A history of the media in Ireland Christopher Morash (Cambridge University Press, £45) ISBN 9780521843928 The Revd Alexander R. C. Dallas was convinced that the second coming of Christ was due in 1872. Unconvinced that the Catholics of Ireland would appreciate this, in January 1846 he arranged for a simultaneous letter-drop across the country. … Read more
Michael Collins and the making of a new Ireland (2 vols) Piaras Béaslaí (Éamonn de Búrca for Edmund Burke Publisher, Ä95) ISBN 9780946130436 First of all, congratulations are in order to the publisher and 162 subscribers who made possible the reprinting of this book (originally published in 1926). The price may seem steep but … Read more
Hats off to the hard-working editorial team—Mary Ann Lyons, Fearghal McGarry and Dominic Carroll—at Irish Historical Studies (ISSN 00211214), which continues to be published on schedule and to a high standard (albeit with its trademark austere presentation). In the latest issue (Vol. XXXVI, No. 144, November 2009, and received shortly thereafter) Fergus Campbell (‘Reign of … Read more
The Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB) is a superb achievement. The editors, James McGuire and James Quinn, conceive of the DIB as ‘a resource for the nation’ and it measures up to that exacting mark. It contains eight million words in 9,014 entries covering 9,700 lives (the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [ODNB] has 3,500 … Read more
Sir, —I am grateful to the Revd Canon and Dr Silke for his historiographical criticism of the special Flight of the Earls issue of History Ireland (15.4, July/August 2007) as a whole and for his comments on my own offering to the journal. What a pity that the internationally recognised authority on Kinsale and on … Read more