WARM endorsements have been paid to local writer Liam O’Callaghan of Glenroe following the release of his new book Blood and Thunder.
Blood and Thunder reveals that the rise of Irish rugby is inextricable from the tensions, debates and divisions – of politics, religion and class – that have defined modern Irish history.
It also traces the dramatic evolution whereby a rugby nation that was deeply attached to amateurism has made such a dramatic success of professionalism. Blood and Thunder is more than a social and political history of Irish rugby. It is also a shadow-history of modern Ireland, rooted in brilliant original research and packed with terrific stories.
“Excellent … O’Callaghan willingly challenges any hyperbole about the sport’s appeal here just as he keenly seeks to identify and explain some of the wonders of that reach,” enthused Kieran Shannon, Irish Examiner.
Added John O’Donnell (Irish Times): “Rigorously researched and incisively written … Blood and Thunder should be on every team bus!”
“O’Callaghan’s history of Irish rugby is a superb excavation of the place of that sport in Irish life,” commented acclaimed writer and historian Paul Rouse.
Mr. O’Callagahn is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sport at Liverpool Hope University in the UK.
By Penguin Books, it is available in hardback/paperback/ebook form at leading bookshops nationwide.
