Nick Maxwell Inishmurray: monks and pilgrims in an Atlantic landscape Volume 1: Archaeological survey and excavations 1997–2000. Jerry O’Sullivan and Tomás Ó Carragáin (Collins Press, €49.95) ISBN 9781905172474 The remains on Inishmurray, described by Lord Dunraven as ‘the most characteristic example now in existence of the earliest monastic establishments in Ireland’, consist of a central cashel containing … Read more
Sir Richard Musgrave, 1746–1818: ultra-Protestant ideologue James Kelly (Four Courts Press, €55) ISBN 9781846821486 The subject of this biography was also the subject of one of Irish history’s more memorable pen-portraits: ‘Sir Richard Musgrave, who (except on the abstract topics of politics, religion, martial law, his wife, the Pope, the Pretender, the Jesuits, Napper Tandy, … Read more
Contested island: Ireland 1460–1630 Divided kingdom: Ireland 1630–1800 S.J. Connolly (Oxford University Press, £35 each) ISBN 9780198208167 ISBN 9780199543472 The last decade has seen the publication of many surveys of the history of Ireland, including tomes from S.J. Connolly’s Queen’s University Belfast colleagues Alvin Jackson and Paul Bew. Tom Bartlett will shortly publish a single-volume … Read more
Sir,—Volunteers James and Timothy Coffey were from Breaghna, Enniskeane, Co. Cork, the eldest boys in the family of eight of farming parents James and Margaret Coffey. In the early hours of Monday 14 February 1921, the soldiers of the Essex Regiment and Black and Tans were escorted by two masked civilians, who were members of … Read more
Sir,—In his review of Terror in Ireland (HI 20.3, May/June 2012) Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc maintains that my chapter about the Kilmichael ambush failed to address the ‘wider debate about historiography’ and the ‘serious questions regarding Hart’s methodology, and in particular his claim to have interviewed an unnamed Kilmichael veteran at a time when all … Read more