An elegant and personal parable about Ireland's decline

The Fall of Ireland by Dermot Bolger

**New Island, €12.99**

**Reviewed by Anna Carey**

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Martin is an ordinary man living in quite extraordinary times. He's a civil servant who has been sent to accompany a junior minister on a St Patrick's Day trip to China during the dying days of the last government.

Bored and lonely in his luxury hotel room, he finds himself booking a massage. But the subsequent encounter with ...