Bøger af Ian McKay

'Something Fishy' is an hilarious comedy romp, a 'rib cracking', laugh a minute, comedy of errors. It's a humorous yarn that tells the stories of five men who become kids again, when they set off on a weekend sea fishing trip to the rugged and beautiful west coast of Ireland. Over the weekend the weather is perfect, the sea is calm and the sunsets are simply breathtaking. However, during the trip, there are plots and counter plots afoot, as the men compete with each other to win the annual shield for the heaviest fish caught. In one unforgetable scene, two of the fishing party lose their false teeth; and, in the most unlikely and unusual of circumstances, one of them gets his back again. A two hundred Euro banknote takes an eventful trip around the mythical town of West Habour, in County Mayo, and solves one or two problems for some of the the local population. Problems for the hotel manager, Eamon Kelly, the butcher Mick Keogh, the pig farmer Dermot Walsh and the animal feed merchant, Sean Horgan. He and the beautiful young blonde West harbour council office worker, Maggie Donnely, are both doubly grateful beneficiaries. Of the five men only four go fishing because the fifth man; Charlie Abbott, a man who has a love for large women, is otherwise engaged. He spends the weekend in Liverpool with a rather large lady called Big Mary, with life changing consequences for him! Some of the events that occur over the weekend create tensions between the different personalities of the men. The strong bonds of old friendships are tested to the limit: and, inevitably, there are both winners and losers. At the end of the trip, the party leave Ireland and return home to Liverpool, and the story takes a couple of surprising twists and turns. They find themselves in a hair raising car chase around darkened Liverpool dockland streets, carrying an unexpected 'passenger'. Charlie Abbott has bitten off more than he can chew with Big Mary: and for him, life will never be the same again!

The Vimy Trap provides a powerful probe of commemoration cultures. This subtle, fast-paced work of public history-combining scholarly insight with sharp-eyed journalism, and based on primary sources and school textbooks, battlefield visits and war art-explains both how and why peace and war remain contested terrain in ever-changing landscapes