The official denunciation of former Lord Deputy Perrot refers to his proposals to poison the Wicklow warlord Feagh McHugh O’Byrne. This, however, was a show trial, steeped in lies and propaganda. The assassination of troublesome Irish leaders made sound sense to English administrators in Ireland, not least because it was cheaper than waging expensive and … Read more
Cope (Boydell Press, £50) ISBN 9781843834687 The outbreak of the 1641 rebellion posed two related problems for the English administration in Ireland. First and foremost, the lords justices and council had to suppress the insurgency and organise efforts to defend the colony. Second, they had to relieve those who had been dispossessed by Irish … Read more
Susan Flavin and Evan T. Jones (eds) (Four Courts Press, E65) ISBN 9781846821820 This 1,094-page tome reproduces the details of the cargoes of ships plying between Ireland and the Continent in and out of Bristol for 100 years. Two factors make the work remarkable: the first is that the records survive and the second … Read more
Rapairí Scun Scan Productions Six-part series, Nov.–Dec. 2009, TG4 by John Gibney Rapairí set itself the task of examining the lives of six ‘outlaws’ active in Ireland from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth. From a government persective the Irish seemed a rebellious people, and the focus on the lives of individuals who cared … Read more
Francis Hutchinson was no ordinary clergyman. Posterity chiefly remembers him for his condemnation of witchcraft trials in his famous book An historical essay concerning witchcraft . . . (1718). He was one of the first members of the Dublin Society for the Improvement of Husbandry and Other Useful Arts, however, and wrote extensively on social … Read more