By the end of May of 2002 Fine Gael was a political force on the verge of extinction. In the wake of its general election defeat the party had been left crushed. Twenty-three Fine Gael seats, including those of eleven members of its frontbench, were lost. Several of the party’s biggest names, such as Alan Dukes and Charlie Flanagan, fell in battle. Overall, Fine Gael got a dismal 22% share of the vote, its number of Dail seats was reduced to an atrocious 19% and it secured only three of the 47 available Dublin seats.

The lives of Irish artists tend to remain untold stories. Despite the incredible resurgence of interest in the work of our native painters and sculptors, the number of Irish artists who have been the subject of biographies has remained very small. All this makes Breaking The Mould, Eamon Delaney's vibrant memoir of his father, the late, great Edward Delaney, the more welcome.

Edward O'Hare reviews The Dylan Thomas Omnibus, The COllected Stories of Lorrie Moore, and Devil May Care: A James Bond Novel.

Edward O Hare's Booknotes, April 2008

It is generally assumed that a writer's most famous character must be some fanciful version of themselves. In the case of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the reverse was true, as Andrew Lycett's recent biography has uncovered.