1916

Rating:
Summary: Painful
Review: If tortured prose is to your taste, by all means pick up this exemplary model of how to bore a reader to tears with forced, plodding, contrived exposition. The historical facts are razor sharp; the writing style underwhelms with dullness.

Rating:
Summary: A history lesson that goes down easy
Review: I enjoyed this novel very much, and not only because of its strong characters and riveting plot. Morgan Llywelyn entertains while she teaches, and I learned a great deal about Irish history and the fundamental reasons for the fractious state of affairs that exist today in the north. After reading 1916, I went on to read the other two books in Llywelyn's series, 1921 and 1949. Readers who enjoy 1916 are likely to enjoy the other two books as well.

Rating:
Summary: 1916 Good Story and Solid History
Review: 1916 Good Story and Solid History

Some element of this book that I found helpful and interesting:

* It's a novel that employs footnotes.
* Characterizations are excellent and historically accurate
* Maps are helpful
* Listing of Characters is absolutely great.

I am not normally a fan of historical romance novels but 1916 was very well written. Really the romance portion was overshadowed by the momentous events of the day. The story of the 1916 Irish Rebellion (later called the Easter Rebellion) is a thoughtful tale of a country boy caught up in Irish nationalist fervor. Some key events led up to the Rebellion were: the forced conscription of Irish citizens for World War I, the rise of nationalism and German promises of assistance. The author brings all of these to light as well as other elements all interwoven in her story. Overall a good story well told.

I recommend this book to readers that enjoy histories, light romance and especially Irish culture.

Rating:
Summary: Ireland's Great Historian Misses Her Stride
Review: I love Morgan Llywelyn's books. I was so excited to see this novel published that I recommended it to my book club before I read it. None of my fellow book club readers were familiar with her work, so I jumped at the opportunity to introduce them to this marvelous writer. Over the ensuing weeks, one by one, my fellow readers asked me, "Are all of her books like this?" I had not started it yet, and was mystified at the lukewarm reception the book seemed to be getting. Once I read it myself, I was not puzzled for long.

Llywelyn's research is meticulous, as usual, but her telling of the story is stilted and her fictional characters have none of the complexity or depth of her other books. Perhaps because she was writing about people who lived so recently, and not people are lived centuries ago and are more legend than fact, she felt less at liberty to intersperse her fictional characters into the thick of the action. They seemed to be content to stay on the periphery, only arriving in the thick of the action by happenstance and not to fulfill their destinies. Granted, the events of Easter 1916 are well documented, but one expects more literary license to be taken by one's favorite historical novelists.

And this is probably my mistake, not hers. I expected Lion of Ireland but instead found myself reading what I felt were a series of notes on the rebellion, interspersed with a fictional romance. My fellow readers and I never understood why the Titanic was involved, except perhaps to make the lead characters more sympathetic.

My words here seem to convey that we hated the book. We didn't. It was a very good exploration of the politics and social crises of the time, and we all loved Padraic Pearse. The knowledge she gives us of this courageous, passionate man is alone worth the price of the hardcover edition. Her examination of the Irish Question is spectacular.

What kept this book from rating five stars was the incidental plot line involving her fictional characters. Had she left out the fictional Hallorans entirely the book would have been improved. We did not find ourselves yearning to see the next chapter about them. We prefered to see Padraic Pearse, the O'Rahilly, or Thomas Clarke in the first lines of a new chapter. We sought out Edmund Kent and Sean MacDermott. We ached for more about the fascinating Countess Constance Markievicz, who by herself would make a wonderful subject of another historical novel about the Irish-English conflict.

This is not a typical Morgan Llywelyn novel. It is a good novel, but not a great one. It is the one hiccup of an otherwise, in my opinion, highly exceptional writer.

I will not hesitate to buy Morgan Llywellyn's next book in hardback, despite my disappointment with this book.

Rating:
Summary: The best is saved for last.
Review: Readers who are expecting the major focus of Morgan Llywelyn's novel to be the Easter Rising of 1916 may be disappointed in their purchase of this book. The story follows the life of Ned Halloran, a young Irish boy, who finds himself enrolled in Saint Enda's Preparatory School, whose headmaster is none other than the famous Irish patriot Padraic Pearse.

