"The story of this book starts in 1993, when extracts from Elizabeth Bowen's works were included in A North Cork Anthology, with the qualification that, though her family had property connections in the areas, she could not be regarded as a North Cork, or even an Irish, writer. This caused outrage in the Dublin media and some vicious attacks on Jack Lane and Brendan Clifford, the compilers of the Anthology. There was even doubt cast on the fact that Ms Bowen spied against Ireland in the Second World War." "The upshot of that controversy was that the Aubane Historical Society traced several of Ms Bowen's secret reports, which are published here in full for the first time." "The book is rounded out by reproducing the polemic about Bowen, which took place between the Aubane Historical Society and luminaries of the Irish Times and the Sunday Business Post. The controversy about how to describe Ms Bowen goes to the heart of what Ireland and Irish culture is, and this book is as good a starting place as any for those who seek the middle path between the Scylla of bigoted nationalism and the Charybdis of West British globalism."--BOOK JACKET.