1. "Galway And The Great War," by William HENRY, Mercier Press, p/b (2007). Per review - "In 1915, about 13,000 people lived in Galway city, yet over 500 city men were enlisted (Irishmen serving the Allies in WW-I) - a huge proportion of the local eligible able-bodied men. Serious recruiting began later in 1915 and continued up to Armistice Day in November 1918. By then Galway ranked third in enlisted numbers, behind the far larger cities of Dublin and Cork. With the exception of the Bishop of Limerick, the hierarchy were sympathetic to the Allied cause. Only Sinn Fein opposed enlistment from the beginning - though many returned from the Front to join the republican cause, later on. This is the first volume of a proposed two volume work on this neglected part of Galway's history." 2. "Final Witness, My Journey from the Holocaust to Ireland, Zoltan ZINN-COLLIS with Alicia McAULEY, Maverick House, p/b (2007). Per review - "The concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen was the scene of one of the world's mass murders. Amongst the few survivors were two children - Zoltan and Edit ZINN. They were repatriated to Ireland and brought up in the family of an Irish doctor. This is Zoltan's story, it includes his recovery from tuberculosis of the spine, regarded as a fatal complaint at the time. After the obscenities he witnessed, Zoltan ZINN-COLLIS is a truly remarkable man -- if only for being the ordinary retired Irish grandfather that he became." 3. "Cottage Industry: Portraits of Irish Artisans," by Betsy KLEIN, with photographs by Jersey WALZ, New Island Press, Dublin (2006). Per review - "Celebrates the contribution made by true artisans - miller, thatcher, cheesemaker, baker, etc. - to their communities the length and breadth of Ireland. KLEIN's empathetic editing allows the craftsmen to explain what their work means to them, and insightful black and white photographs capture the emotional links between their surroundings and family history." For example, Esther BARRON (baker) reveals that the Cappoquin, Co. Waterford bakery was established in 1887 by her grandfather, John BARRON. Her father (the second youngest of their twelve children) became an artisan baker, made bread for the quality, and Esther worked with him for five years before he died at the age of 76 in 1980. Interestingly, Esther married in 1993 a man who has the same name and birthday as her father. Together, and continuing the tradition, Barron's Bakery is part of the inheritance of Cappoquin, the heart of the town today of fewer than 1,000 people. Esther notes - "We have revived some things like Chester Cake, which is sultanas, treacle, brown sugar, leftover cake and bread, and Gingerbread which is golden syrup, brown sugar, white flour, bicarbonate of soda, a little bit of Guinness and milk. When people come in, they get excited, saying, 'I haven't seen that since I was a child.'" Another story is that of Ted CHANNON, a Clonmel, Co. Tipperary blacksmith, who shares that he has been here for over 60 years and that his grandfather was here before him. While CHANNON personally does not do horseshoeing - "You have to be fit for horseshoeing" - his three sons do. Even his daughter used to do a bit of it, as well. "I do a lot of gates and railings now, like the railings inside (the workshop) for a new hotel. We've done all the iron work for that hotel. With these gates, it's all handwork. There's almost no welding - all the scrolls are hand-beaten out; they're all held in using ways other than welding. That's the way my grandfather would have done it when he was a boy ... My father didn't go into the business. In the 1920s and 1930s blacksmithing hit an all-time low. We went through an economic war in Ireland. We had a difference of opinion with the British government and people were destitute here. Things didn't really get good here until the 1950s and they've improved ever since then. We've a lot of migrants working over here, but it was always the other way around, Irish people emigrating. When I was a small boy, most of the people I went to school with, when they came to 16, 18 years of age, they had to emigrate to England or America ... Now it has all changed. In the early days when I started off here, we would shoe a few horses, band a wheel, not a common cap wheel - they're history now. We used to repair a lot of ploughs, farm machinery, big machinery. But that job died out; it's not done so much any more. People replace it with all new gear. We have to move with the times and come up with a better idea." Excerpts w/photos, July-August 2007 issue Dublin's "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazine.