Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 172
New Irish History
Tans, Terror and Troubles: Kerry's Real Fighting Story 1913-23 by T. Ryle Dwyer
Paperback; 13.99 IEP / 17.50 USD / 10.99 UK / 18.80 EURO; Mercier Press, 399 pages, with two b/w photo inserts [Add To Basket]What happened in Kerry during the War of Independence and the Civil War has been the subject of controversy. Although Eoin O'Duffy - the chief of staff of the Free State Army - said that 'Kerry's entire record is the Black and Tan struggle consisted in shooting an unfortunate soldier the day of the Truce', some of the earliest operations of the War of Independence took place there or involved Kerrymen. The guns for the planned national uprising of 1916 were supposed to be landed in Kerry, and Roger Casement was arrested there on Good Friday 1916. Moreover, although Eamon de Valera is usually described as the last commandant to have surrendered during the Easter Rising and the only one not to have been executed afterwards, a Kerryman, Thomas Ashe, also survived as was, in fact, the last commandant to lay down his arms - and the only one to achieve his military objective.
Since 'Kerry's Fighting Story' was published in 1947, no attempt has been made to cover the period of the War of Independence and the subsequent Troubles in the county. Unfortunately, that book was a rushed production and did not touch on the events of the Civil War. This book gives the full story of events in Kerry during those dark days.
Patriot Traitors: Roger Casement, John Amery and the Real Meaning of Treason by Adrian Weale
Hardback; 25.00 IEP / 30.50 USD / 20.00 UK / 31.80 EURO; Viking, 300 pages, with 2 b/w photo inserts [Add To Basket]In the twentieth century, only four British citizens were convicted of the ancient crime of high treason and only two of these - Roger Casement and John Amery - suffered what was, until 1998, the only penalty allowed by law: execution.
During the First World War, Casement, a retired British consular official knighted by King Edward VII for his humanitarian work in Africa and South America, attempted to recruit a brigade of Irish prisoners of war to liberate Ireland after the German victory on the Western front. In the Second World War, Amery, the son of Churchill's Secretary of State for India, tried to recruit a legion of British soldiers into the Waffen-SS to fight against Bolshevism on the Eastern Front.
But even a cursory examination of their crimes reveals both men to have been inept and ineffectual traitors, more of a burden to their German sponsors than an asset. And the full weight of state power, legitimate and illegitimate, was brought to bear to ensure that they were hanged - even though the government knew that Casement was a confused, naïve idealist and a barely controlled compulsive pederast, and that Amery was a psychopathic, sexually bizarre 'moral imbecile', incapable of understanding the concepts of right and wrong.
This book is the first serious historical study to use the newly released MI5 personal files on the two men, and the author illuminates one of the darkest corners of recent history.
The Decline of the Big House in Ireland by Terence Dooley
Hardback; 19.99 IEP / 23.50 USD / 17.50 UK / 25.40 EURO; 336 pages, Wolfhound Press [Add To Basket]As late as the 1860s, Irish landlords were still the wealthy elite of the country. During the relative affluence of the post-Famine years, they continued to spend lavishly on the upkeep of their estates. However, for a variety of reasons, by the late nineteenth century, landlords had begun to find their disposable income greatly diminished. With the advent of the Land League, they faced increasing pressure to overturn the old ways of land management. The First World War proved an important watershed, and had a huge psychological effect. Big-house social life was thrown into disarray, and the fabric of a way of life began to disintegrate. The revolutionary years 1919-1923 proved to be a further catalyst in the decline of the big house, and the foundation of the Irish Free State finally spelt the end for landlordism in Ireland. This book in unique in its examination of the reasons for the economic, social and political demise of the Irish landlord class. The author's fascinating investigation provides an insight into the lives, attitudes and outlooks of the landed class, and examines the motivation behind the financial, social and political decisions that an ever-changing world forced them to make.
Fenian Diary: Denis B. Cashman on board the Hougoumont 1867-1868 edited by C.W. Sullivan III
Paperback; 8.99 IEP / 10.50 USD / 7.50 UK / 11.50 EURO; 192 pages; Wolfhound Press [Add To Basket]In 1867, Fenianism in Ireland was at its peak. The English, desperate to stem the tide of rebellion, banished convicted Fenians, along with thousands of common criminals, to exile in Australia. 'The Hougoumont' was the last official convict ship to Australia. In the Autumn of 1867, she sailed from England. Among the Fenians on board was young Denis B. Cashman of Waterford, convicted of felony treason and sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. On the long journey, Cashman kept a diary. Now, almost 150 years later, this diary is available in all its rich, poignant detail.
The Way That I Went by Robert Lloyd Praeger
Paperback; 14.99 IEP / 18.00 USD / 12.50 UK / 19.10 EURO; Collins Press; 394 pages [Add To Basket]First published in 1937, this book represented a lifetime's exploration of the countryside - walking hills and bogs, swimming through flooded caverns, staying out all night on islands, sifting fossil bones and exploring cattle-tramped tombs. This was a time when conservation was still in the future, farmers welcomed rambling strangers and the countryside was largely tourist-free. The book crackles with the excitement and perplexity aroused by our then heritage of tombs and ring forts. This book offers an escape to the contemplation of nature in 'a time of rush and clatter, of fuss and noise and glare.' Michael Viney, who has written an introduction to this edition, puts the book in context and relates it to contemporary issues such as conservation, ecology and farming practices.
