Nick Maxwell EOIN KINSELLA Four Courts Press in association with the Irish Defence Forces ISBN 9781801510363 €30 Reviewed by Thomas O’Loughlin Thomas O’Loughlin is Emeritus Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham. ‘The history of the Defence Forces can be characterised as an ongoing search for a defined shape and mission’ (p. 249). So, in … Read more
PETER CROOKS and THOMAS MOHR (eds) Four Courts Press €55 ISBN 9781846827402 Reviewed by James Meighan James Meighan is a solicitor and a Ph.D candidate at the University of Limerick. The editors open this book with a reference to the address of President Michael D. Higgins to the joint houses of parliament in Westminster in … Read more
Vol. 2 (of 3), 1 February 1649–12 December 1653 ELAINE MURPHY, MICHEÁL Ó SIOCHRÚ and JASON PEACEY (eds) Oxford University Press £190 per volume, £570 for the set of three ISBN 9780199587896 Reviewed by Jane Ohlmeyer Oliver Cromwell’s statue enjoys pride of place outside the House of Commons at Westminster in London. In 2002 the … Read more
Joe Culley @TheRealCulls Like most of us, I suspect, you think of the Irish Sea as ‘ours’. After all, it’s named for us. We happily, unconsciously, ignore the fact that Wales (never mind England) has a coastline nearly as long as ours dipping beneath it and that the Welsh might indulge some proprietary claim to … Read more
Kilmainham Gaol By Donal Fallon On a recent (and regular) walking tour of the Kilmainham and Inchicore area delivered by historian Fergus Whelan from nearby Richmond Barracks, he joked of how the restoration of Kilmainham Gaol had become a little bit like the GPO on Easter Week 1916. Everyone, allegedly, was in there. The hard … Read more