Of all the shadows cast by history, none stretch further than the enduring fascination associated with the Titanic. In popular culture it has transcended the purpose for which it was built, eclipsed the environment from which it came and relegated to the background the men whose needs brought about its birth. This year we will … Read more
Michael Davitt: freelance radical and frondeur Laurence Marley (Four Courts Press, €45) ISBN 9781846820663 Michael Davitt once took the sort of questionnaire that would now be found in a glossy magazine. We learn from it that his heroes were ‘those who minimise suffering’; his favourite food was ‘anything purchased by my own energy’; his favourite … Read more
The Irish Labour Party 1922–73 Niamh Puirseil (University College Dublin Press, €28) William O’Brien 1881–1968 Thomas J. Morrissey SJ (Four Courts Press, €55) In the introduction to her history of the Labour Party, Niamh Puirseil remarks that her subject ‘seems more than a little ashamed of its past’. This is true enough, though this reviewer … Read more
The federal subpoena served on 5 May 2011 on the John J. Burns Library of Boston College established that events occurring as long ago as December 1972 have the capacity to destabilise variously the academic, legal and political affairs of the present. Assumptions that the First Amendment of the US Constitution would guard against this … Read more
Dublin Nazi No. 1: the life of Adolf Mahr Gerry Mullins (Liberties Press, €25 hb, €16.99 pb) ISBN 9781905483198 In 1927 the Austrian Adolph Mahr became Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum in Kildare Street, Dublin, one of a diverse group of European professionals recruited by the fledgling Irish Free State. Made director … Read more