The earldom of Desmond, 1463–1583: the decline and crisis of a feudal lordship Anthony M. McCormack (Four Courts Press, ?45) ISBN 1851828826 The Gaelic lordship of the O’Sullivan Beare Colin Breen (Four Courts Press, ?45) ISBN 1851829555 Labourers in various fields of endeavour periodically feel called upon to sketch out agendas of desiderata. Historians are … Read more
Trials of Irish history: genesis and evolution of a reappraisal, 1938–2000 Evi Gkotzaridis (Routledge, £75) ISBN 0415329183 This is the oddest yet most engaging examination so far of the so-called ‘revisionist school’ of Irish historians, whose precepts, motives and performance have been subjected to an often rancorous but largely sterile debate over the past two … Read more
In spite of our best intentions to review as many Africa-related books as possible in the special Africa issue (HI 14.4, July/Aug. 2006), some important titles only came to our attention after we had gone to press. One of these, Rose Doyle’s Heroes of Jadotville: the soldiers’ story (New Island, 383pp, ?19.95, ISBN 1905494319)—featured in … Read more
Controversial issues in Anglo-Irish relations 1910–21 Cornelius O’Leary and Patrick Maume (Four Courts Press, ?45) ISBN 1851826572 The last two decades have witnessed a dramatic thaw in Anglo-Irish relations following the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985—giving Dublin an entrenched role in the North—and the intense cooperation between the two governments that underlay the 1998 Good Friday … Read more
Kevin O’Higgins: builder of the Irish state John McCarthy (Irish Academic Press, E27.50) ISBN 0716534142 It is a sad fact that the spot where Ireland’s first minister for justice lay after he was fatally wounded by three IRA men in 1927 is marked by a ridiculously small cross made by a spade in setting concrete. … Read more