EXILES

A story of harsh economic realities in postwar Ireland and the mixed blessing of England’s reconstruction.

Mac Amlaigh (1926-1989) was born in Galway, Ireland, grew up in Kilkenny, and in 1960 published his first book, An Irish Navvy: The Diary of an Exile (1960). It was a nonfiction account of his life as a laborer in 1950s England, part of a postwar Irish diaspora. This novel, published in 1986, was his last book and echoes the first with autobiographical elements, depicting in alternating chapters three Irish characters in the early 1950s linked mainly by how Ireland’s lack of work and England’s abundance of jobs define their lives. Niall leaves military service and returns to Kilkenny to learn that a friend in the town to whom he sent 30 pounds (about $1,390 today) for a business partnership has absconded to England. Niall struggles with life on the dole and the ever tempting balm of drunkenness. Nano works as a nurse’s assistant in a British hospital because her boyfriend in Ireland is tethered to a possessive mother. She enjoys a bit of freedom, thanks to her saucy roommate, while coping with the allure of a handsome gardener. Trevor likes work as a navvy in England, digging trenches and avoiding the ties of his wife and children in Ireland. But when a brutish Dubliner beats up his brother-in-law, Trevor must uphold family honor and his reputation as a top bare-knuckle fighter. Mac Amlaigh wrote in Irish, and his translator renders the prose as plainspoken as his working-class characters, with hopeful, even romantic moments for Niall and Nano and touches of the heroic for Trevor and his mighty foe. While he isn’t much of a stylist, Mac Amlaigh knows these lives and conveys them well.

A historically interesting look at a time when Erin was anything but a Celtic Tiger.