She has travelled extensively for her work, especially in India and Latin America, but her new book looks closer to home.
“Your Place or Mine?” takes a refreshing and thought-provoking look at the new globalised Ireland. The book poses major questions about contemporary Irish identities and seeks to uncover the social and cultural values, and world outlook, of Irish people today.
Dr. Crowley combines a critical sociological perspective with her own experiences of growing up in Ireland. Her style has been described as at once probing, humorous, candid and often personal, and the book is aimed at the specialised and informed general reader alike.
UCD sociologist Professor Tom Inglis praised the book as ‘an exciting and innovative work, which mixes personal memories with sociologically informed debate to provide an insightful and imaginative explanation of how Ireland has combined the local with the global’.
Formerly of the UCC Geography Department, Dr. Jim Mac Laughlin has published widely on the politics of state formation, nation-building, national separatism, racism, emigration and the history of academic disciplines.
Dr. Mac Laughlin’s most recent work, “A Historical, Environmental and Cultural Atlas of County Donegal” is co-edited with Dr. Seán Beattie.
Published by Cork University Press, the “Atlas of County Donegal” examines the physical, historical, archaeological, cultural and political landscapes of Mac Laughlin’s native county.
The richly illustrated work runs to over six hundred pages and contains almost four hundred photographs, paintings, maps and diagrams. The editors have included short pieces and specialised chapters from over fifty local and national authorities on the county.
Professor Tom Devine of Edinburgh University has described it as ‘a landmark book which covers everything about Donegal from earliest times to the present day with a range of references and authority never before attempted’.
Topics examined in the work include historic and recent emigration, the impact of colonialism, the life and works of Patrick Mac Gill, Peadar O’Donnell and eighteenth-century trade-unionist John Doherty, Gaelic language and culture, and the struggle for independence.
Novelist Jennifer Johnston has described the atlas as ‘a mighty book that is full of answers to all those unanswerable questions that we get so frequently thrown at us by people who are enthusiastic but woefully ignorant about the land around us’.
“The Atlas of County Donegal” is available online at http://tinyurl.com/obb7zz
“Your Place or Mine? Community and Belonging in 21st Century Ireland” can be purchased at http://tinyurl.com/pgc8kdq