In 1978 David Seth Jones completed his PhD, ‘Agrarian capitalism and rural social development in Ireland’, at Queen’s University, Belfast. Since then every serious scholar of modern Ireland has been in his debt. At times a slightly dry work—partly because so much of the evidence is drawn from official enquiries and reports—Jones’ thesis, nonetheless, stated … Read more
Fagan’s edition of letters of Irish interest in the Stuart papers makes available an important collection of primary source-material relating to Ireland and the exiled Stuarts. It reflects the burgeoning of interest in Irish Jacobitism as represented by the work of Breandán Ó Buachalla, Mícheal Mac Craith, Vincent Morley, Patrick Fagan and my own ongoing … Read more
In their preface to this handsome volume the joint editors acknowledge that while it has been their aim to give some account of the chief battles of Ireland’s history their principal concern is with the political and social background. Although at first sight this might appear to belie the title of the book, their approach … Read more
Gothic Ireland: horror and the Irish Anglican imagination in the long eighteenth century Jarlath Killeen (Four Courts, E55) ISBN 1851829431 The title of this book initially suggests a study of the Gothic genre in Ireland in the eighteenth century, but Killeen delivers instead ‘a history of the social memory of Irish Anglicanism’, focusing on the … Read more
Mick: the real Michael Collins Peter Hart (Macmillan, E36.99) ISBN 1405052635Peter Hart writes well, and is obviously a man of ability, but the impression conveyed by this book is that he felt the time was opportune for a revisionist work on Collins. To attract readers he has adopted the technique not of the historian but … Read more