Noisy Island: a short history of Irish popular music Gerry Smyth (Cork University Press, E19.95) ISBN 1859183875 Did you ever have the feeling that many aspects of our lives would be better kept out of academic hands—and minds? This was my initial reaction as I waded through the introduction to Gerry Smyth’s Noisy Island. Rock … Read more
Ireland and the British Empire Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series Kevin Kenny (ed.) Oxford University Press, £30 ISBN 0199251835 Victoria’s Ireland Peter Gray (ed.) Four Courts Press, £55 ISBN 185 1 827587 Irish participation in empire is most commonly considered a paradox: another unnatural by-product of the malign influence of British … Read more
Politics and the Irish working class, 1830–1945 Fintan Lane and Donal Ó Drisceoil (eds) (Palgrave Macmillan, £55) ISBN 1 40393179 The editors of this volume lay out their stall at the outset by attributing the failure of labour in politics to the traditional ‘three evil geniuses of socialism: the priest, peasant and patriot’. The wide-ranging … Read more
Ireland, Germany and the Nazis: politics and diplomacy, 1919–1939 Mervyn O’Driscoll (Four Courts Press, £55) ISBN 185 1 824804 Ireland, Europe and the Marshall Plan Till Geiger and Michael Kennedy (eds.) (Four Courts Press, £55) ISBN 185 1 825193 Mervyn O’Driscoll’s Ireland, Germany and the Nazis is a positive contribution to the existing corpus … Read more
‘A vague feeling of melancholy . . . tempered by . . . relief’, eh? If the prospect of your kids going back to school elicits the latter rather than the former emotion, then two recent publications from the Liffey Press are what are required. For the kids 2 (222pp, ?14.95 pb, ISBN 1904148859), ‘a … Read more