Bookworm is looking forward to Christmas, and a number of series from Irish publishers present a few ideas for stocking-fillers. First up is UCD Press. The latest in their ‘Classics of Irish History’ series is a new edition of the collected writings of the Young Irelander James Fintan Lalor: ‘The faith of a felon’, and … Read more
Jack Lynch: a biography Dermot Keogh (Gill and MacMillan, €26.99) ISBN 9780717134694 Jack Lynch died in 1999. Since then, he has received four biographies, more attention than has been given to any other recently deceased taoiseach. This has three causes. The first is what his latest chronicler, Dermot Keogh, describes as indignation at Lynch being … Read more
A history of the Northern Ireland Labour Party: democratic socialism and sectarianism Aaron Edwards (Manchester University Press, £60) ISBN 9780719078743This book is one of a series of Critical Labour Movement Studies, of which ten have already been published. Although there is a nod in the direction of mainland Europe with a book on Swedish social … Read more
The Northern Ireland Question. The peace process and the Belfast Agreement Brian Barton and Patrick J. Roche (eds) (Palgrave MacMillan, £55) ISBN 9780230203808 On 23 May 1998 at the King’s Hall, Belfast, as the counting of votes in the referendum on the Belfast Agreement was coming to a conclusion, a small group of campaign workers … Read more
The conflict in Northern Ireland continues to provide a steady supply of new titles, academic and popular, to our bookshelves. The grim, but essential, starting-point for those who want an overview of the human cost of the conflict should be Lost lives: the stories of the men, women and children who died through the Northern … Read more