Sir, —I must protest at the treatment given to my book Redmond: theParnellite by your reviewer in the Sept./Oct. 2008 issue. My complaintrefers not to any unfavourable evaluation of the book but to theslipshod nature of the review. There are many indications that the reviewer has only a passingacquaintance with the period covered by the … Read more
Richard Crosbie organised three manned balloon flights in Dublin in 1785, and made a final flight from Limerick in 1786. He is rightly celebrated as Ireland’s first aeronaut, and today there is a memorial to him in Ranelagh Gardens, where his first flight took place. Crosbie was born near Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow, c. 1756, descended … Read more
A ‘manly study’? Irish women historians, 1868–1949 Nadia Clare Smith (Palgrave/Macmillan, £45) ISBN 9780230009042 In this timely monograph, Nadia Clare Smith has made a significant contribution to Irish women’s history and Irish historiography. Her careful analysis of the careers of twenty women historians not only challenges W. E. Gladstone’s definition of history as a ‘manly … Read more
Politics, religion and the press: Irish journalism in mid-Victorian England Anthony McNicholas (Peter Lang AG, €68.40) ISBN 9783039106998This study focuses on newspapers produced predominantly by Irish people, and predominantly for Irish people, in 1860s London. It thus explores largely virgin territory. Little systematic research has been done on the history of Irish journalism in Ireland … Read more
Memoirs of Captain Rock Thomas Moore (edited and introduced by Emer Nolan, with annotations by Seamus Deane) (Field Day, €25.) ISBN 9781844881437 Bard of Erin: the life of Thomas Moore Ronan Kelly (Penguin Ireland, €32.) ISBN 978946755363 Famous as the writer of melancholic ‘Irish melodies’ such as ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ and ‘The Meeting … Read more