Reds and the Green: Ireland, Russia and the Communist Internationals 1919–43 Emmet O’Connor (UCD Press, €25) ISBN 1904558208With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the archives of the Communist International (Comintern), comprising some 55 million pages of documents, long closed to all but a very few trusted scholars, were finally opened to all. … Read more
The Crimean journals of the Sisters of Mercy 1854–56 Maria Luddy (ed.) (Four Courts Press, €55) ISBN 1851827560 Nuns have been getting such bad publicity recently that we are inclined to forget how much they contributed to education and medicine in Ireland at a time when such services were not provided by government. We also … Read more
Charles Trevelyan and the great Irish Famine Robin Haines (Four Courts Press, 285) ISBN 1851827552 In tackling Charles Trevelyan’s role in the Great Famine, Robin Haines has entered something of a historiographical minefield. The Famine, as a subject of academic research, has consistently exposed the polemics of Irish history-writing, from John Mitchel’s overtly nationalist verdict … Read more
A nation in medieval Ireland? Perspectives on Gaelic national identity in the Middle Ages (British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 367) Thomas Finan (Archaeopress, £29) ISBN 1841716006 The question of ‘identity’ in medieval Ireland is all the rage these days, and not simply in the sense of commanding a great deal of interest. For several decades … Read more
The transformation of Ireland 1900–2000 Diarmaid Ferriter (Profile Books, £30) ISBN 1861973071 The blurb misleads by suggesting that these 759 pages (excluding the scholarly apparatus) are about the transformation of Ireland from an ‘impoverished . . . corner of the British Empire’ into ‘the “Celtic Tiger”’. In the first chapter, dealing with the years 1900–12, … Read more