FINTAN O’TOOLE Royal Irish Academy €30 ISBN 9781908997159 By Peter Gahan It’s about time that Ireland took Bernard Shaw seriously, and Fintan O’Toole in his convincingly argued and highly readable Judging Shaw makes a powerful case for so doing. Like Shaw a political commentator and drama critic (although Shaw was many other things, not least … Read more
By Joe Culley Breandán Mac Suibhne, Subjects lacking words? The gray zone of the Great Famine (Cork University Press, €11.95 pb, 48pp, ISBN 9780997837476). Niamh Ann Kelly, Ultimate witnesses: the visual culture of death, burial and mourning in Famine Ireland (Cork University Press, €11.95 pb, 48pp, ISBN 9780997837469). Richard Kearney and Sheila Gallagher, Twinsome minds: … Read more
MARGARET WARD (ed.) UCD Press €35/£30 ISBN 9781910820148 Reviewed by Patrick Maum This valuable book is a picture of an activist in her own words. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington was essentially a rationalist (she loved books and disliked music), a believer in the ability of reason to bring about social improvement, whose personality had been shaped … Read more
TREVOR WHITE Penguin Ireland €17.99 ISBN 9781844884247 Reviewed by Frank MacGabhann Frank MacGabhann is a lawyer and commentator working in Dublin and Barcelona. In 1911 Alfred Byrne (otherwise known to Dubliners as ‘Alfie’), a diminutive publican and former bicycle mechanic with little education, was elected to Dublin Corporation (not Dublin City Council, as the author … Read more
KENNETH L. DAWSON Irish Academic Press €22.99 ISBN 9781911024750 Reviewed by Sylvie Kleinman Sylvie Kleinman is Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of History, Trinity College, Dublin. Firmly admired by his fellow United Irishmen, Samuel Neilson (1762–1802) did not attain martial glory nor die a sacrificial death in 1798. With hisreputation tarnishedby accusations of reckless … Read more