The Shape of Irish History by A.T.Q. Stewart
Hardback; 25.00 IEP / 30.50 USD / 20.00 UK / 31.80 EURO; Blackstaff, 208 pages [Add To Basket]Distilling a lifetime's distinguished scholarships, this meditation on the nature of history challenges hitherto sacrosanct assumptions about Ireland's past. In an exploration of the essential structure of what is called 'Irish history', Stewart looks at some unlighted areas and asks provocative questions about popular misconceptions. Even where such misconceptions have been refuted by academic research, he argues, the information has not been percolated into the general domain because modern historians, writing mainly for one another, have lost the wider audience. Criticising his own profession for purporting to be scientific while largely ignoring the implications of, for example, scientific archaeology, Stewart issues a characteristically bold challenge to received views. The result is a landmark book - elegant, stylish and effortlessly erudite - that lets some much-needed light and air into the closed-shop of Irish history.
On the Verge of Want compiled and edited by James Morrissey
Hardback; 25.00 IEP / 30.50 USD / 20.00 UK / 31.80 EURO; Crannog Books, 247 large format pages, with b/w photos [Add To Basket]This book is a unique insight into living conditions along Ireland's western seaboard in the late 19th century. In the later part of the 19th century, most of the inhabitants of the West of Ireland eked out a meager existence in conditions proximate to pathetic. Homes were akin to hovels as parents and offspring shared cramped accommodation with farm animals. Incomes were paltry - ranging from less than 10 pounds per year to just under 50 pounds for families. In many cases, receipts shaded expenditure by a few shillings. This book is filled with original documents which record the often appalling conditions which prevailed in the West of Ireland just over a century ago.
History of the Royal Hibernian Military School, Dublin: Irish Genealogical Sources 25
Paperback; IEP 8.00 / 10.50 USD / 7.00 UK / 10.20 EURO; Genealogical Society of Ireland [Add To Basket]This is the history of a forgotten place and, perhaps, a forgotten group of people. Both the pupils, of whom there were thousands over the years from 1770 to 1922, and the staff, are rarely mentioned as such in the history books. Yet, this school founded by people concerned with the large number of orphans in Dublin, in particular those who were orphaned because of the many wars which took place in the early 18th century, was the first of its kind in either Ireland or England at that time. Later on other schools were established on similar grounds elsewhere in the then British Isles. Unfortunately, most of the records of the School were destroyed in England during the Second World War. This book attempts to bring together some of those remaining in order to provide both an interesting historical 'read' and to help those researching family connections and, of course, it will be of use to those interested in this aspect of military history. The book includes a history of the School, lists of pupils and staff from the 1901 and 1911 Census Returns, lists of the memorial inscriptions in the adjoining graveyard (opened in 1851), list of deaths from 1851, rules of the establishment, etc.
Anatomy of a Siege: King John's Castle, Limerick, 1642 by Kenneth Wiggins
Hardback; 25.00 IEP / 30.50 USD / 20.00 UK / 31.80 EURO; Wordwell, 306 pages, with 1 colour photo insert and b/w photos throughout. [Add To Basket]King John's Castle survives today as a impressively well-preserved Anglo-Norman fortress in a commanding position along the eastern edge of the River Shannon. In the early months of 1642, when the Munster army of the Irish rebellion was admitted to Limerick, the Protestant and Anglo-Irish citizenry fled to the king's castle for protection, and were immediately besieged. To breach the masonry the besiegers used miners to make tunnels for the placing of timber props, ready for firing, underneath the foundations. The castle's defenders reacted by opening countermines to intercept the encroaching miners, hoping to save the wall from ruin. The use of specialised 'military mining' techniques of this type was exceedingly rare in Ireland, and fundamental to the exceptional events of this siege. This book brings together detailed documentary sources and unique archaeological discoveries in an expert assessment of this siege. It is the first book entirely devoted to King John's Castle, Limerick, and also the first on the siege of an Irish castle. The book incorporates plans, photographs, and reproductions to provide a well-illustrated and thorough analysis. It embraces the drama central to the story, while highlighting methods and skills seldom witnessed in Irish siege warfare.
Medieval Dublin II edited by Sean Duffy
Paperback; 21.00 IEP / 25.00 USD / 18.00 UK / 26.70 EURO; Irish Academic Press, 256 pages with drawings and b/w photos [Add To Basket]This book contains the proceedings of a second public symposium held by the Friends of Medievel Dublin in 2000 and it would be difficult to overemphasise their importance. Margaret Gowen's paper on archaeological excavations at the church of St. Michael le Pole reveals the earliest known evidence from the Christian era for human activity in the environs of the later town. Ann Lynch and Conleth Manning's findings from their extensive excavations at Dublin Castle in the mid-1980s are given a detailed airing here for the first time. We now know a good deal more about the town's earliest earthen defences, the Norse and later Norman town walls and mural towers, thanks to Clare Walsh's excavations at Ross Road, also here discussed.
The ups and downs of the career of Geoffrey Morton, the colourful mayor of Dublin in 1303-4, are meticulously pieced together by Philomena Connolly. Bernadette Williams demonstrates the contribution to chronicle-writing in medieval Dublin made by its Dominican friars. J.F. Lydon discusses the extent to which Anglo-Norman Dublin adapted the town's earlier Norse structures and administration. The classification of the ethnic background of the latter community is the pioneering project upon which Benedikt Hallgrimsson and Barra O Donnabhain have embarked, and they present some of their remarkable data in this volume; the latter also examines some intriguing evidence for the practice of cranial surgery in medieval Dublin.
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