Nick Maxwell In the mid-nineteenth century a new kind of Turkish bath was pioneered in Ireland, one that on the Continent is still called the ‘Roman-Irish bath’. This Victorian ‘improved Turkish Bath’ was modelled on the Roman system and relied on a flow of dry rather than moist air in the series of progressively hotter rooms in … Read more
Do we need another book on the Easter Rising? There can be no harm in a good one. And Fearghal McGarry has written a very good one indeed. What makes The Rising stand out from its competitors (at least according to the blurb) is that it uses the vast corpus of testimonies collected by the … Read more
The British Olympic Association (BOA) was founded in 1906 and some of its key members rose to prominence in the International Olympic Committee (IOC), helped by their hosting of the 1908 Olympics in London. The BOA was heavily Tory in its political make-up, and correspondence between its secretary and Baron de Coubertin of the IOC … Read more
On 17 April 1920, a coroner’s jury investigating the shooting of Cork lord mayor (and IRA brigade commander) Tomás MacCurtain issued its famous finding of ‘wilful murder’ against Prime Minister David Lloyd George and top civil and police officials in Ireland. The verdict provoked a predictable response from, amongst others, the Irish Times, which mocked … Read more
John A. McCullen’s Illustrated history of the Phoenix Park does exactly what it says on the tin. A detailed description and time-line of the landscape management and design of Dublin’s Phoenix Park, it is published in a lavish large-format volume, and gorgeously illustrated with over 240 maps, plans and full-page colour prints. McCullen is chief … Read more