Hiram Morgan (ed.) (Wordwell Books, 335) ISBN 1869857704 This book, consisting of 21 chapters and 10 appendices by 20 authors, is the product of a winter school held in Kinsale in January 2002, the final event in a year-long commmemoration of the 400th anniversary of the battle of Kinsale. It deals not only with the … Read more
R.F. Foster (Oxford University Press, 344.40) ISBN 0198184654 W.B. Yeats: vain, glorious, lout: a maker of modern Ireland Anthony J. Jordan (Westport Books, 313) ISBN 0952444720 ‘The work is done,’ grown old he thought, ‘According to my boyish plan; Let the fools rage, I swerved in naught, Something to perfection brought’; But louder … Read more
George Orwell once remarked that the best book to read while ill in bed is a dictionary. He would surely have approved, then, of the publication by Gill and Macmillan of the second edition of A New Dictionary of Irish History from 1800 (pp520, €29.99 pb, ISBN 0717125203). First published over twenty years ago, the … Read more
Believing in action: Concern the first thirty years, 1968–1998 Tony Farmar (Concern, E14.99) ISBN 1 899047 81 6 There was a remarkably rapid mutation in twentieth-century Ireland’s relations with Africa, from its being a rich source of missionaries to being a secular champion of Africa in its times of need and a source of development … Read more
The Irish Army in the Congo, 1960–64: the far battalions David O’Donoghue (Irish Academic Press, hb ?55.50/pb ?25) ISBN 0716528185/0716533197 The UN operation in the former Belgian Congo was a confused and sometimes chaotic affair. Some saw its role as keeping communism out of Africa, others as ending Belgian influence. The force’s mandate was to … Read more