The influential of the Emerald Isle

Who's Who in Ireland by Maureen Cairnduff (Vesey Publications, £14).
AN INVALUABLE reference book to "the influential 1000" who run the 26 Counties, this carefully researched directory is splendidly written.
For once in an Irish publication women get equal billing with men. The famous 1000 include our own columnist, Eamonn Andrews, and one of our directors, Paddy McGrath, who has been made a Knight of Saint Gregory since this work was published. It also includes a former contributor to the Catholic Herald, Garret FitzGerald, presently Taoiseach, "married to Joan O'Farrell, believed to influence his political views".
A close study of these factpacked pages gives the impression that the most successful of the chosen 1000 attended Xavier School in Donnybrook as their prep school, and thereafter Clongowes Wood, Belvedere, Castleknock, or Downside.
For ethical reasons there are no members of the medical profession in the 1000, and so we can't read about Dr Tom Walsh the founding father of' the Wexford Festival of Opera. The Church is represented by one photograph, that of Sr Regina Durkan, the educationalist. I was delighted to see Archbishop Tom Morris of Cashel and Emily, and Bishop Dermot O'Mahony of Dublin included. Irish chieftans abound, and the one I like best is "The O'Donel of Tireonnell, Aodh O'Donal", who is Fr Ambrose OFM, a parish priest in Zimbabwe.
Terence Sheehy