Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 440
Irish History & Politics
7/8 February 2009
New History of Ireland vol. 2: Medieval Ireland 1169-1534 edited by Art Cosgrove
Large Trade Paperback; 40 Euro / 60 USD / 30 UK; 1000 pages
A New History of Ireland is the largest scholarly project in modern Irish history. In 9 volumes, it provides a comprehensive new synthesis of modern scholarship on every aspect of Irish history and prehistory, from the earliest geological and archaeological evidence, through the Middle Ages, down to the present day.
Volume II opens with a character study of medieval Ireland and a panoramic view of the country c.1169, followed by nineteen chapters of narrative history, with a survey of "Land and People, c.1300." There are further chapters on Gaelic and colonial society, economy and trade, literature in Irish, French, and English, architecture and sculpture, manuscripts and illuminations, and coinage.
Creating Ireland: The Words and Events That Shaped Us by Paul Daly
Hardback; 27 Euro / 38 USD / 19 UK; 310 pages with full colour photographs throughout [Add To Basket]
As the first shots of the War of Independence rang out, those given power in the 1918 general election turned their backs on Westminster and established the assembly of Ireland - Dail Eireann. Since it gathered for the first time on 21 January 1919, the Dail has been at the heart of Irish life, shaping the growing nation and providing the backdrop for many of the major debates that have defined Irish society and what it means to be Irish. From the 1922 debates on the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which created the party system we know today, through debates on neutrality, censorship, Northern Ireland, abortion and divorce to the radical social and economic developments of recent years, what happens within the walls of Leinster House reflects who we are. Creating Ireland is a fascinating exploration of Ireland through its politicians and its people reflecting its changing position from fledgling nation to stalwart of Europe.
Ireland: Then and Now by Victoria Murphy
Oblong Hardback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 192 pages, with full colour and black-and-white photographs throughout
This book features photographic views of Ireland now and 100 years ago.Ireland has changed almost unimaginably over the past century. In this book Victoria Murphy takes a trip through the Irish landscape and townscape replicating the photographs that were taken for the book "Ireland in Pictures" published in 1898, itself the centenary of the 1798 rebellion and the massive changes that swept though Ireland in the years after. "Ireland: Then and Now" includes pictures from nearly every county in the country from Adare Abbey in Limerick through to the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. The images reflect the massive changes that have happened over the last century. They also show that despite the changes, in many places there is at least some continuity.
Land and Revolution: Nationalist Politics in the West of Ireland, 1891-1921 by Fergus Campbell
Trade Paperback; 33 Euro / 42 USD / 21 UK; 356 pages [Add To Basket]
In the 1890s, most of the inhabitants of the west of Ireland experienced great poverty and hardship, living - as they did - on farms that were too small to provide them with a reasonable standard of living. By 1921, however, the living conditions of many of them had been transformed by a series of Land Acts that revolutionized the system of land holding in Ireland. This book examines agrarian conflict in Ireland during the neglected period between the death of Parnell (1891) and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921), and demonstrates that land reform was often introduced in response to popular protest. Whereas earlier accounts have tended to examine Irish political history from the perspective of British governments or nationalist leaders, this book breaks new ground by providing an account of popular political activity in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland. For the first time, the social background, ideas, and activities of grass-roots political activists are systematically explored, as are the class conflicts that threatened to fragment the unity of the nationalist movement in rural communities. By reinserting the activism of ordinary people into the broader historical record, Dr Campbell suggests new interpretations of a number of critical developments including the failure of 'constructive unionism', the origins of Sinn Féin, and the nature and dynamics of the Irish revolution (1916-23). Using the recently released archives of the Bureau of Military History, the story of the war of independence in the western county of Galway is told in the words of both the Irish Republican Army and its enemies. Land and Revolution transforms our understanding of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Irish history, and also contributes to comparative studies of nationalism, revolution, and agrarian protest.
Terrible Queer Creatures: Homosexuality in Irish History by Brian Lacey
Hardback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 300 pages
The ‘love that dare not speak its name’ was as common in Ireland throughout all stages of its history as it was in other parts of the world. Under certain cultural and historical conditions the expression of homosexuality in Ireland, as elsewhere, became more accepted or, at least, more visible than at any other times.
