present and no trite assumptions about its precarious future. The emphasis is on putting forward an honest and objective appraisal of the multifaceted and intriguing discipline that those of us working in Irish Studies have many reasons to be grateful for. Although it was not feasible in this review to cover the 37 chapters in the book, it should be said that each is worthy of mention and the matter can be easily remedied by acquiring a copy of the Handbook, which will not disappoint. Eamon Maher is Director of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies in TU Dublin and general editor of the Reimagining Ireland series with Peter Lang Oxford. Notes 1 It should be remembered that Studies was the first twentieth-century academic journal to grapple with the massive changes that have been taking place in Irish society over more than a century. Founded in 1912, its articles have covered areas as diverse as economics, politics, literature, religion, historical revisionism, and others too numerous to mention. For an overview of the journal’s importance, see Bryan Fanning (ed.), An Irish Century: Studies 1912–2012 (Dublin: UCD Press, 2012). Sinéad Moynihan, Ireland, Migration and Return Migration: the ‘Returned Yank’in the Cultural Imagination, 1952 to the Present (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2019), vii+274 pages. I remember a cartoon in an Irish paper showing some celebrity or other stepping off a plane at Shannon and a reporter immediately sticking a microphone in his face and asking, ‘Tell me, Mr Important, and what do you think of Ireland?’ It captured, if not perfectly, our obsession with what other people think of us, but it also signalled our endless concern about what we think of ourselves. Sinéad Moynihan’s widely-researched and fully-documented study of ‘the returned Yank’ in film and literature is a rich engagement with these issues. After all, what better way to find out what others think than to find out what those revenants see when they return? They have the privilege of having been here, been there, done many things and now come back with new eyes, sometimes dewy with romantic images, often blinkered with prejudice, but always filtered through glasses of their own. The author journeys with remarkable ease through film and literature, Studies • volume 110 • number 439 369 Autumn 2021: Book Reviews beginning with the ‘Quiet Men’ of the literature of the troubles, through the less-examined story of the female returned Yank, taking a hard look at the question of property to which we are in thrall, and querying the common genealogy of Irish fiction. In the introduction the question is asked as to whether the Returned Yank has repeatedly been ‘the catalyst for questions surrounding Irish identity: what is Irishness?’ Many readers may take a deep sigh at the thought of facing yet another study of this never-ending quest, but the approach here is generally refreshing. And it is perfectly correct to state without any backward glance that a great chunk of Irish literature is tangled with and often choked by this whole ‘Irishness’ question. But as there is no escaping it, we must plunge right in. One of the reasons we cringe at filmic depictions of ourselves is that they have such wide provenance. So, a film such as The Quiet Man itself will raise spoken or unspoken questions about its relation to our own experience. Where does it stand along the spectrum of stage-Irishness? Are we being unduly sensitive if we find corniness where none was intended? Yes, we can cringe at Darby O’Gill and the Little People, although it was always just a piece of hokum, and wince at Julia Roberts’ Irish accent in Michael Collins, even though those who are not Irish will find nothing at all wrong with it. Or should we be rightly angry at the fantastic absurdity of Angela’s Ashes, whether in book or in film? Any study of the fiction and films of the troubles is going to be fraught with sensitivity. Sineád Moynihan has read deeply in the original material, but is equally adept at sifting the secondary and critical response. In this way, we...