Ireland: Reading and Viewing Before the Trip
 

I like to read and watch movies about places I am planning to visit or have just visited. Latest trip to Ireland gave me more opportunity than usual to do that. To a large extent, this list depended on what was easily available (through library, friends, some purchases).
This is what I read “to prepare” for trip:
A Short History of Modern Ireland by Richard Killeen*
Nory Ryan’s Song (a middle school novel about the famine) by Patricia Reilly Giff*
In Search of Ireland’s Heroes by Carmel McCaffrey*
James Joyce (Penguin Lives) by Edna O’Brien
Fingall O’Reilly, Irish Doctor by Patrick Taylor (novel)
A Dublin Student Doctor by Patrick Taylor (novel)
Chalice of Blood: Sister Fidelma Mystery by Peter Tremayne
History of the Rain by Niall Williams (novel)
A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy (novel)
Kenny’s Choice: 101 Irish Books You Must Read by Des Kenny
Give Them Stones by Mary Beckett (novel)
Even the Dead: a Quirke mystery by Benjamin Black
The Wild Irish: Elizabeth I and the Pirate O’Malley by Robin Maxwell* (historical novel)
O Come Ye Back to Ireland: Our First Year in County Clare, a memoir by Niall Williams
Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman by Nuala O’Faolain
W.B. Yeats and His World by M. MacLimmhour (biography)
The Dubliners by James Joyce (short stories)
(Since returning, I’ve read several Peter McGarr mysteries, set in Ireland, by Bartholomew Gill. Still intend to read Angela’s Ashes!)

Movies & Television:
Ballyangel (TV series)
In the Name of the Father (movie)
James Joyce’s Nora (movie)
In Search of Ancient Ireland (PBS documentary)
The Assassination of Michael Collins (documentary)
(Intend to watch The Field, starring Richard Harris, and The Quiet Man, maybe the Amy Adams movie that was filmed on Aran Islands now that I’m back.)

Anyone else do armchair travel before the real thing? Any suggestions for what I should have read or watched? I looked through several guidebooks, too, of course, but this was more fun.

There are quite a few books that feature Sister Fidelma so you might dig out more of those. There are also quite a few more Dr. Fingal O'Reilly and Maeve Binchey. I have enjoyed all of these. Likewise Niall Williams and his wife Christine. Morgan Llewellyn wrote a series of books which went through Irish history through the years (historical fiction).

I have read a lot of those and more.
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Donkey-P.../dp/076530984X
I loved this book.

Trinity by Leon Uris.
Silver Linings by Martin Fletcher, good book on NI.

The Secret of Roan Inish is a great movie. The Matchmaker is also very good.

Just thought of some more Irish stories and realized that I misspelled Llewellyn; it should be Llywelyn. Her books cover ancient times, Brian Boru up through the Easter rising.

Mary Pat Kelly tells the story of her Irish ancestor who fled the famine and came to the US in the book "Galway Bay". Recently she has written a follow up.

Brendan O'Carroll's The Mammy (aka Agnes Browne which also was a movie and I think is available on DVD), The Chisellers and the Granny. This series had me in tears one moment and then next chapter rolling in laughter.

Ryan's Daughter is a movie set and primarily filmed in Ireland; I re-watched it a few months ago preparing for my trip to Ireland this fall. It is set on the west coast and was filmed on the Dingle Peninsula. The time period is 1916, I believe, and it includes some of the political issues of the time.

Good suggestions and lots of choices, thank you! I had thought about buying Ryan's Daughter; have read that movie's scenery is beautiful.

Movies & TV Series:

The Quiet Man
Father Ted (quirky series)
My Left Foot
The Guard
In the Name of the Father
Waking Ned Devine (filmed on the Isle of Man but supposed to be an Irish village)
Michael Collins
The Field
Into the West
Angela's Ashes
A Shine of Rainbows
Circle of Friends
P.S. I Love You
Excalibur (1981)
Brooklyn
The Dead
Leap Year
The Magdalene Sisters
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Philomena
Man of Aran
Barry Lyndon
Da
The Matchmaker