Sir, —In the Jan./Feb. 2005 issue of History Ireland you kindly permitted our campaign the opportunity to raise the case for pardons for 26 Irish-born British soldiers executed for military offences during World War I. Many of your readers offered support and constructive criticism that was greatly appreciated and beneficial to the Irish effort. I … Read more
Blood of the Isles: exploring the genetic roots of our tribal history Bryan Sykes (Bantam Press, £10.79) ISBN 0593056523From a historian’s point of view, this is initially a difficult book to get into. Sykes is a geneticist, not a historian; he writes in a personalised, conversational style and, in the opening chapters, talks a lot … Read more
All in the blood. A memoir of the Plunkett family, the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence by Geraldine Plunkett Dillon Honor Ó Brolcháin (ed.) (A. A. Farmar, E25) First, I have to declare an interest. Geraldine Plunkett Dillon was my grandmother. I grew up a few houses away from her; I knew her … Read more
The Fenian ideal and Irish nationalism, 1882–1916 M. J. Kelly (Boydell Press, E85) ISBN 1843832046 This book is more a study of Irish nationalist mentalities than it is a political history. Implicit in the author’s approach is the theory that a people’s use of language is the primary factor not only in defining but also … Read more
Ray Gillespie’s Seventeenth century Ireland: making Ireland modern (Gill and Macmillan, 348pp, ?18.99/£14.99, ISBN 0717139468) is the penultimate of the six-part New Gill History of Ireland series (only Ian McBride’s much-awaited Eighteenth century Ireland: ascendancy and dispossession remains to be published; the other four books were featured in Bookworm’s Nov./Dec. 2005 offering). While most surveys … Read more