Tipperary

July 9, 2007
Seventy-five years after the death of Charles O’Brien, an Anglo-Irish itinerant healer and occasional journalist born in 1860, his memoir is discovered in a trunk. The result is this touching novel from Ireland
author Delaney, in which the manuscript’s putative discoverer adds his own unreliable commentary to the fictive Charles’s probably embellished perceptions—making for a glowing composite of a volatile Ireland. Charles claims to treat Oscar Wilde on his deathbed; advise a young James Joyce (“When you write... be sure to make it complicated. It will retain people’s attention”); tell an appreciative Yeats the story of Finn MacCool; and inadvertently bring down Charles Stewart Parnell. He also meets the founders and leaders of Sinn Fein and the IRA, and will, as will Ireland itself, entwine his fate with theirs. And at 40, never-married Charles meets the love of his life, 18-year-old April Burke, an Englishwoman who repeatedly spurns him and exploits him, but who has a large role to play in his life. The narrator claims that his interest in Charles and April is academic, but he eventually confesses that he suspects their stories have some personal relationship to his own. Delaney’s confident storytelling and quirky characterizations enrich a fascinating and complex period of Irish history.

Starred review from August 1, 2007
With this follow-up to his acclaimed "Ireland", Delaney has crafted another meticulously researched journey though his homeland. The focus this time is on Castle Tipperary, one of the "grand houses" of the Anglo-Irish. Its story is told through the love of Charles O'Brien, an itinerant healer, for April Burke, the only child of a noble Irish family. While trying to woo her, Charles convinces April to petition for ownership of the castle as her birthright. It languishes in disrepair, a victim of the tenant evictions, the famine, and general abandonment. April rejects Charles and marries a lout who restores the castle but leaves April's life in ruin. Charles comes to her rescue, but the ill-fated Easter Rising intervenes, and both the great house and their love are riven once again. The struggles of Delaney's characters for survival mirror the history of Ireland during the colonial years from 1860 to 1922. It's a tale told many times, yet Delaney's careful scholarship and compelling storytelling bring it uniquely alive. Highly recommended for all fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 7/07.]Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2007
Delaneys previous novel, Ireland, made the best-seller lists in 2004, and librarians shouldprepare for his new one to follow suit. In the broadest terms, it is about the history of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Ireland. What keeps the novel from collapsing under the weight of such vast material is the authors use of one mans experiencesduring these decades; his life serves asa paradigm for the countrys experiencesat large, particulary as they pertain to the two intertwined issues dominating Irish national life: land reform and home rule. Charles OBrien was born into the ruling Anglo-Irish elite; he became a healer, traveling the length and breadth of the Emerald Islepracticing hisart. At one point, while in Paris, he stands besideOscar Wildes deathbed, there happeningto meet the young woman who will be his obsession for decades to come, before she finally agrees to marry him. Beforeher agreement, however, he spends considerable time and energy helping her achieve her inheritance, the great house called Tipperary Castle, and bringing the decrepit property back to its former glory.The story is narratedin Charles voice, withalternating (and supplementary and even corrective) passagessupplied by a secondnarrator whose personal involvement in Charles lifeis slowly revealed. A sophisticated andcreative historical novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)