This book attempts to describe some of that visibility from early Ireland to the late 20th century. But it is clear that, like an iceberg, a far greater part of the story remains, and will almost certainly always remain, invisible. That is not just because homosexuality was often a deliberately concealed or secret thing. On the contrary, for some periods of our history its very absence from the record may in fact be a reflection of how ordinary, commonplace and unremarkable its expression was. Several writers on gay history, such as Martin Duberman, have alluded to the paradox that although we have, relatively speaking, only a tiny amount of historical documentation of heterosexual behaviour in the past, no one would claim that this is an accurate reflection of what actually took place. There is no reason to think that homosexual behaviour was any different.
Gender and Power in Irish History edited by Maryann Gialanella Valiulis
Large Format Paperback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 244 pages [Add To Basket]
This collection of articles poses the question: What can gender history add to the traditional narrative of Irish history? How can it help us to understand the ways in which power operated in and flowed through Irish society? It is premised on the assumption that men and women are actors in the creation of their society, influenced by the ideology of the period, but also challenging and resisting the assumptions and beliefs of their era. The articles included in this collection are far-ranging and thematically diverse, united by the common theme of gender. While women play a dominant role in its pages, it makes visible the power and presence of men. Sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit, the history written on these pages is a history of the ways in which women and men constructed, negotiated and made visible the roles, ideas and representations that governed their particular society. In so doing, it provides an alternative reading to the traditional narrative of Irish history.This book focuses mainly on the modern period and includes two articles from outside of Ireland which provides a comparative focus. It also includes a theoretical introductory section on the nature of gender history from three leading Irish historians.
Irish Protestant Identities edited by Mervyn Busteed, Frank Neal and Jonathan Tonge
Hardback; 85 Euro / 125 USD / 60 UK; 390 pages [Add To Basket]
Irish Protestant Identities is a major multi-disciplinary portrayal and analysis of the often overlooked Protestant tradition in Ireland. A distinguished team of contributors explore what is distinctive about the religious minority on the island of Ireland. Protestant contributions to literature, culture, religion and politics are all examined. Accessible and engaging throughout, the book examines the contributions to Irish society from Protestant authors, Protestant churches, the Orange Order, Unionist parties and Ulster loyalists. Most books on Ireland have concentrated upon the Catholicism and Nationalism that shaped the country in terms of literature, poetry, politics and outlook. This book instead explores how a minority tradition has developed and coped with existence in a polity and society in which some historically felt under-represented or neglected.
Medieval History VIII edited by Sean Duffy
Large Format Trade Paperback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; [Add To Basket]
This 8th volume of proceedings of the annual Friends of Medieval Dublin Symposium contains reports on recent archaeological excavations: Edmund O'Donovan's excavation at Golden Lane produced early Viking burials, while Claire Walsh found traces of an early pre-Viking roadway nearby at Chancery Lane, and Roseanne Meenan reports on investigations in Stephen's Street Lower. Linzi Simpson suggests that the graveyard known as Bully's Acre may have been part of the early medieval monastery of Kilmainham, Nessa Walsh examines the pre-Romanesque churches of Dublin, while Michael Gibbons offers a reassessment of the relationship between the 9th-century Viking longphort and the origins of urbanization in Ireland. Alan Fletcher presents an overview of the annals and chronicles surviving from the later-medieval city, Raymond Gillespie, by shedding light on the "City Chronicle", considers the way Dubliners viewed themselves in the 15th and 16th centuries, and Bernadette Cunningham explores the portrayal of later-medieval Dublin in the annals from Gaelic Ireland. Also included is Andrew McDonald's assessment of the effects on Dublin-Manx relations of the English conquest of Ireland in the late 12th century.
Years of Darkness: The Troubles Remembered by Gordon Gillespie
Trade Paperback; 17 Euro / 24 USD / 12 UK; 302 pages, with a 16-page photo insert [Add To Basket]
In Years of Darkness Gordon Gillespie looks back at more than eighty of the events that shaped the Northern Ireland Troubles and Peace Process. After outlining the background of each event, Gordon Gillespie examines the main political initiatives and security incidents which defined the past four decades. In a series of short chapters beginning with the Derry Civil Rights march of October 1968 he traces events through to the formation of the current Northern Ireland Executive in 2007.
