7) The Rising of the Moon, by Flynn Connolly

I started off expecting this book to be just silly - in a future United Ireland where the Catholic Church has taken over, Nuala Dennehy foments a feminist revolution - but in the end I actually found the author's enthusiasm for her cause and her characters rather endearing. There's a lot for the Irish reader to nit-pick, not least that when the book was published, in 1994, the tide was definitely on the turn and Ireland's lurch into modernity becoming irreversible. But taken as a tale of the general processes of revolt and revolution, it's fair enough; and even if the situation of women in Ireland is unlikely ever again to be as bad as in Connolly's novel, there are enough other parts of the world which are there or heading that way for the specific political message to remain relevant. The narrative falters only at the very end when the fate of Nuala and her closest friends seemed to me to be a bit implausible. I can't say it's great literature, and Irish readers will be annoyed by the errors (eg the crowd gathering in the park opposite Belfast City Hall - so where has City Hall been moved to? Or what block of commercial buildings adjoining Donegall Square has been demolished?), but it was a better read than I expected.