We Don't Know Ourselves

A Personal History of Modern Ireland

by

English language

Published Dec. 22, 2022 by Liveright Publishing Corporation.

ISBN:
978-1-63149-653-0
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OCLC Number:
1287087071

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4 stars (2 reviews)

Weaving his own experiences into this account of Irish social, cultural, and economic change, O’Toole shows how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a Catholic “backwater” to an almost totally open society. A sympathetic-yet-exacting observer, O’Toole shrewdly weighs more than sixty years of globalization, delving into the violence of the Troubles and depicting, in biting detail, the astonishing collapse of the once-supreme Irish Catholic Church. The result is a stunning work of memoir and national history that reveals how the two modes are inextricable for all of us.

3 editions

reviewed We Don't Know Ourselves by Fintan O'Toole

Review of 'We Don't Know Ourselves' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

A nice mix of random events in the second half of the 1900s. The author chooses cultural topics he feels were important in defining the country, in an effort to understand the how the current cultural mindset (his thesis) developed. It really is an impressive piece of work and historical writing, but it also lacked Irish humor and really any levity at all. It was quite a bleak and critical look at the country, which is fine, but 600 pages of bleakness wore on me a bit.