The 1889 Light Railway (Ireland) Act was the first to provide government grants for the construction of railways, which had previously been the domain of private enterprise. This and subsequent acts of 1890 and 1896 brought the railway to remote, thinly populated districts which were considered commercially non-viable by the railway companies. £1,553,967 was spent … Read more
Keogh’s study of the relationship between the independent Irish state and the Vatican fills one lacuna in our understanding of the politics and diplomacy of Irish church-state relations and, to a lesser extent, international relations. Drawing on his earlier published work in this field and adding a substantial amount of new evidence collected from a … Read more
Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, Vol.1 (West Cork), Vol.2 (East and South Cork) Denis Power (comp.) (Stationary Office, £20 each) Guide to the Archives of the Office of Public Works, Rena Lohan (Stationary Office) Irish Archives Journal (Spring 1995) (Irish Society of Archives, £4.95) In recent years, there has been a massive splurge of spending … Read more
Dáil Éireann has long awaited its historian. Brian Farrel’s small but seminal work, The Founding of Dáil Éireann (1971), remains a proven and valuable guide. Arthur’s Mitchell’s book provides a comprehensive tour of anything that falls under the ambit of the Dáil for the years 1919-1921. It is a massive and scholarly work. The bibliography … Read more
Protestant Dissent and Controversy in Ireland 1660-1714, Phil Kilroy (Cork University Press, £27.50) Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster Society 1740-1890, David Hempton and Myrtle Hill (Routledge, £40) Catholicism in Ulster 1603-1983: An Interpretative History, Oliver P. Rafferty (Gill and Macmillan, £12.99) Catholicism in a Protestant Kingdom: A Study of the Irish Ancien Régime, C.D.A. Leighton (Gill … Read more