Nick Maxwell 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
Michael Hopkinson (Gill & Macmillan, €30) ISBN 071713010X The Irish Revolution, 1913–1923 Joost Augusteijn (ed.) (Palgrave, €25) ISBN 0333982266 Given its pivotal role in the shaping of modern Irish society and its long grip on the popular imagination, it is astonishing that until recently there was no single monograph about the War of Independence. Michael … Read more
Hidden History RTÉ1 Family Fortune: de Valera’s Irish Press, 2 Nov 2004 Directed by Gerry Nelson for Mint Productions Joe Cahill, IRA man, 7 Dec 2004 Directed by Jonathon Golden for DoubleBand Films by Eamon O’Flaherty RTÉ’s Hidden History series offered an impressive collection of documentaries before Christmas. The focus was heavily biographical—Women of the … Read more
At Clermont on 27 November 1095 Pope Urban II made an appeal to his French audience to cease fighting one another and to turn to the east against non-Christian enemies. Urban might well have been wanting to raise a force in response to an appeal for help by the Orthodox Christian emperor at Constantinople, but … Read more