Longmans have launched the first of a six-volume History of Ireland with a synthesis of the last twenty years of Early Christian scholarship. It is an uneven book, relying for source material primarily on Latin manuscripts, and while it is hardly a serious setback for the progress of early Irish historical studies, it is not … Read more
Sponsored by the Folger Institute for British Political Thought, Washington DC, this, the second of three seminars on political thought in Ireland, will run from 8 May to 13 June 1997. It will ask how Gaelic/Catholic, Scots/Presbyterian, English/Anglican clergymen, intellects and scholars contributed to the development of a distinctive Irish political culture and identity during … Read more
The heretics now gave way and took flight. The Irish gave forth their battle-cry. The General rode before and among his well-ordered army urging them on; the killing continued till the shades of evening and new night descended. A large number of them was drowned in the Blackwater and in Knocknacloy Lough. Thus did the … Read more
The sack of Baltimore, the only recorded instance of a slaving raid by corsairs in Ireland, was part of a wider pattern across Europe, encompassing not only the entire Mediterranean region but also the Atlantic seaboard as far north as Iceland. Slave-raiding of Christians by Muslim corsairs became common from the late fifteenth century … Read more
No Irish battle is more famous than the Battle of the Boyne. No year in Irish history is better known than 1690. Sadly, over 300 years on, a new Battle of the Boyne is under way. This time, however, it is not Protestant against Catholic. It is not a battle for sovereignty. Instead, it is … Read more