This coming-of-age memoir is not only about the author but Ireland itself. Ireland's state-run television—called Radio Telefis Éireann (RTE)—was introduced on the last day of 1961. Doyle (now a TV critic for a Toronto newspaper), weaves tales of Bat Masterson
along with everyday life in Nenagh, County Tipperary, where priests, begrudgers and busybodies prevail in a country not much changed from when Frank McCourt escaped it more than a decade before. "Nenagh was full of religion," according to Doyle, and he successfully escaped a nation where priests and the fear of sex—not to mention poverty, immigration, revolution in the north and lack of birth control and divorce—reigned by tuning in such shows as Gunsmoke
and Monty Python
. Doyle does a marvelous of job of dissecting the cultures of each county by what kind of programming they provided. As the book ends, we see the walls of old Ireland collapsing as the Catholic Church loses its place of prominence and new laws on birth control and divorce are introduced into the country, just as Ireland's economic prominence is in its ascendancy. A marvelous read, with keen insights and laugh-out-loud moments, that explains how Ireland, with the help of the TV set, has evolved over the past 40 years. (Jan.)
