THE Breaking Rapids, with its uniquely ‘corrupt’ title — apparently rapids don’t break — is a high quality, self-financed publication, produced and published completely in Limerick.
Joe Coleman, the man responsible for The Breaking Rapids, is also the author of the bestselling independently published books House Full (2014), an affectionate look back at the old cinemas and theatres of Limerick, and Falling Gradient (2016) which focused on Limerick’s railway connections, the people and the times.
Joe is a native of Thomondgate having lived in Cashel’s Lane, Killeely and Páirc DeValera before moving to Meelick in 1986. With a background in public transport and having spent many years at continuing professional development, he has covered a wide range of disciplines including different aspects of creative writing.
Joe’s latest offering is another ‘labour of love’. It spans more than a thousand years and integrates a number of diverse topics, bringing the reader in many different directions but never straying too far from its focal point — the River Shannon and its Estuary.
There’s a dramatic and compelling account of the arrival, settlement and defeat of the Vikings, including some fascinating detail on what these people were like, where they settled and what they left behind.
The author makes good use of his childhood memories as he links well known people and events with Thomondgate, his home place.
Michael Hogan, the Bard of Thomond, is very well featured, with a fresh retelling of Drunken Thady and the Bishop’s Lady and ‘Sean a Scuab’. There are many stories and rhymes of famous writers and historians including Tom Glynn, Kevin Hannan, Maurice Lenihan and Robert Herbert. The ancient settlement of Killeely is well featured and grave robbing, dating back to the 18th century, focuses on the Watch House Cross area.
Unsurprisingly, there is an entire chapter on rugby, featuring many of the clubs and all of the major events including that famous day in 1978 when the mighty ‘All Blacks’ were defeated.
The “Grand Prix — Round the Houses” races of 1935, 1936 and 1938 are featured in a truly amazing chapter in which the reader is brought onto the streets and into the races with fascinating detail.
There is a detailed account of the fatal accident in which John Charles FitzRoy, the 9th Duke of Grafton, lost his life when his Bugatti race car crashed into the wall of the CBS on Roxborough Road in 1936.
Other subjects featured include the Anglo-Normans, the 1641 rebellion and Cromwellian invasion, the building of Newtown Pery, the Pope, his girlfriend and the Limerick connection; the Colleen Bawn, the ‘forgotten’ famine, the return of the plague in 1832, the cannibalisation of Patrick O’Brien in December 1835, Mary Perolz, a woman of the Rising; the Limerick Soviet and Jack Monday.
There’s also a chapter looking back with affection on bus operations in and around the city from the early 20th century.
The Breaking Rapids (priced €30) is available from the author and also from O’Mahony’s Bookshop, Crescent Bookshop, Easons (The Parkway) and The Hunt Museum.
by Shane Foley
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