Religion and Rebellion: Historical Studies, Judith Devlin and Ronan Fanning (eds.). (University College Dublin Press, £35) ISBN 1900621037 A History of the Church of Ireland, 1691-1996 Alan Acheson (Columba Press, APCK, £25) ISBN 185607210X

Religion and Rebellion contains the proceedings of the twenty-second biennial Irish Conference of Historians, held in May 1995. The title is not an exact description of the contents. Only a few of the essays deal with ‘rebellion’ in the usual sense of the word: violent resistance to established authority. ‘Religion, rebellion, dissent, and social protest’ … Read more

A View of the State of Ireland by Edmund Spenser Andrew Hadfield & Willy Maley (eds.) (Blackwell Publishers, £40)ISBN 0631205349 Solon his Follie, by Richard Beacon. Vincent Carey & Clare Carroll (eds.) (Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies

The political writings of Edmund Spenser, the Elizabethan poet, have long been familiar to students of Irish history. In particular, his 1596 treatise A Vewe of the Present State of Ireland has achieved a certain infamy for the violent attitudes it expressed towards the Irish, among whom Spenser had lived and worked for almost twenty … Read more

The Making of Ireland, from ancient times to the present, James Lydon. (Routledge, £45 hbk, £14.99 pbk) ISBN 041501347X, 0415013488

James Lydon has undertaken a daunting task in writing a history of Ireland from ancient times to the present. It is difficult to cover the broad sweep of history in any detail and too easy to include chronological description instead of analysis or explanation. Yet the author has risen to the challenge admirably and not … Read more

Northern Exposure: Irishmen and Scandinavia in the seventeenth century

The activities of Irish merchants,  students and above all mercenaries living and working in Catholic continental countries, especially France, Spain and Austria, have been well documented. However the histories of Irishmen operating in Scandinavia and northern Europe have been virtually ignored. Yet during the course of the early modern period hundreds of Irishmen sought their … Read more