Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890-1923

(Paperback)

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Vivid Facessurveys the lives and beliefs of the people who made the Irish Revolution- linked together by youth, radicalism, subversive activities, enthusiasm and love. Determined to reconstruct the world and defining themselves against their parents, they were in several senses a revolutionary generation. A searing cultural history of the remarkable generation who transformed Ireland, from R. F. Foster OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015 TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR and OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014 Winner of the American Historical Association's 2016 Morris D. Forkosch Prize Vivid Faces surveys the lives and beliefs of the people who made the Irish Revolution- linked together by youth, radicalism, subversive activities, enthusiasm and love. Determined to reconstruct the world and defining themselves against their parents, they were in several senses a revolutionary generation. The Ireland that eventually emerged bore little relation to the brave new world they had conjured up in student societies, agit-prop theatre groups, vegetarian restaurants, feminist collectives, volunteer militias, Irish-language summer schools, and radical newspaper offices. Roy Foster's book investigates that world, and the extraordinary people who occupied it. Looking back from old age, one of the most magnetic members of the revolutionary generation reflected that 'the phoenix of our youth has fluttered to earth a miserable old hen', but he also wondered 'how many people nowadays get so much fun as we did'. Working from a rich trawl of contemporary diaries, letters and reflections, Vivid Faces re-creates the argumentative, exciting, subversive and original lives of people who made a revolution, as well as the disillusionment in which it ended. %%%A searing cultural history of the remarkable generation who transformed Ireland, from R. F. Foster TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR and OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014 Vivid Faces surveys the lives and beliefs of the people who made the Irish Revolution- linked together by youth, radicalism, subversive activities, enthusiasm and love. Determined to reconstruct the world and defining themselves against their parents, they were in several senses a revolutionary generation. The Ireland that eventually emerged bore little relation to the brave new world they had conjured up in student societies, agit-prop theatre groups, vegetarian restaurants, feminist collectives, volunteer militias, Irish-language summer schools, and radical newspaper offices. Roy Foster's book investigates that world, and the extraordinary people who occupied it. Looking back from old age, one of the most magnetic members of the revolutionary generation reflected that 'the phoenix of our youth has fluttered to earth a miserable old hen', but he also wondered 'how many people nowadays get so much fun as we did'. Working from a rich trawl of contemporary diaries, letters and reflections, Vivid Faces re-creates the argumentative, exciting, subversive and original lives of people who made a revolution, as well as the disillusionment in which it ended. %%%A searing cultural history of the remarkable generation who transformed Ireland, from R. F. Foster TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR and OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014 Vivid Faces surveys the lives and beliefs of the people who made the Irish Revolution- linked together by youth, radicalism, subversive activities, enthusiasm and love. Determined to reconstruct the world and defining themselves against their parents, they were in several senses a revolutionary generation. The Ireland that eventually emerged bore little relation to the brave new world they had conjured up in student societies, agit-prop theatre groups, vegetarian restaurants, feminist collectives, volunteer militias, Irish-language summer schools, and radical newspaper offices. Roy Foster's book investigates that world, and the extraordinary people who occupied it. Looking back from old age, one of

Reviews

Powerful and absorbing ... [Foster] draws on decades of engagement with cultural history to bring an original, lively and learned analysis to a fascinating generation ... Much of his account is riveting and skilfully woven together, with the analysis enlivened by Foster's customary sparkling prose ... gives us a deep and textured awareness of that "enclosed, self-referencing, hectic world" where the thinkers lived, worked, reflected and dreamed -- Diarmaid Ferriter Irish Times Written with a stern sense of authority, but simultaneously leaving room for suggestion, interpretation, debate and nuance, Vivid Faces is an immensely important analysis of Irish history that will be used again and again as a reference point for generations to come -- J P O'Malley Sunday Independent Living Roy Foster paints a splendid group portrait of the men and women whose aspirations, and fantasies, led to the Easter Rising of 1916. -- John Banville Observer

Author Bio

R. F. Foster is Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. His books include Modern Ireland, 1600-1972, Paddy and Mr Punch, The Irish Story, W. B. Yeats (two volumes) and Luck and the Irish.