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
W.A. Maguire (Keele University Press, £10.95) Belfast, being the political and sectarian cockpit that it is, has been well served by histories of one kind or another or has featured in many general Irish histories. This most recent offering from W.A. Maguire provides us with an accessible account of all facets of its history over … Read more
Patrick J. Duffy (Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast, £45) Clogher Historical Society is arguably the most successful of all the Irish diocesan societies established in the early 1950s. It has the largest membership and for forty years has published an unbroken sequence of the Clogher Record, a journal that has served as a model for … Read more