EVE MORRISON Irish Academic Press €19.95 ISBN 9781788551458 Reviewed by Gerry White Gerry White is a former member of the Defence Forces and the author of The burning of Cork (Mercier Press, 2006). On 28 November 1920, an IRA flying column led by Tom Barry ambushed a mobile patrol of Auxiliaries near Kilmichael in West … Read more
ROBIN FRAME Four Courts Press €55 ISBN 9781846827945 Reviewed by Simon Egan Simon Egan is Assistant Professor of Medieval Irish and British History at Trinity College, Dublin. Recent years have witnessed a growing scholarly interest in locating the development of English power in medieval Ireland within a broader comparative framework of interpretation. This approach, commonly … Read more
RONAN McGREEVY Faber and Faber £20 ISBN 9780571372805 Reviewed by John M. Regan Writing in his diary in September 1920, Henry Wilson recorded British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill’s reaction to news from Ireland that ‘Shinners’ were being secretly assassinated by the Crown forces. ‘Winston saw very little harm in it,’ wrote Wilson, ‘but it horrifies … Read more
By Joe Culley @TheRealCulls One of the little pleasures of writing this column has been getting a chance to get my hands on each tranche of the Maynooth Studies in Local History series. These brief but sharply focused studies, often the by-product of a postgraduate thesis, regularly throw up little gems. The long-time editor of … Read more
EAMON O’KANE Manchester University Press £80 ISBN 9780719090837 Reviewed by Cillian McGrattan Cillian McGrattan lectures in Politics at Ulster University. This valuable and timely book by the political historian Eamonn O’Kane circles around the incongruities, disconnections and unintended consequences that constituted the stuff of the Northern Irish peace process. Because these nuances are often arcane … Read more