THE IRISH: A Photohistory

The history of Ireland, at least from the advent of photography to the start of WWII, is solemnly rendered here by Sexton, a photo archivist. The book begins with harrowing images from the dawn of photography in the 1840s, which also happened to be the start of the potato famine in Ireland. Two categories of people often overlooked in early photography, the poor and women, are very much in evidence here, as they bore the brunt of suffering in the Irish countryside. The text, by historian Kinealy (This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845–52), offers a general summary of the living conditions and political situation in Ireland up through the 1930s. The photos are abundant in number (271 b&w and sepia prints) and numbing in overall effect; the text is standard analysis. Together, however, the two merge into an eloquent portrait of a long century of struggle in what was one of Europe's poorest countries. Yet there's more than hardship here, including a portrait of James Joyce, thriving turn-of-the-century markets, and a handsome shop (with "shopgirls") in the Curragh, County Kildare. (Nov.)