Zulu: An Irish Journey

The title of this book comes from a quote by James Joyce's son Giorgio, who, for an inexplicable reason, referred to the Irish as Zulus. In 1990, Mathieu, an American freelance writer, journeyed to Roscrea, County Tipperary, in search of the background of her grandmother, Sarah, who emigrated to New York in 1912. What we encounter is a depressing look at Irish country lifestyles. We meet the likes of Sheila, a traveling woman and tinker, who at age 39 has had 18 children; we meet Detective Hugh Beck of the Irish police, the Garda, who defines his job thus: ""[B]asically, I keep the poor from stealing from the rich""; and Father Tierney, who believes that unemployment and alcohol are at the root of the ever-present Irish diaspora. Five years after her trip, Mathieu examines this diaspora from her home in New York City as she interviews Irish immigrants who emerge here as remarkably self-centered. Only Hugh Brolly, an ex-IRA Derry man turned Bronx cab driver, and Father James Kelly, who helps immigrants, show understanding of problems of immigrants in America, Irish or otherwise. Mathieu stumbles on the unaddressed tension between the former Irish immigrants who have been integrated and the newcomers who take the ""more guerrilla approach to it--get in, get what you can, then get out."" In her explorations of Irish society, the author does learn something of her grandmother's hardships and the difficult decisions she had to make, but she also concludes that ""the Irish came to discover America only to discover themselves, and they didn't always like what they saw."" A dour book by an author who makes a somber subject seem even bleaker. (Mar.)