Nick Maxwell Westtown, Co. Waterford By Brendan Wright Tragedy at sea in the early nineteenth century brought about a defining feature of the County Waterford coastline. On the morning of 30 January 1816, HMS Sea Horse, carrying members of the 2nd Battalion, 59th (2nd Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot, hit a storm as she sailed from Ramsgate … Read more
By Joe Culley Clair McDonald, The eighteenth-century landscape of Stradbally Hall, Co. Laois (Four Courts Press, €8.95 pb, 70pp, ISBN 9781846826467) Terence Dooley, Castle Hyde: the changing fortunes of an Irish country house (Four Courts Press,€8.95 pb, 64pp, ISBN 9781846826436) Susan Marie Martin, The shawlies: Cork’s women street traders and the ‘merchant city’, 1901–50 (Four … Read more
The decisive stance taken by the Catholic bishop of Cork, Francis Moylan, towards the threat of French invasion in December 1796. By Gordon Kennedy On Christmas Day 1796, while Theobald Wolfe Tone was still anxiously pacing the deck of a French warship, desperately hoping that Lazare Hoche’s subordinates would actually come to a decision and … Read more
JOHN CROWLEY, DONAL Ó DRISCEOIL and MIKE MURPHY (eds), and JOHN BORGONOVO (assoc. ed.) Cork University Press €59 ISBN 9781782051176 Reviewed by Matthew Stout We each, in our own way, commemorated the centenary of the Easter Rising last year. Because of family connections, Easter Monday morning found this reviewer outside the town of Ashbourne at … Read more
SUSAN GALAVAN Routledge £95 ISBN 9781472471727 Reviewed by Ellen Rowley Ellen Rowley lectures in the School of Architecture, University College Dublin. Dublin’s bourgeoishomes by architect-turned-historian Susan Galavan manages to bring something new and important to the already packed bookshelves on Dublin history. Because architecture, and specifically the more everyday architecture of housing, is the language … Read more