This collection of essays is drawn from Fintan O'Toole's writings over two decades. Its portraits of people - talk-show hosts, priests, children, pop stars - and its reports of social and political upheaval, reveal a country still in search of itself, but more at ease with the complexities of its own make-up; a country whose buried memories, tourist myths and current congtradictions might now be reworked to forge a truly modern Irish identity. Moving statues in a rural church, millionaires with global dreams, country-and-western fans slaughtering sheep at the Halal in Ballyhaunis: images of...