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As the oldest continuously active guerrilla army in Europe, the IRA has always attracted the attention of writers. Two early novels were later made into classic films, Liam O'Flaherty's (1896-1984) The Informer (1925) and F. L. Green's (1902-53) Odd Man Out (1945). More recent years have seen a wave of thrillers and espionage novels focusing on IRA activities. One excellent example is James Hynes's The Wild Colonial Boy (1990), which takes as its point of departure the 1986 decision of Sinn Fein's leadership to revoke its policy of abstention from the Republic of Ireland's Parliament. Prior to that year, Sinn Fein representatives would run for office in the South but would refuse to take their seats when elected. This new policy, a departure from strict IRA tradition, was seen as initiating a political, nonviolent phase in their strategy, and it met with a fierce minority opposition from hard-liners within the organization.
In the novel, Brian Donovan, a young Irish American, brings over a $10,000 donation to the IRA from his grandfather, an old IRA veteran. He delivers the money to the husband of his cousin, not realizing that the man, Jimmy Coogan, is part of a renegade IRA faction, determined to undermine the Sinn Fein efforts to pursue a political strategy. Coogan convinces Brian to carry an explosive to Great Britain, which is later detonated in London's National Gallery. When Coogan is killed by British police, the reaction within the Sinn Fein/IRA inner circle almost succeeds in aborting the new political initiative. Brian, meanwhile, in an effort to save the life of a young Irish-American woman he has unwittingly implicated in the bombing, turns himself in to the British authorities.
A similar plot is put to a different use in Katharine Weber's (1955- ) The Music Lesson (1998), which examines the ensnarement of an Irish-American woman in what she assumes is an IRA plan. Patricia Dolan is a 41-yearold art historian, suffering from the recent death of her kindergarten-age child. A surprise visit to her workplace, the Frick Museum in New York, by a distant Irish relative leads to a passionate affair. Slowly her lover Mickey reveals that he wants to use her expertise as an art historian to help steal a priceless Vermeer painting, The Music Lesson. While the theft is taking place in the Netherlands, she rents a remote cottage on the west coast of Ireland, where the painting will be hidden during the ransom negotiations.
Only after the theft does she learn that Mickey is a member of a breakaway IRA group, the "Irish Republican Liberation Organization," determined to continue the use of violence in the North. When a moment of carelessness on her part results in the death of an innocent neighbor, Patricia awakens to the reality of her situation and Mickey's murderous nature. Managing to eke out a victory of sorts over Mickey and his group, she returns to the United States, knowing that she will live out her life alone: "If life has to be a series of small losses, I still choose life."
Both novels depict naive Irish Americans who become involved without really knowing whom they are dealing with. Of the two, The Wild Colonial Boy is closer to the straight action-adventure story. The Music Lesson emphasizes the psychological experience of its chief character, with very little reference to the political dimension of the plot. Impressively integrating the inner life of its characters and political reality is Edna O'Brien's (1932- ) House of Splendid Isolation (1994), in which an old country home comes to stand for Ireland, a house divided against itself. The owner is Josie O'Meara, an old woman who has survived an unhappy marriage and plans to live the rest of her life in "splendid isolation." But McGreevy, a notorious IRA gunman, escaping from the police, finds his way to her house and holds her prisoner as he tries to evade a nationwide dragnet. In the five days that the two remain together, the old woman and the young rebel come to understand each other. McGreevy is a man of the North, Josie a woman of the South. She sees the bombings, robberies, and other IRA activities as the degradation of a once noble rebellious tradition. He, having known nothing but the humiliation and oppression of the minority in the North, sees his cause as just. But gradually they come to see each other as wounded individuals. She makes no attempt to betray him to the police, and he endangers himself in an effort to help her. In the end, the house is destroyed, but the land remains and with it the possibility of ending the bloodshed that has "seeped into the soil, the subsoil."
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