RUTH A. CANNING Boydell Press £75 ISBN 9781783273270 Reviewed by Henry A. Jefferies Henry A. Jefferies is a research associate in history at Ulster University. Dr Canning uses the term ‘Old English’ explicitly to connote any descendants of English colonists who arrived in Ireland prior to 1541 (pp 2–3). She acknowledges that historians have ‘long … Read more
KEVIN HADDICK-FLYNN Matador €30 ISBN 9781838592004 Reviewed by Geoffrey Bell Geoffrey Bell’s The Protestants of Ulster was first published in 1976. Once, in the early 1960s when I was about thirteen, I was asked to take my English granny to watch a Twelfth of July march. We went to the Finaghy crossroads, on the edge … Read more
By Joe Culley @TheRealCulls In The begrudger’s guide to Irish politics, Breandán Ó hEithir, while discussing the executions of the Four Courts prisoners during our brief but vicious Civil War, says of Dick Mulcahy: ‘It was public opinion, fed on rumours, that dubbed him “Dirty Dick” and the cry “Seventy-seven” followed him all through his … Read more
LIAM CAHILL Orla Kelly Publishing €15 ISBN 9781912328413 Reviewed by: D.R. O’Connor Lysaght D.R. O’Connor Lysaght’s The story of the Limerick Soviet appeared recently in its fifth edition. The Limerick Soviet of 1919 was a major episode in the Anglo-Irish War. It involved the population of Ireland’s fourth largest city, with 14,000 participating actively. Yet … Read more
ROBERT LYNCH Cambridge University Press €24 ISBN 9780521189583 Reviewed by: Martin Mansergh Martin Mansergh is a former politician and NI adviser. There is a growing literature on the border and partition, stimulated as much by their central role to date in the drama of Brexit as by the looming centenary. This book has the stated … Read more