Ned is an observant young man who is on the outside looking in at the events that culminate in the Easter Rising of 1916. The best part of the book by far is the actual telling of the Rising. This comes at the end of a story, which wanders far and wide to no good purpose. For example, Ned's sister has moved to America and married a man who abuses her. What little interest we have in this peripheral story seems shared by the author who forgets she has ever introduced this material into the plot. We never find out what happens to Kathleen and we don't care much because it has so little bearing on the central events that give this book its title.

We do care about Ned and we follow his movements carefully during the Rising. We know ahead of time, as does Pearse, that the chances for success are small, but it is the heroism and example of a few brave Irish patriots that counts and will act as an important catalyst for change in Ireland.

Pearse, MacDonagh, Connolly, MacBride, and many other brave men are stood against a courtyard wall in Kilmainham Jail and shot to death and in this act "a terrible beauty is born," as Yeats says in his great poem, "Easter 1916." Readers are well advised to read this poem, which says more in two pages than Llywelyn accomplishes in her book.

The last 25% of the novel, which tells the story of the rising, is well done and genuinely affecting. The reader may want to move quickly to this point in the story. Not much will be lost in terms of genuine understanding of the main events of this important event in Irish hisory.

Rating:
Summary: Read this Book --FEEL history - worth more than 5 stars!!!!
Review: This is a powerful novel of the events surrounding the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin Ireland. The book opens in 1912 as Ned Halloran and his parents are on a journey from Ireland to America to visit Ned's sister Kathleen. Fate has intervened and they make their voyage on the Titanic. Ned survives the sinking, however his parents as well as new friend Dan Breen, are all lost to the sea.

Kathleen and her fiancé, Alexander Campbell, urge Ned to stay in New York but his heart is in Ireland and he returns to County Clare and his family farm where his older brother and two younger sisters are left to mourn the loss of their parents.

Meanwhile, Lord Inchpin of nearby Dromoland Castle, to make up for what young Ned has been through, has offered him a rare opportunity for a farm lad from County Clare - further education at a private school in Dublin. The school chosen turns out to be St. Enda's, the school run by Padraig (Patrick) Pearse, south of downtown. Pearse, as those familiar with early 20th C. Irish history know, is one of the heroes of the 1916 Easter Rising. This is a fictionalized account of events leading up to that fateful week.

Ned interacts with many historical figures during this time including all the principals of the Irish Rebellion in which he becomes a courier for the eventual heroes. During this time, too, he runs into Sile (prounced "Sheila") Breen, Dan's sister, who has run off to Dublin and is how working in the world's oldest profession. The naïve Ned isn't aware of this at first and is, instead, stunned by her beauty although he is side-tracked by another woman he clearly has a crush on. Important too, is secondary character Henry Mooney, the young journalist from county Limerick Ned meets on the train on his way to Dublin.

Even though the reader may already be aware of the events of April and May 1916 in Ireland, the emotions evoked by this novel, become very real - as if they happened yesterday instead of 85 years ago. Llywelyn portrays the Pearse brothers, Joseph Mary Plunkett, Thomas Clark, James Connolly, Sean MacDermott, Thomas MacDonagh, and others in such away as the reader feels the same love for Ireland and has the same desires as they do.

In the sequel to this book, 1921, Morgan Llywelyn has one character say to another "History tells what happened; literature tells what it felt like." This is exactly how I feel about 1916. Despite reading history books relating the events, reading this novel has made this very personal. I could feel the pain of these characters, I could feel their fervor and enthusiasm for the cause they believed in, and in the end I could feel the need to keep the memory of these brave people alive as the country fights for home rule and freedom from British oppression.

When you are finished reading this book, and I highly recommend that you do, pick up the sequel 1921, which relates the events of the next six years in Ireland's struggle for independence and although it is Henry Mooney's story, it does feature Ned in a very big way.

There's no better compliment I can give a novel than to say it not only made me think, made me want to read everything I can get my hands on, and wish to visit the historical sites in Ireland including the GPO, Kilmainham Gaol, and other locales mentioned in the book. Llywelyn has made this very easy with the maps in front of the book showing the locations of these places. Also helpful is the list of characters, both fictional and historical, in the front of the book. She adds several pages of notes and a selected bibliography at the end. Read this book - FEEL history.