An Exile of Ireland: Hugh O’Neill, Prince of Ulster Micheline Kerney Walsh (Four Courts Press, £7.95)

This book is its author’s interpretation of documents from Spanish sources concerning Hugh O’Neill during the period 1602-1616. Previous writers,  such as Sean  Ó Faoláin, had to rely on sparse and hostile English sources which portrayed him during his exile in Rome as a man cowed by defeat, blind, drunk, melancholic, an image these documents … Read more

Casement’s maps of the Niger delta

Among the different instruments of power wielded by empire-builders, maps might be considered as special forms of evidence in state formation: symbolic representations of expanding colonial influence. The mapping of Africa is synonymous with its conquest and domination. From the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese first navigated the West African coast, cartographers imposed order upon … Read more

Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200 Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (Longmans, £15.99)

Longmans have launched the first of a six-volume History of Ireland with a synthesis of the last twenty years of Early Christian scholarship. It is an uneven book, relying for source material primarily on Latin manuscripts, and while it is hardly a serious setback for the progress of early Irish historical studies, it is not … Read more