Nick Maxwell English literary depictions of crazed Irish head-hunters were not entirely contrived. The best propaganda always contains an element of truth. In parts of Ireland decapitation was more than an incidental by-product of blade-fighting. In Connacht, for instance, one of the chieftains of the Burkes was known as Ulick-na-gceann, ‘Ulick of the heads’ (fl. 1536), so … Read more
Thomas Bartlett, David Dickson, Dáire Keogh and Kevin Whelan (eds) (Four Courts Press, E50) ISBN 1-85182-430-8 Eleven years ago I wrote that the study of Ireland in the 1790s was still in its heroic phase. It was then, to be sure, in robust good health, as the work of Louis Cullen, Thomas Bartlett and others … Read more
Patrick M. Geoghegan (Gill and McMillan, E23.99) ISBN 0-7171-3387-7 Robert Emmet and the Rebellion of 1798 Ruán O’Donnell (Irish Academic Press, E59.50) ISBN 0-7165-2788-X Robert Emmet and the Rising of 1803 Ruán O’Donnell (Irish Academic Press, E27.50) ISBN 0-7165-2786-3 That Robert Emmet has been the subject of more than forty biographies is indeed incredible … Read more
Late on a cold January night in 1602 an Ulster boy led four Gaelic soldiers silently through the dark to a cabin somewhere in the rolling borderlands between Tyrone, Derry and Donegal. Inside the cabin lay a servant and kinsman of Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, called Tirlough Magnylson [MacNeill’s son]. Curled up beside the … Read more
On Sunday 13 July 2003 the people of Dublin were treated to an impressive parade of hundreds of marching pikemen and women who were commemorating both Bastille Day (albeit a day early) and the 1803 Robert Emmet Rising. The last Bastille Day celebration in Dublin was in 1803, when the United Irishmen gathered in Smock … Read more