Renal genetic disorders may become apparent at any time in life and recognition of specific renal disorders is important in allowing accurate genetic counselling. Active counselling requires knowledge about the natural history of the disorder, an understanding of the genetic component and mode of inheritance, risk of the disorder in other family members, information about patient attitudes towards family planning and the possibility of pre-natal diagnosis. The Genetics of Renal Disease covers these issues in detail.
The book provides a comprehensive account of both the hereditary...

The artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992) and the writer Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) both convey in their work a sense of foreboding and confinement in bleak, ritualistic spaces. This book identifies many similarities between the spaces and activities they evoke and the initiatory practices of fraternal orders and secret societies that were an integral part of the social landscape of the Ireland experienced by both men during childhood.
Many of these Irish societies modelled their ritual structures and symbolism on the Masonic Order. Freemasons use the term spurious Freemasonry to designate...

Strong cultural, commercial, literary and intellectual links have existed for many centuries between the Celtic cousins France and Ireland and continue to flourish today. This book explores some of the connections that have been forged over space and time by groups and individuals travelling between the two countries.
Covering subjects as varied as travel literature, music, philosophy, wine production, photography and consumer culture, and spanning the seventeenth through to the twenty-first centuries, the collection draws attention to the rich tapestry of interconnections and...

This book engages with the spectacular disenchantment with Catholicism in Ireland over the relatively short period of four decades. It begins with the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979 and in particular his address to young people in Galway, where the crowd had been entertained beforehand by two of Ireland's most celebrated clerics, Bishop Eamon Casey and Fr Michael Cleary, both of whom were engaged at the time in romantic affairs that resulted in the birth of children. It will be argued that the Pope's visit was prompted by concern at the significant fall in vocations to...

This book of essays will appeal to anyone interested in the dismantling of Ireland's cultural attachment to Catholicism over the past four decades. -- .