Crisis & DeclineReceding imperialism usually leaves behind those who have for generations staunchly upheld its authority and flourished under its aegis Germans in Bohemia, Swedes in Finland, loyalists or tories in the American colonies, Greeks in Asia Minor, Muslims in the Balkans. Among those abandoned adherents of a lost cause were the unionists in the south and the west of Ireland. R. B. McDowell,Crisis & Decline \n \nSo begins the preface to this lively,

a memoir by Elizabeth O’Toole

collectively

much green at the end of the street come summer

Exiled punks in the Mexican desert

Her vivid and engagingly written story will be enjoyed as much by the general reader as by the serious student of Irish history

appearing again and again in his key films such as The Long Way Home (1940)

baglady and acquaintance of Shaw

He describes his schooling with the nuns in Dominick Street

’ wrote George Moore

Despite the constant presence of the past in silences and whispered conversations

McDowell’s biography traces the varied career of this elusive figure whose political fortunes were as tempestuous as his own character

freedom and order