W.J. McCormack (Irish Academic Press, £27.50) The Dublin Paper War is the latest statement of over a decade’s work, building on the ideas of the author’s earlier book, Ascendancy and Tradition (1985). It sparked a debate on the origin of the concept ‘Protestant Ascencancy’: the latest book attempts to answer that question definitively. The mixing … Read more
Joseph McMinn (Appletree Press, £15.99) Appearing a year before the 250th anniversary of Swift’s death in 1745, Joseph McMinn’s Jonathan’s Travels performs admirably the long overdue task of locating the Dean firmly in his native land. Swift belongs to the world, of course: even during his lifetime Gulliver’s Travels attracted an international audience. That he … Read more
W.H. Crawford (Ulster Historical Foundation, £6.95) For three decades Bill Crawford has been enlightening us about the evolution of the economy and society in his native Ulster. He has published a series of mould-breaking articles, without which our understanding of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Ulster would be seriously impoverished. His essential focus has been the linen … Read more
Deirdre Lindsay and David Fitzpatrick (eds.) (Irish Famine Network, TCD, £4.50) Most records relevant to the Famine lack satisfactory published guides. The authors’ intention in publishing Records of the Irish Famine is to encourage local studies of the Famine and its effects. The volume is split into three sections sandwiched between an introduction and an … Read more
Donald E. Jordan (Cambridge University Press, £45 hb, £19.95) The Land League started in Mayo. Its first meeting was held in Irishtown. As Jordan emphasises the geographical location was important. It lay in the southeast of the county, ‘where the rich central corridor and the infertile eastern periphery meet’. Even the circumstances of the first … Read more