Of a clutch of recently published books giving fresh insight into Irish culture and politics, the most difficult read is Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (I.B. Tauris, £21.99; Tablet price £19.79), which is written by Claire McGettrick and other campaigners who raised public awareness of the trauma of those women who were brutally incarcerated in Ireland’s Magdalene asylums. The behaviour of Catholic orders is rightly condemned, and many of the passages are harrowing. The book describes how Dublin’s last Magdalene Laundry closed only in 1996, and so emphasises that the legacy of abuse is still very much with us, and that the fight for justice must continue.