ed. EC MARK WILLIAMS Princeton University Press $39.50 ISBN 9780691157313 Reviewed by: Angela Bourke Between Charles Stewart Parnell’s death in 1891 and the 1916 Rising, pre-Christian Ireland exercised a fascination that lies behind the present fact of Irish sovereignty. The years of cultural revival were saturated in the pagan past. Parents who broke with tradition … Read more
By Joe Culley James Kelly and Susan Hegarty (eds), Schools and schooling, 1650–2000: new perspectives on the history of education (Four Courts Press, €40.50 hb, 208pp, ISBN 9781846826283). Tony Bergin (hon. ed.), Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society, Series 2, Vol. 16 (€10 pb, 200pp, ISBN 9780993428913). Kieran Groeger, The little book of … Read more
BERNARD NEARY Lilliput Press €20 ISBN 9781843516811 Reviewed by: Donal Fallon Donal Fallon is joint editor of comeheretome.com, dedicated to Dublin’s life and culture. Perhaps no Dublin postcode has been as well served by historians as Dublin 7. Not only has the district inspired studies like Kevin Kearns’s excellent oral history Stoneybatter: Dublin’s inner urban … Read more
SALVADOR RYAN (ed.) Wordwell Books €25 ISBN 9780993351822 Reviewed by: John McCafferty Professor John McCafferty is Director of the Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute, UCD. As Catholicism continues its long decline in Ireland and political discourse around the future shape of the island keeps changing, many people find themselves having to find fresh markers of identity … Read more
ANDREW TIERNEY Penguin Ireland £14.99 ISBN 9781844883929 Reviewed by: Dean Jobb Dean Jobb, author of Empire of deception, teaches non-fiction writing at the University of King’s College, Nova Scotia. It was a single death among hundreds in famine-ravaged County Tipperary in the spring of 1849. Ellen Langley, wife of Dr Charles Langley of Nenagh, died … Read more