Drawing on newspaper reports of the day, Gillespie reminds readers of the times of optimism and despair which accompanied the great as well as tragic events. Years of Darkness covers landmark days such as Bloody Sunday, Bloody Friday, the Sunningdale Agreement, the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the Enniskillen and Omagh bombs and many others. However, the book also recalls some of the 'forgotten' atrocities of the Troubles, among them Coleraine in June 1973; the Strand Bar in April 1975; and the Ramble Inn in July 1976. The often graphic accounts of those who survived such events remind the reader of the human cost of the Troubles.
Years of Darkness provides an analysis of the main political and security developments. But much of its focus is on the impact of the Northern Ireland conflict on the ordinary person and on those who survived as much as on those who died.
Two Brothers, Two Wars by Thomas McAlindon
Trade Paperback; 18 Euro / 24 USD / 12 UK; 180 pages [Add To Basket]
The author's namesake uncle, Tom McAlindon, joined the Royal Irish Rifles in 1908 aged seventeen and fought on the Western Front from August 1914 until late 1918. He died agonizingly from dysentery in a military hospital in the south of England, to which he had just been sent from France. His mother and eleven-year-old brother Denis had made the grim journey from Armagh to be with him. The sight of his beloved and admired brother dying in such distress seemed likely to haunt Denis forever.Years later Denis became a missionary priest in Burma. In 1941 the Japanese routed the British army there and captured his fellow priests, but his remote mission station remained undiscovered. In that sense he was untouched by World War II; yet this war recruited his active compassion, and did so in such a way that he finally laid to rest his ghost of Tom.Drawing on family recollections, letters, military records and memoirs, and the archives of the Columban Missionary Society, the author tells a strange and moving story about the early life and war experiences of his two uncles, a story with symmetry of a kind seldom found in the haphazard events of real life; a story too about war and its horrors that finally consoles.
Republican Cobh and the East Cork Volunteers by Kieran McCarthy
Trade Paperback; 25 Euro / 36 USD / 18 UK; 416 pages [Add To Basket]
McCarthy gives a fascinating insight to the Volunteer Movement in Cobh, how they extended and built up a potent guerrilla movement throughout East Cork, and played a pivotal role in earning Cork the title of the Rebel County. He documents the evolution of the local volunteers post civil war, and the progress of the republican struggle.
Sean Lester, Poland and the Nazi Takeover of Danzig by Paul McNamara
Trade Paperback; 25 Euro / 32 USD / 16 UK; 256 pages [Add To Basket]
Sean Lester, a Belfast protestant and Irish nationalist, became one of Ireland's first truly international diplomats when, in 1934, he took up the post of High Commissioner of the League of Nations in the Free City of Danzig, a Baltic port which both Germany and Poland coveted. Finding himself in a cauldron of intrigue, Lester made strenuous and courageous efforts to frustrate the Danzig Nazi Party's attempts to gain complete control of the city and return it to the German Reich. By mid-1936, having become virtually the only obstacle left in the way of Nazi conquest of Danzig, the Irishman soon became the focus of a very aggressive, and eventually successful campaign by Hitler and the Nazi movement to have him forced out of the Free City. As it was the only country to have official rights in Danzig, Poland's position regarding these events is crucial and perhaps was more important than that of the League of Nations itself.Extensively based on material regarding Lester from the Polish state archives never before seen outside Poland, this book examines the circumstances surrounding the Irishman's tenure in the Free City where he became one of the first western European diplomats to see the Nazi mask slip. Other primary sources used in the book are the National Archives, London, the League of Nations Archives in Geneva, Sean Lester's diary and papers and to a lesser extent German foreign ministry archives. The failure of European governments to heed Lester's warnings and to subsequently allow his 'removal' from Danzig turned out to be a missed opportunity to stop Hitler in his tracks three years before the outbreak of the Second World War. Of all the parties involved in this tale of intrigue, misjudgments and bad faith, Irishman Sean Lester is the only one to emerge with his honour intact.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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