The Book of Kells Bernard Meehan (Thames and Hudson, €60) ISBN 9780500238943 The codex of the four Gospels, translated into Latin, in Trinity College, Dublin, known since at least 1621 as ‘the Book of Kells’ (a detail we learn on p. 24 of this book), is no ordinary manuscript! It is viewed, indeed treasured, … Read more
The story of Ireland arrived on British and Irish television screens with considerable fanfare, the first comprehensive TV history of Ireland since Robert Kee’s Ireland: a history in 1981. Now, 30 years later, comes a multimillion-euro co-production between the BBC and RTÉ, filmed across the world and fronted by former BBC foreign correspondent Fergal Keane … Read more
In AD 684 an episode unique in Irish history occurred: a major military expedition by Anglo-Saxon forces. As with all historical events of this period, the details are sparse. The raid was on the Irish kingdom of Brega (roughly present-day County Meath) and was a naval attack probably launched via the Isle of Man, then … Read more
Northumbria was the largest and most powerful of England’s seventh-century patchwork of independent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, although in decline from the 670s. Of the five Northumbrian kings who ruled between 632 and 704, four had been ‘raised amongst the Irish’, as Bede puts it, and spoke Irish. All five were from the Bernician dynasty, which had … Read more
The first edition of the Atlas of the Irish rural landscape (1997) was immediately hailed as a classic. For its time it was a ground-breaking publication, featuring a previously unsurpassed array of maps, aerial photographs and detailed explanatory text combining broad overviews of Irish rural settlement with detailed treatments of individual regions. Perhaps unavoidably, the … Read more