Ouch, Mr Punch!Sir,–The last History Ireland (Spring 1994) contains many good things. Alas, the review of R.F. Foster’s Paddy and Mr Punch by Gerardine Meaney is not one of them. This isprecisely the kind of writing which will render your magazine completely unreadable outside any but the most narrow of academic circles. It is not simply a … Read more
Strokestown Famine MuseumOn 14 May the Famine Museum at Strokestown, County Roscommon, was opened by President Mary Robinson. This event was widely covered in the Irish and British press and was remarkable for both the President’s positive and moving speech, and the intrinsic importance of this project for understanding the Irish past and its modern … Read more
Kate Newmann (Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast, £9.50) There have been many occasions when I have sought enlightenment on an individual whose name may have been familiar but of whose achievements I knew little. It is gratifying to have recourse to a volume such as The Dictionary of National Biography or Chambers’ Biographical Dictionary and … Read more
Mary Harris (Cork University Press, £32) This scholarly and handsomely produced volume fills a surprising void in twentieth-century Irish history. It might have been expected that the role of the Catholic Church and the foundation of Northern Ireland would already have become the subject of intense research. Yet Mary Harris is the first historian to … Read more
Owen Dudley Edwards (Mercat Press, £9.95) This is the second edition of Owen Dudley Edwards’ compelling account of the lives of the infamous Irishmen accused of supplying involuntary donors for the anatomist’s table. The author’s note dryly observes that ‘he too is an Irish Catholic making a contribution to higher learning in Edinburgh’. One might … Read more