On Dangerous Ground (Comerford Maire)(Paperback / softback)

On Dangerous Ground is the revolutionary period memoir of Republican Máire Comerford (1893–1982). This striking memoir, one of the last of its era, includes Comerford’s original text, written mainly in the 1940s and ’50s, and new material unearthed from her extensive archive that also contains a wealth of photographs and memorabilia from the period. The memoir begins with Comerford’s recollection of Sunday strolls to Avondale, former home of Charles Stewart Parnell, who was a neighbour of her father, the mill owner James Comerford. As a young woman, she experiences a ‘political awakening’ at the hands of a fierce Unionist woman in a secretarial college in London. Máire Comerford (the only Catholic in the class) begins to engage with Irish history books to counterbalance this brush with religious sectarianism. On her return to County Wexford to live with her mother’s people – a move necessitated by the family’s change of fortune – she re-enters the genteel world of fox hunting and luncheon parties. The memoir paints an intriguing picture of rural life of the time heralding the arrival of the motorcar, social and economic conditions, the rise of the Gaelic League, debates about Home Rule, and the First World War. While the description of her surroundings as a young adult is intriguing and often charming, change is in the air in Ireland and a sharp and wide-ranging political analysis is ev
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