Dublin disappointments

Press, 29 March 1980, Page 17

Dublin disappointments

Dublin. By Peter Somerville-Large. Hamish Hamilton, 1979. 319 pp. Index. $27.40. ■ (Reviewed by Richard Corballis) * Peter Somerville-Large has led an eventful life. He has been a gold-miner in Australia and a wharfie in Wellington, as well as a lecturer in English (which may look a tamer profession than the other two, but his l lecturing was done at the Royal Military Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan). He turned recently to writing and has so far produced two thrillers and a book on “Irish Eccentrics” as well as two other volumes about Ireland. Add to all this the fact that he is related to Edith Somerville, co-author of the wonderful ’•lrish R.M.” stories, and you might think that his "Dublin” could not help being a vivid portrait of one of Europe’s most colourful cities.Not so, alas. Oh, he has collected a pretty interesting array of facts and anecdotes from the time of- the Vikings up to about 1930. (Nothing much on the years since, apart from some famous visitors’ reactions to the place.) But there is no focus or apparent purpose in the way this material is arranged. “What sort of history is it?” one feels bound to ask. Certainly not a political one; Emmett, Parnell and De Valera are mentioned only in- passing, and the Phoenix Park Murders are not mentioned at all. Nor is it a cultural history. Do not think

for a moment that this book will serve as a guide to the drinking and watering-places of Dublin’s great writers; many of them get barely a mention, while the artists and musicians are given virtually no attention at all.: Another important cultural topic — the founding of a university for Catholics —is neglected altogether after a few remarks about Cardinal Newman’s preliminary endeavours.. It is really a social history — a popular social history, since it lacks scholarly references and (very often) authoritative sources. (Sean O’Casey seems unlikely to be the most reliable guide to the manner in which the last Lord Lieutenant handed over. Dublin Castle to Michael Collins — and that is the only reference in the book to Collins, by the way.) We are given lots of information about Jiving conditions: population statistics, types of housing, staple diets, health standards (generally bad), disposal or otherwise of sewage (generally otherwise) — that sort of thing. But it is all told in a bland, “speaking-of-that-leads-me-onto-this” kind of way. I get the impression that the book was dictated in a snug during an equable evening in which not more than two pints of Guiness per head were consumed. The printers have treated it in the same spirit; my copy features faint ~ print-s on rather heavy, unattractive paper.