We Don't Know Ourselves

A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958

By: Fintan O'Toole

Narrated by: Aidan Kelly

Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Fintan O'Toole, Ireland's leading public intellectual and author of Heroic Failure, tells a history of Ireland in his own time - a brilliant interweaving of memoir and historical narrative.

Fintan O'Toole was born in 1958. His life covers Ireland's journey out of underdevelopment and domination by the Church, to the country's transformation into the relatively prosperous and tolerant society that it is today. But, along the way, there was a sectarian civil war in the North, which cast a dark shadow over the whole island, and bitter struggles for intellectual, civil and sexual freedoms. The Church fought a long rearguard action to defend its entrenched positions in education, healthcare and childcare. The truth about child abuse and institutional cruelty emerged slowly, and women still had to die to make possible the liberalisation of Irish laws on contraception and divorce.

This is a very personal history by a writer who is considered by many to be the country's leading public intellectual. He was a participant in many of the controversies and arguments of the past 35 years and knew the leading literary, musical and political figures of those decades.

©2021 Fintan O'Toole (P)2021 W F Howes

Could not put it down

As the daughter of an Irish immigrant who has never quite been able to wrap my head around the mysteries and things unspoken, this book really captures the complexities and contradictions of the culture my family hails from. The stuff about The Troubles too I found particularly fascinating.

I loved this book & audiobook and couldn’t put either down. I’m sad it’s over and I miss it already. Fintan O’Toole is an incredibly accomplished journalist who expertly weaves the political and the personal in ways that really capture the spirit of Ireland as only an Irish person can.

I feel I know myself a little better now, and the family and country that informs so much of my identity.

An incredible book

As a child of an Irish immigrant ( I am now 76) I have enjoyed this book immensely and look foreward to listening to it again . It has also helped me to understand what is happening here is South Africa. There are so many similaritieswith our journey towards becoming an itegrated , functional and ethically sound part of Africa . That which everyone belived we could be and somehow we are not yet mature enough to grasp and ‘be’ Thankyou

Superb!

A must read for anyone wishing to understand Ireland's transformation as a people from the dark days of the past to the confident modernity of the present.

What a book - pity about the narration.

What can one say about Fintan O'Toole? The clarity of his writing, the depth of his research and his eye for telling detail are only a part of what makes him the best commentator modern Ireland has produced. It's maybe a long read/listen for somebody who is not Irish but anybody who stays the course will come away much wiser about how the country got to where it is today.

He is able to look back on extraordinary and unlikely people, places and events and to tell his story, at times with well-suppressed but still tangible anger.

It's a pity the narration often comes across as a journeyman's work and is clearly not up to the standard of O'Toole's prose. The pronunciation of non-English words is slapdash - for French and other languages this might be overlooked but the careless mispronunciation of Irish names and phrases is excruciatingly bad.

Great AudioBook; Shite Production Company (W.F. HOWES)

Fintan says it as it is.
He doesn’t pretend to know everything and nor should you or I. But we should all question sacred cows handed down to us by the past, and by present forces. Fintan questions everything. And that questioning leads to obvious answers. It really is that simple.
Read this author; you will be inspired and you will learn to also question the status quo.
All that said, it is nothing short of ridiculous that the production company who made the recording left poor Aidan Kelly looking like a fool when he is anything but! Aidan is a wonderful narrator but he doesn’t speak Irish (read/listen to the book to find out why Ireland belittles all things Irish 😆)
Aidan doesn’t know how to pronounce Irish words or place names. This doesn’t reflect badly on him or on Fintan – they are NOT in control here; the production company is at fault for being too lazy (or too stingy) to stump up a few quid for an Irish language advisor. I’ve no idea how much they charge but even at €250/day this should have been an essential budget line item.
My advice is not to allow this to deter you from buying this audiobook – if you speak Irish, you’ll have a good giggle and, if you don’t, it matters not.
The book is wonderful, the narration is wonderful. The production company are lazy. I went hunting just now and it took me 20mins hard effort to even locate them: W.F. HOWES. Funny that they turn out to be English – a possibly colonial reason why they are happy to take our money for a sub-par product? I noticed a link on their website called “Quality Policy”. Guess what? It leads to a 404 Error:
“Page Not Found
Sorry, the page you’re trying to view does not exist”
I rest my case 😁
Enjoy the book, readers; W.F. HOWES, wake up, cop on, pull up yer socks or leave the business.