I gaze as I write at two photographs, presented to me by their subjects’ grandchildren: one of Seán O’Casey’s sister Isabella (the ‘Ella’ of his semi-fictionalised autobiographies), and the other of her husband, Nicholas Beaver—or, as O’Casey called him, Benson. The photographs appear to have been taken in the mid-1890s. Her face, framed above her … Read more
Inside less than three weeks 160 prisoners were tried by field general court martial. The trials took place in secret and none of the prisoners were represented by lawyers. Most lasted less than twenty minutes. This book provides a powerful and compelling account of how the rule of law disintegrated in a time of crisis. … Read more
Darren McGettigan Four Courts Press £17.50 ISBN 9781846823848 This is an example of an expert book written by a self-confessed non-expert—and it is a resounding success. Darren McGettigan’s previous work has been focused firmly on the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the world of Red Hugh O’Donnell and the Donegal plantation. In a major departure … Read more
Seán Duffy Gill and Macmillan £24.99 ISBN 9780717157785 Forty-two years have passed since Gill and Macmillan, in what became a celebrated series of history books, enabled Donnchadh Ó Corráin to write that Clontarf ‘was not a struggle between the Irish and the Norse for the sovereignty of Ireland’ but rather a revolt of the Leinstermen … Read more
Richard McElligott (Collins Press, €17.99) ISBN 9781848891777 By the time the GAA was two decades old, Kerry had won just a solitary All-Ireland title—and that was in hurling. It was later—owing in large part to the innovations of O’Sullivan, who would write The story of the GAA (1916), the first published history of the association—that … Read more