The degree to which important figures in history were influenced in their exercise of power by their immediate subordinates is a subject of endless fascination. The possibility that there might exist a power behind the power, and that that power might be possessed of a human face, is something that has the capacity both to … Read more
For 40 years (1558–98) Queen Elizabeth I was served by William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, first as principal secretary, later as lord high treasurer, and throughout as an active member of her privy council. Yet there has been a hesitancy to look beyond Elizabeth. Here is a monarch who enjoyed one of the longest reigns … Read more
Enforcing the English reformation in Ireland: clerical resistance and political conflict in the diocese of Dublin, 1534–1590 James Murray (Cambridge University Press, £60, $120) ISBN 9780521770385 Lacking the requisite documentation for an English-style study of the Reformation in Dublin (p. 15), James Murray presents an over-arching hypothesis: that Dublin’s clerical élites were committed to a … Read more
Contested island: Ireland 1460–1630 Divided kingdom: Ireland 1630–1800 S.J. Connolly (Oxford University Press, £35 each) ISBN 9780198208167 ISBN 9780199543472 The last decade has seen the publication of many surveys of the history of Ireland, including tomes from S.J. Connolly’s Queen’s University Belfast colleagues Alvin Jackson and Paul Bew. Tom Bartlett will shortly publish a single-volume … 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