Allen Foster (1) (1974–)

Taking some inspiration from Charles Fort and some from Ripley as well as some from boring history lectures this is a humourous look at some of the strange things that Irish people have done,had done to them and to others.

My favourite story was that of Ivan Beshoff, who died at 104 in 1987, "the last living participant in the famous mutiny of the Battleship Potemkin in 1905, on which he was a stoker. He arrived in Dublin in 1913 with a letter from Lenin to the trade union leader Jim Larkin, who got him a job in the docks. During World War I Beshoff was arrested as a German spy and imprisoned in the Curragh. After the war ended Beshoff established a Soviet oil distribution company, but this enterprise later failed. In 1922 he set up his fish and chip shop on Usher's Quay. Since then Beshoff's chippers have become a Dublin institution.

Amusing and worthwhile but disjointed and in some cases too short.… (mehr)