Book review: Warts and all look at 1913 Ireland in all its grandeur and failures

Richard Arnold Bermann shines a powerful light into the dark recesses of Irish life of this period

Not even Naples has “such an impoverished, miserable district” as Dublin city centre in 1913.

HOME-GROWN analyses of our appeal to overseas visitors tend to be of the rose-tinted variety: The amazing Cliffs of Moher, the fabulous Ring of Kerry or the misty grandeur of Newgrange. It takes an outside view to throw some cold water on that view. And in the case of the Austrian Arnold Bermann, some acid.

Bermann was a feted journalist who toured the country at a time of monumental change in Europe. He had written extensively of his global travels before he arrived to the Emerald Isle. This is a warts and all look at Ireland in all its grandeur and all its failures. John Hinde it ain’t, though he does employ the same snapshot take on a variety of places. He includes several satiric pieces worthy of Flann O’Brien.