20th Century Social Perspectives

The Irish Border: History, Politics, Culture, Malcolm Anderson and Eberhard Bort (eds.). (Liverpool University Press, £15) IBSN 0853239517

This book represents Anderson and Bort’s fourth collaboration in four years. Having jointly edited two volumes on the eastern frontier of the European Union, they published The Frontiers of Europe in 1998 before bringing out this book, based on papers presented at a conference on the Irish border held at the International Social Sciences Institute … Read more

Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: a Life, Margaret Ward. (Attic Press, £14.95) ISBN 1855941872

When she was a young girl, her Uncle Eugene gave Hanna Sheehy the gift of a writing desk. A typical gift, probably, for one of her education and class, yet also symbolic—a practical tool suited to the work of an intellectual. For, fundamentally, it was Hanna’s intellectual curiosity that led her to question the conventional … Read more

Leaving the “dreadful rocks”

The ‘island of dreams’ notion hardly applies to the small islands off the north and west coasts of Ireland.  These have always been what Americans would call ‘hardscrabble’ places. Island life was especially hard in the past. The unusual survival of census documents from 1821 for the Aran Islands demonstrates this clearly. They show a … Read more

Carnegie Libraries in Ireland

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) emigrated with his parents from Scotland to America in 1848. He became exceptionally successful in the steel business eventually gaining a near monopoly of steel production in the USA. In 1901 he sold the Carnegie Company and all  its holdings to John Pierpont Morgan’s Federal Steel Company for $480,000,000. The new company … Read more