Nick Maxwell The transformation of Ireland 1900–2000 Diarmaid Ferriter (Profile Books, £30) ISBN 1861973071 The blurb misleads by suggesting that these 759 pages (excluding the scholarly apparatus) are about the transformation of Ireland from an ‘impoverished . . . corner of the British Empire’ into ‘the “Celtic Tiger”’. In the first chapter, dealing with the years 1900–12, … Read more
Fearghal McGarry (Dundalgan Press, E6) ISBN 0852211430 This biography follows Fearghal McGarry’s first book, Irish politics and the Spanish Civil War (1999), a work of such comprehensive objectivity that it deserves much wider recognition as the definitive textbook on the subject. By contrast, the limitations of McGarry’s second book are only partly related to its … Read more
Brendan Bradshaw and Dáire Keogh (eds) (Columba Press, E30) ISBN 1856073505 This is a collection of 23 articles, all relating to the history of Christianity in Ireland, which aim to fill the need for a book for ‘the interested non-specialist as well as undergraduates . . . about the history of the church in Ireland … Read more
As readers are by now aware, Bookworm has a particular fondness for dictionaries. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable was first compiled by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1810–97) in 1870. Ever since it has settled arguments, proved essential to compilers of quizzes and crosswords, sent browsers happily to sleep, saved the sanity of distracted parents beset … Read more
Celebrating transatlantic Waterford —the Waterford–Newfoundland connection Waterford Museum of Treasures The Granary, Merchant’s Quay April–Sept.: Mon.–Sat. 9.30am–6pm; Sun. 11am–6pm Oct.–March: Mon.–Fri. 10am–5pm; Sat. and Sun. 11am–5pm by Johanne Devlin Frew The link between Ireland and Newfoundland is unique in the Irish diaspora. Given that the Irish comprised 40 per cent of its population by 1750 … Read more