A Great Feast of Light: Growing Up Irish in the Television Age

Coming from an Irish background, I'm always interested in what Irish life is like. This book starts out in the fifties and shows the dramatic effect of access to television on an Irish family. The outside world came to insular Ireland and nothing was ever the same. Excellent, well told. It doesn't pound on the metaphor, but shows how life did really change.

This book is thoroughly enjoyable and gives an excellent window on what it was like growing up both in rural and urban Ireland in the 60s and 70s. Tough subjects such as Northern Ireland and the Catholic Church are dealt with in an impressively pithy manner.

In the October 8, 2005, edition of The Globe and Mail newspaper, an excerpt of this book, yet to be released, was published. The excerpt was brilliantly written, colouring in the complexities of rural Ireland in the 1960s. In the same way that youth are influencing society today through the use of the Internet, cell phones, texting and gaming, John Doyle eloquently explores how the traditions of Irish culture and the oppressive forces of the Catholic Church were challenged by television a generation ago. I can't wait to read the book!