The French historian François Simiand once admonished historians not to ‘forecast the weather from your back garden’, warning against the tendency to seek for explanations in the local and immediate environment and the analysis of internal processes. This may be particularly true when it comes to small countries buffeted by events over which they have … Read more
The decade of centenaries has Irish publishers working overtime. Four Courts Press have now launched an ambitious new series of county histories: ‘The Irish Revolution, 1912–23’. The first volume is Michael Farry’s Sligo (€17.50pb, 192pp, ISBN 9781846823022); if it is anything to go by, this will be an elegant, comprehensive and well-produced series. Further books … Read more
Scotland and the Ulster plantations: explorations in the British settlements of Stuart Ireland W. P. Kelly and J. R. Young (eds) (Four Courts Press, Ä49.50) ISBN 9781846820762 Has the edited volume of papers had its day? These are all individually very interesting essays but they do not add up to a treatment of the … Read more
The natural history of Ireland Philip O’Sullivan Beare, translated and edited by Denis C. O’Sullivan (Cork University Press, Ä39) ISBN 9781859184394 Cork University Press is to be congratulated for publishing this never-before-translated work on the place-names, animals, plants and wonders of Ireland by Philip O’Sullivan Beare, author of the first published narrative history of … Read more
The queen’s last map-maker: Richard Bartlett in Ireland, 1600–3 J. H. Andrews (Geography Publications, Ä40) ISBN 9780996602430 In the late 1990s I moved to Belfast, and on a visit to the Tower Museum in L/Derry I came across a bearded statue holding rolls of maps while looking dramatically into the distance. Ulster maps and … Read more