DIANE URQUHART Cambridge University Press £22.99 ISBN 9781108717250 Reviewed by Mary Kenny Mary Kenny is a founder member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement and author of Goodbye to Catholic Ireland (New Island Books, 2000). Historically, there has seldom been any great ‘clamour’—as Professor Diane Urquhart puts it—for divorce in Ireland. Although the Brehon laws … Read more
CONNIE KELLEHER Cork University Press €30 ISBN 9781782053651 Reviewed by Eamon Darcy Eamon Darcy is a historian of early modern Ireland and Britain and lectures at Maynooth University. The image of swashbuckling pirates plundering ships with impunity is integral to the popular perception of the historical world of piracy. Yet, as Connie Kelleher’s excellent book, … Read more
DEIRDRE NUTTALL Eastwood Books €25 ISBN 9781916137561 Reviewed by Ida Milne Growing up in Wexford in the 1960s, children in our Church of Ireland family would have noticed little difference between Protestant and Catholic other than going to a different church on a Sunday. Apart from that, we were fully integrated into local life, like … Read more
By Joe Culley @TheRealCulls In the last few years, in his 80s, Jesuit historian Todd Morrissey has produced more work than many scholars can claim for their entire career. Among his publications is a study of the archbishop of Dublin Daniel Murray (see Bookworm, HI 26.6, Nov./Dec. 2018), and another of the Trappist monk Dom … Read more
By Joe Culley @TheRealCulls The decade of centenaries trundles on. We have entered the final third, the violence ramps up and a bitter conclusion in vicious civil war comes faintly into view. Of course, we are immersed in our own historic, heart-breaking social upheaval right now. Many of us have cried in the last few … Read more