Cúchulainn at the K Club? For those of us who are parents, this time of year is forever associated with that bitter-sweet experience of seeing our offspring head off to a new year in school, college or university (especially if it is for the first time). A vague feeling of melancholy is tempered by the … Read more
Following the Relief Act of 1793, the Catholics of Ireland began to erect churches of architectural pretension. In that year in Dublin work started on St Teresa’s, Clarendon Street. Outside Dublin three fine new churches were erected in the 1790s: Waterford Cathedral; … Read more
In 1803 the North was very much the dog that didn’t bark. Robert Emmet’s verdict on the Dublin insurrection—‘there was failure in all: plan, preparation and men’—applied to an even greater extent to events in Ulster. The attempt to raise the North produced no battles, or even skirmishes; in fact, probably not a single shot … Read more
Noisy Island: a short history of Irish popular music Gerry Smyth (Cork University Press, E19.95) ISBN 1859183875 Did you ever have the feeling that many aspects of our lives would be better kept out of academic hands—and minds? This was my initial reaction as I waded through the introduction to Gerry Smyth’s Noisy Island. Rock … Read more
Ireland and the British Empire Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series Kevin Kenny (ed.) Oxford University Press, £30 ISBN 0199251835 Victoria’s Ireland Peter Gray (ed.) Four Courts Press, £55 ISBN 185 1 827587 Irish participation in empire is most commonly considered a paradox: another unnatural by-product of the malign influence of British … Read more