G2. In defence of Ireland: Irish military intelligence 1918–1945 Maurice Walsh (Collins Press, €16.99) ISBN 9781848890282 The secret world of the intelligence services is getting ever-increasing attention in a world that is confronted with many elusive threats. Although Ireland has had more than its fair share of subversive activity in the last century, the … Read more
Becoming American under fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the politics of citizenship during the Civil War era Christian G. Samito (Cornell University Press, $39.95) ISBN 9780801448461 Just as on this side of the pond, in the United States the discourse of citizenship circulates in increasingly impoverished forms. The recent repackaging of republicanism via … Read more
Travellers’ accounts as source-materials for Irish historians Maynooth Research Guides for Irish Local History C. J. Woods (Four Courts Press, €24.95) ISBN 9781846821325 Here’s Ireland! Be it rambles in Teague Land or Shamrock Land, Lights and shades of Famine-stricken Ireland, Paddy’s dreams or John Bull’s nightmare, on a summer’s jaunt or through winter wet, … Read more
Martial power and Elizabethan political culture: military men in England and Ireland, 1558–1594 Rory Rapple (Cambridge University Press, £60) ISBN 9780521843539 An enduring symbol of Queen Elizabeth’s ‘Merry England’ is Falstaff, Shakespeare’s comic creation. The playwright almost certainly conjured him from the many unemployed army captains loitering about London. When not jossing with the … Read more
It is deliciously ironic that a book that takes us to task for creating a ‘liberation myth’ with regard to the War of Independence should have on its front cover an image that is not what it claims to be (see letters, p. 12). Nevertheless, in spite of this and its rather old-fashioned revisionist tone, … Read more