Customer Reviews

1999: A Novel of the CelticTiger and the Search for Peace (Irish Century Novels)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

From beginning to end, this was an absolutely wonderful series of books. The mark of great historical fiction is to blend the fictional story with real events, and create a seamless whole. This series always delivered, and this last installment was perhaps the best. I couldn't put this book down, as the progression of the Halloran family was tied into the progression of Ireland and Northern Ireland from a state of despair in the early 1970's to a state of prosperity and hope by the end of the last millenium. The Hallorans have almost become like family over the course of these books, and it was great that the author allowed Ursula to stay around to see what hopefully will be a lasting peace. Just a great, great historical fiction series, and a must read for anyone even the slightest bit interested in irish history.

Morgan LLywelyn has produced another compelling novel detailing Ireland's fight for freedom, the last in the Irish Century series. I have always been a fan, and love all of her books, but this series is her masterpiece. She has taken a time period ranging from the turn of the 20th century to the turn of the 21st, and made some sense of the confusing politics and issues of the times by humanizing them with wonderful characters and backing them with well researched information. I can only suppose that the rest of the world was as unaware as I was of what the British did in Ireland in present times. (And I always thought they were so civilized!) I especially like the last 2 books, 1972 and 1999, because the running accounts of what was going on in the US and other countries during the times of Ireland's struggles were also a part of my own life.

A coherent, concise, and engaging history of Ireland from the early 1970s through 1999. This, the last novel in Llywelyn's "Irish Century" series, contains much more factual history as compared to the fictional Halloran family story than in previous novels in the series. This does not make the novel any less enjoyable for one who enjoys a well presented history, but may be seen as a negative to those readers who mostly want to find out how the Halloran family story turns out.

As with the earlier entries in this series, Llywelyn intejects events from Ireland's history along with 'touchstones' from world history to keep the Halloran family story in context. This capstone to the Halloran story is engaging and satisfying, with a touch of the bittersweet in its ending which, as with life, is not really an ending at all.

Morgan has the Celtic Spirit all wrapped up...this series has captured me from the beginning with 1916 and I could not wait to read the others..After 1972, I had hoped for a final book and then it was published...She has given "Ursula" a wonderful ending to the series...I have read most of her other novels and have loved each and every one...What a great asset to the heart of the Celts!!! For those of us that love stories of a foreign land and people, Morgan's novels are gems with twists and turns in every page...Thank you for these...Keep writing!!

This is the final book in the series by Llewelyn about the Irish Rising and "the Troubles." Very factual. Information is made easy to follow by the story that is woven around the actual history of the events. It was such a pleasure to follow all the characters through the decades and see them develope fully. It also has a great ending to the series.

I loved this Authur and the book. I do Genealogy and with the help of Morgan Llyaelyn, I can get an insite into what Ireland was like and how strong will the Irish people were, back then and now.

She Also put the bug into me wanting to visit my husband's past and take a trip to Ireland, County Claire.

I've read all Llywelyn's books on the saga of Ursula Halloran. I like them very much. I thought "1999" did a good job on the period after the 1972 horror. I enjoyed very much the treatment of critical world events happening along with the flow of the story in Ireland. I liked the treatment of popular culture in the story line. As an American, before I began the reading, I was surprised to notice the omission of George Mitchell in the "Historical Characters" section of the "Dramatis Personae" section. I was relieved to see him and his role finally presented toward the end, in the parts discussing the Easter Accords. I followed the news of the peace progress in the 1990's. I attended a lecture by Sen. Mitchell at the University of California at Santa Barbara. I had been impressed with him and his role in the Iran - Contra hearings in the 1980's. Was his role in the negotiations of the Easter Accords minimal enough to have not been included in the list of historical characters at the start of the book? Minor, I suppose, but curious to me - and I think other Americans who have followed the events since 1969 - just curious.

As the economists like to say, my "priors" favorably dispose me to this book. I can't honestly say it's her best work, but it's well up there. It's a great story with plot twists and surprises overlaid with a century of the history of Ireland, emphasis on the last thirty or so. It is so well told that you effortlessly digest the chronology of both the family and the country.

There is tragedy to the degree that you wish Henry VIII could have controlled his needs a bit better. The tragedy is rooted in Bloody Bess, the[...] queen, and her plantations; thus, it merely explodes with the better weapons of the last century. Northern Ireland was a bloody battleground, with blame on both sides fairly discussed. And the tragedy of war touches the family, of course.

There is comedy, but I won't reveal the ending. And what Ms. Morgan does with words enhances the comedic moments. I read this on Kindle, and I overworked the highlight button. Some of her phrasing is alone worth the price of the book.

There are reflective moments, when you know this story could be told about any family in any country in any epoch. The complexities of humanity are explored deftly without preachments .

The characters are real. Those from her previous works are consistent and become, I believe, how you would have imagined. Over the course of so many years, the death of a well developed side character is felt as if one knew him/her. It is an amazingly empathetic work.

In the end, you ask the question: absent the patrimony of hate which gripped their beloved island, what might have been for each of the main characters?

This historical novel, primarily set in the last quarter of the 20th Century, was a guilty pleasure (& I use "pleasure" very loosely.) for this first generation Irish Catholic American....

Morgan Llywelyn is at her absolute best, when she alludes to the Guildford Four, as well as when she vividly describes conditions in Belfast's Maze Prison's H-Block at the time of Bobby Sands' hunger strike.

Morgan Llywelyn behaves in a boorish, pathetic manner, when she takes cheap shots at the Catholic Church and its courageous stands against abortion & contraceptives. Ms. Llywelyn would be well served by updating herself on the work of the NaProTECHNOLOGY Medical Centre of the Galway Clinic.

I have yet to receive the copy of this book. I have not been able to trace it.