Nick Maxwell TOBY BARNARD Four Courts Press €50 ISBN 9781846826290 Reviewed by Eamon Darcy Eamon Darcy lectures in history at Maynooth University and is the author of The world of Thomas Ward: sex and scandal in late seventeenth-century Co. Antrim. The purpose of this volume is to investigate how Irish people encountered and engaged with the world … Read more
Charles O’Conor, a Catholic antiquarian in County Roscommon, saw the potential of print to disseminate a more accurate and flattering view of Ireland and thereby to swing opinion, in Britain and continental Europe, towards a relaxation of the notorious penal laws. He was probably unequalled in his competence to decipher and interpret Gaelic manuscripts. At … Read more
JOSEPH E.A. CONNELL Jr Wordwell Books €19 ISBN 9780993351884 Reviewed by Lorcan Collins Lorcan Collins is the author of 1916: the Rising handbook (O’Brien Press, 2016). Joe Connell, a regular contributor to History Ireland, is responsible for collecting and publishing an enormous database of addresses associated with the revolutionary period 1916–23. His encyclopaedic knowledge and … Read more
SEÁN MITCHELL Haymarket €17.50 ISBN 9781608466788 Reviewed by Geoffrey Bell Geoffrey Bell is the author of Hesitant comrades: the Irish revolution and the British labour movement (Pluto, 2016). In October 1932 the workers of Belfast rioted. Nothing new there. They had rioted many times before and were to do so many times again. Such, apparently, … Read more
The impact of print may have been more muffled than initially supposed. By Toby Barnard Between 1550 and 1800 almost 30,000 different publications were printed in Ireland. This development, accelerating from the 1720s, has been seen as the motor driving enlightenment, secularisation, rationalism, nationalism, material and mental betterment, ‘modernity’, political engagement, restlessness and ultimately, in … Read more