Wednesday 22 January 2014

An introduction to the architectural heritage of County Cavan

The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage was established to identify, record and evaluate the architectural heritage of Ireland in a systematic and uniform manner. Each county inventory is published in a full-colour, attractively illustrated booklet introducing the architectural highlights of the area, with descriptive text and photographs, and relevant mapping. 

Pick up a copy of County Cavan's Inventory in our libraries now!

Click on the Book image to reserve a copy on our Catalogue

Saturday 18 January 2014

January Reads: Cavan Library Reading Group

The Mermaids Singing by Lisa Carey



Somewhere off the west coast of Ireland lies Inis Murúch-the Island of the Mermaids-a world where myth is more powerful that truth and where the sea sings with the healing and haunting voices of women. It is here that Lisa Carey sets her lyrical first novel, weaving together the voices and lives of three generations of Irish and Irish-American women. Years ago, Clíona-strong, proud, and practical-sailed for Boston, determined to one day come home. But when the time came to return to Inis Murúch, her daughter Grace-fierce, beautiful, and brazenly sexual-resented her mother's isolated, unfamiliar world. Though entranced by the sea and its healing powers, Grace became desperate to escape the confines of the island, one day stealing away with her small daughter Graínne. Now Graínne-motherless at fifteen after Grace's death-is about to be taken back across the ocean by Clíona, repeating the journey her mother was forced to make years before. She goes to meet a father she has never known, her heart pulled between a life where she no longer belongs and a family she cannot remember. On the rocky shore of Inis Murúch, she waits for her father and begins to discover her own sexual identity even as she struggles to understand the forces that have torn her family apart.

Shem Creek by Dorothea Benton Frank

Meet Linda Breland, single parent of two teenage daughters-one of whom is headed off to college. Between that and the married men, the cold New Jersey's winters, her pinched wallet, and her ex-husband who marries a beautiful, successful woman ten years younger than she is-let's just say Linda has seen enough to fill a thousand pages. Now, she's bound for Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the magical landscape of her ancestors. Welcomed by the help of her advice-dispensing sister and an intriguing ex-investment banker turned restaurant owner, Linda slowly begins to find her way and realise that she too is entitled to a second chance....

January Read: Cootehill Reading Group

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn


'What are you thinking, Amy? The question I've asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions storm cloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?' Just how well can you ever know the person you love? This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears.The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches.He says they aren't his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what did really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife? And what was left in that half-wrapped box left so casually on their marital bed? In this novel, marriage truly is the art of war...

January Read - Bailieborough Reading Group

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa 



Palestine, 1948. A mother clutches her six-month old son as Israeli soldiers march through the village of Ein Hod. In a split second, her son is snatched from her arms and the fate of the Abulheja family is changed forever. Forced into a refugee camp in Jenin and exiled from the ancient village that is their lifeblood, the family struggles to rebuild their world.