David Edwards (Four Courts, £45) ISBN 185182578 This is the book many historians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been waiting for—a thorough, detailed and well-researched analysis of a single Irish lordship in the turbulent years between 1515 and 1642. This era probably represents one of the greatest periods of political, cultural, religious … Read more
In their preface to this handsome volume the joint editors acknowledge that while it has been their aim to give some account of the chief battles of Ireland’s history their principal concern is with the political and social background. Although at first sight this might appear to belie the title of the book, their approach … Read more
Gothic Ireland: horror and the Irish Anglican imagination in the long eighteenth century Jarlath Killeen (Four Courts, E55) ISBN 1851829431 The title of this book initially suggests a study of the Gothic genre in Ireland in the eighteenth century, but Killeen delivers instead ‘a history of the social memory of Irish Anglicanism’, focusing on the … Read more
Old World colony: Cork and South Munster 1630–1830 David Dickson Cork University Press, E49 h/b, E29.95p/b ISBN 1859183557 Historians of eighteenth-century Ireland have waited a long time for the appearance of this book, a revised and expanded version of a pioneering and much-cited PhD thesis passed by its examiners nearly 30 years ago. Though prolonged, … Read more
James Lyttleton explores the dichotomy between the theory and practice of plantation by examining the surviving buildings of seventeenth-century west Offaly. The consequences of the social, economic and cultural transformations of the early modern period upon the Irish landscape were significant, affecting the way people interacted with their families, friends, neighbours and strangers. For the … Read more