I can remember when the castle in Enniscorthy housed the unofficial Wexford county museum. It had all the attractions and flaws of a volunteer-run museum, with every room packed with exhibits, not always in the best of condition. In 2006 the castle was closed for major renovation. A radical decision was taken to concentrate on … Read more
Neil Jordan’s much-heralded family saga of Renaissance ambition, murder and debauchery has more to do with historical reputation than actual fact. However much scholarship proves the opposite, good stories never die. And, as so often, it’s the victors who tell them. When Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere finally succeeded as Pope Julius II in 1503, and … Read more
Sir, —In the July/August 2007 issue of History Ireland (Flight of theEarls special) Prof. John McGurk, who in an earlier issue of yourjournal had drawn freely on my Kinsale for his account of the battle(HI 9.3, Autumn 2001), either was unaware of my chapter, ‘Outward boundfrom Portnamurray’, in E. García Hernán et al. (eds), Irlanda … Read more
The title of this book is ambitious: to extend study of the ‘financial revolution’ of the English-speaking world on both sides of the Atlantic. The costs of war created in 1694 the Bank of England, with the right to issue paper money in return for a loan of £1.4 million to the government. Thereafter Britain … Read more
The expression ‘hidden gem’ is so overused as to be almost valueless but it can be properly applied to St Mary’s Abbey. It really is hidden up a small lane off Capel Street in Dublin. Most of the people living thereabouts, never mind in Dublin as a whole, hardly know of its existence, yet it … Read more