BOOKWORM

By Joe Culley @TheRealCulls In the cover story of our previous edition, Laurence Geary explained that vaccination in Ireland is often said to have begun in Cork in 1800 when a local physician treated 300 children against smallpox. How appropriate, then, that Cork again features as ground zero in Strangling angel: diphtheria and childhood immunization … Read more

COMBATANTS AND CIVILIANS IN REVOLUTIONARY IRELAND, 1918–1923

THOMAS EARLS FITZGERALD Routledge £120 ISBN 9780367333522 Reviewed by Mary McAuliffe Thomas Earls Fitzgerald has produced the latest in a very welcome series of publications of new research on the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, in this case concentrating on the period in County Kerry. This book is a meticulously researched, closely analysed … Read more

Samhain: the roots of Halloween

LUKE EASTWOOD The History Press €14.99 ISBN 9780750998000 Reviewed by Regina Sexton To embrace a study of Ireland’s best-known and best-loved festival of Hallowe’en is no small undertaking. Overshadowing any attempt are seminal works of sound and extensive scholarship: Máire MacNeill’s The festival of Lughnasa (1962), Séamus Ó Catháin’s Festival of Brigit: Celtic goddess and … Read more