In the Celtic world, as elsewhere, canines were admired for their senses of sight, smell and hearing. Dogs were used on hunting expeditions and to guard homes, as domestic pets and as a source of food. They abound in surviving mythology and folk tradition and are well represented in religion, where they are often associated … Read more
‘History is the new sex, it is everywhere’, I am reliably informed by a fecund economist. This new book, carefully edited by Alan Hayes of Arlen Press, who also published Margaret Mac Curtain’s Ariadne’s thread (reviewed in HI 16, Sept./Oct. 2008), concentrates on vital socio-economic matters. While the ‘sexy history’ is concerned with commemoration of … Read more
The first edition of the Atlas of the Irish rural landscape (1997) was immediately hailed as a classic. For its time it was a ground-breaking publication, featuring a previously unsurpassed array of maps, aerial photographs and detailed explanatory text combining broad overviews of Irish rural settlement with detailed treatments of individual regions. Perhaps unavoidably, the … Read more