The purpose of this book is to give an insight into the achievements and tribulations of an Irish family in exile—namely the descendants of Sorley Boy MacDonnell, a sixteenth-century County Antrim lord. The book is divided into three parts. Part I examines some prominent MacDonnells who made their homes in the Spanish Netherlands in the … Read more
It is a pleasure to see Alan Ford’s impressive study of the early Stuart church in Ireland reprinted. Four Courts Press is to be highly commended for undertaking this venture, and for producing a book whose format is infinitely superior to that of the edition of 1985. Dr Ford has not altered his original text … Read more
In August this year, as in almost every year for the last two centuries, members of the Apprentice Boys of Derry marched in the city to commemorate the ending of the Siege of Derry of 1689. The deal struck between the Apprentice Boys and the various Residents Groups representing Catholic areas in the city and … Read more
In one of his rare appearances in contemporary Irish culture, Edmund Burke surfaces as a footnote to one of the more poignant refrains in Brian Friel’s classic play, Philadelphia, Here I Come. As the loss of his dead mother comes to haunt the protagonist of the play, Gar, on the eve of his departure for … Read more
Major Henry McClintock’s Old Irish Dress (1943) has been an inspiration and a pleasure to many readers. In this and later editions he assembled many of the sources—written, pictorial and archaeological—relating to Irish costume from the earliest times. His labours have only recently been superseded by Mairead Dunlevy’s Dress in Ireland (1989). In McClintock’s enlarged … Read more