Nick Maxwell By Henry A. Jefferies According to one historian, Gaelic Ireland in the sixteenth century was ‘a society in which sexual expression was uninhibited’, but that strange assertion was based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever. Indeed, it is contradicted by a basic fact of human biology: uninhibited sexual expression before modern contraceptives became available could have … Read more
JOHN WILSON FOSTER Belcouver Press £10.99 ISBN 9780993560743 REVIEWED BY Ian d’Alton Ian d’Alton is a member of the Church of Ireland Historical Centenaries Working Group. Having learning and intelligence, it isn’t easy to accept in your heart of hearts that history may not be on your side. It seems to me that that’s Jack … Read more
DONAL HALL and EOIN MAGENNIS Four Courts Press €22.45 ISBN 9781801510806 Reviewed by Patrick Mulroe Patrick Mulroe is a recipient of a Royal Irish Academy Decade of Centenaries Bursary looking at Northern Ireland in 1922. This is the latest in the series from Four Courts Press examining individual counties in the revolutionary period. Like other … Read more
WARREN FARRELL Merrion Press €19.99 ISBN 9781785375125 REVIEWED BY John Gibney John Gibney is Assistant Editor with the Royal Irish Academy’s Documents on Irish Foreign Policy programme and was formerly Education and Outreach Officer at Glasnevin Cemetery Museum. The subtitle of Warren Farrell’s So once was I: forgotten tales from Glasnevin Cemetery is inevitably eye-catching, … Read more
JOSEPH MANNION Four Courts Press €55 ISBN 9781801511209 REVIEWED BY Simon Egan Simon Egan is a lecturer in Medieval Irish History at Queen’s University Belfast. This very welcome book by Joseph Mannion offers the first monograph-length study of the impact of English colonisation on Connacht during one of the most formative periods in Irish history, … Read more