Browse all reviews
Irish Freedom: the History of Nationalism in Ireland / Richard English
Review Date: 30 November 2008
Having extensively written on radical republicanism in 20th-century Ireland, Richard English approaches the subject of Irish nationalism with expertise. His latest book, Irish Freedom: the History of Nationalism in Ireland, follows closely on both his acclaimed study of the IRA, Armed Struggle (2003), and a sophisticated thematic biography, Ernie O’Malley: IRA Intellectual (1998).
Royal Inauguration in Gaelic Ireland c.1100–1600: a Cultural Landscape Study / Elizabeth FitzPatrick
Review Date: 01 March 2006
For many medieval historians, royal inauguration means a coronation ceremony, generally at a long-established church, often a cathedral. In Ireland however, inauguration ceremonies mostly took place at special open-air assembly places.
Irish Migrants in New Zealand, 1840–1937: ‘The Desired Haven’ / Angela McCarthy
Review Date: 01 March 2006
Angela McCarthy has written a useful book about Irish emigration to New Zealand, based upon 253 letters that passed between the two countries over a period just short of a century. This review discusses the author's methodology and findings through the perspective of two analytical tools, Alice's Letters and Shanacoole Exceptionalism.
The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798–1882 / Michael de Nie
Review Date: 01 March 2006
How much can old newspapers tell us about what people thought in the past? Did the press reflect shared national perspectives on particular issues, and widely held beliefs and prejudices about other peoples, cultures and countries? How far did it act either to embody or to shape 'public opinion', and thus influence the formation of political positions and government policies? These are questions that many historians…
The Politics of the Irish Civil War /
Review Date: 01 March 2006
If you are shallow enough to buy this book because of its cover you will be heartily disappointed. The image of Arthur Griffith brandishing a Union Jack, with destruction in his wake and the bodies of women and children trampled under his feet, is possibly the most inappropriate that the author or his publisher could have chosen.
Nationalism and the Irish Party: Provincial Ireland, 1910–1916 / Michael Wheatley
Review Date: 01 March 2006
This is an ambitious and original book that brings to light a good deal of new material on nationalist politics in the Irish midlands between 1910 and 1916. Wheatley has adopted an original methodology – to explore five counties in what he calls 'middle Ireland' (Leitrim, Longford, Roscommon, Sligo and Westmeath) over the period between the general elections of 1910 and the Easter Rising of 1916.
British Interventions in Early Modern Ireland / eds. Ciaran Brady, Jane Ohlmeyer
Review Date: 01 March 2006
Aidan Clarke is a formidable and influential scholar of early modern Ireland. His scholarship has always set a high standard: firmly grounded empirically, challenging of received 'truths' and, in its faithfulness to chronology, sensitive to how contemporaries may have perceived events. And while the tools have always been traditional, the questions asked and contexts considered have not.
Sir Henry Docwra, 1564–1631: Derry’s Second Founder / John McGurk
Review Date: 01 March 2006
Sir Henry Docwra, first baron Docwra of Culmore (in the Irish peerage), personified those who rose thanks to the opportunities offered by Ireland in the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Docwra shows how minor gentlemen of obscure but solid backgrounds prospered thanks particularly to soldiering.
Politics and the Irish Working Class, 1830–1945 / eds. Fintan Lane, Donal Ó Drisceoil
Review Date: 01 March 2006
This Fintan Lane and Donal Ó Drisceoil edited work is a welcome addition to the existing historiography. It concerns the Irish working class and politics over the course of a century. As the introduction points out, the attention of historians has not been directed towards Irish labour to the extent seen in other western European countries.
Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, 1685-1766: A Fatal Attachment / Éamonn Ó Ciardha
Review Date: 01 November 2002
As the volume of books and articles on eighteenth-century Ireland continues to expand, so Irish Jacobitism increasingly stands out as a glaring omission. In 1998 Professor Breandán Ó Buachalla produced a major study, in Irish, of the place of the Stuarts in Gaelic Irish literature in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.