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

By John Doyle

Book Overview

Celebrated TV critic John Doyle has penned an Irish memoir that gives a portrait of a boy and his country transformed by television. Funny, insightful, and engaging, A Great Feast of Light begins in the small town of Nenagh, where young John's father purchased the family's first television in 1962, and ends in 1979 with the Pope's historic visit to the Emerald Isle, the appearance of "Dallas" on Irish TV, and twenty-two-year-old John's escape to North America. By day, John was schooled by the Christian brothers in the valor of Irish rebel heroes and the saintliness of Catholic martyrs. But in the evenings, television conveyed more subversive messages: American westerns, "I Love Lucy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Laugh-In, The Muppet Show, Starsky and Hutch, and Monty Python suggested ways of life that were exciting and free. News coverage of American civil rights and women's rights protests, Irish street riots, bombings, and Bloody Sunday clashed with Catholic conservatism. While the "global village" was yanking Ireland out of its past, one intelligent and sardonic boy was taking notes. His story, at once a charming coming-of-age tale and a compelling social history, is a welcome addition to the literature of Ireland.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786718145
• ISBN13: 9780786718146
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf
• Length: 321 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Great slice of Irish life

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.

If you like Roddy Doyle and Nick Hornby then read this...

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.

A Great Feast of Light

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!