We Dont Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland

We DonT Know Ourselvesborn To A Working-Class Family In The Dublin Suburbs, OToole Served As An Altar Boy And Attended A Christian Brothers School, Much As His Forebears Did. He Was Enthralled By American Westerns Suddenly Appearing On Irish Television, Which Were Not That Far From His Own Experience, Given That IrelandS Main Export Was Beef And It Was Still Not Unknown For Herds Of Cattle To Clatter Down DublinS Streets. Yet The Westerns Were A Sign Of What Was To Come. OToole Narrates The Once Unthinkable Collapse Of The All-Powerful Catholic Church, Brought Down By Scandal And By The Activism Of Ordinary Irish, Women In Particular. He Relates The Horrific Violence Of The Troubles In Northern Ireland, Which Led Most Irish To Reject Violent Nationalism. In OTooleS Telling, America Became A Lodestar, From John F. KennedyS 1963 Visit, When The Soon-To-Be Martyred American President Was Welcomed As A Native Son, To The Emergence Of The Irish Technology Sector In The Late 1990S, Driven By American Corporations, Which Set Ireland On The Path Toward Particular Disaster During The 2008 Financial Crisis.We DonT Know Ourselves