The post-medieval archaeology of Ireland, 1550–1850 Audrey Horning, Ruairí Ó Baoill, Colm Donnelly and Paul Logue (eds) (Wordwell, for the Irish Post-Medieval Archaeology Group, €70) ISBN 9781905569137 This welcome collection serves several purposes and prompts even more questions. First, it surveys comprehensively what post-medieval archaeologists have achieved, mainly during the last 30 years. It also … Read more
Sir, —Like Ian Chapple (‘Gaelic gripes’, Letters, HI 15.6, Nov./Dec.2007), ‘usually I read your magazine from cover to cover withenthusiasm and interest’. I fell on your excellent issue on Imeacht nanIarlaí/Flight of the Earls with extra interest. Although I was broughtup as ‘a monoglot Anglophone’, as Ian Chapple describes himself, unlikehim I did not find … Read more
Number 84 Douglas Street is one of a pair of terraced houses in the South Parish of Cork, one of the city’s oldest suburbs. There are many historic buildings in the area, including Cork’s oldest standing structure, the fifteenth-century Red Abbey tower; the South Presentation Convent complex; eighteenth-century terraces along George’s Quay and White Street; … Read more
Two summers ago in Derry, a portrait of the eighteenth-century earl-bishop Frederick Hervey was stolen from St Columb’s Cathedral and placed on a bonfire in the Bogside, to be consumed along with Rangers football paraphernalia and other artefacts of Protestant culture and identity. As the BBC news correspondent pointed out at the time, Hervey was … Read more
One of Ireland’s most important parliaments was held in Dublin in 1541. This declared Henry VIII to be ‘king of Ireland’ and made all Irishmen, whatever their origin, Gaelic or Norman, his subjects with equal rights under common law. It enacted the ‘surrender and regrant’ legislation and, while English was the official language, much of … Read more