The Great Shame

John McDonough reads this voluminous book (24 tapes) with the ease of a man sitting across from us at any pub in Dublin. It is casual history, moving between flights of oratory and easy conversation, and McDonough reads it with the Irishman's natural love of the language and the sounds of words. Keneally begins the narratives with his own ancestor - Hugh Larkin - transported to Australia for his part in the rebellions of 1840, and concludes with the Keneally ancestors just before the Easter uprising of 1913. In between he tells the many stories, mostly failed, that result finally in Irish independence. Woven through these struggles is the role Irishman played in the American Civil War and the Australian national quest. It is a moving adventure and breathes with the pulse of a people, some strong, many weak, but all persistent. McDonough has caught the varied beats of that pulse as only another Irishman can. P.E.F. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine