Cormac Ó Gráda (Clarendon Press, £47) Since Louis Cullen’s path-breaking Economic History of Ireland since 1660 appeared twenty-two years ago, there have only been two rather less ambitious text-books to challenge its monopoly—Mary Daly’s Social and Economic History of Ireland since 1800 (1981), and Liam Kennedy and Philip Ollerenshaw’s Economic History of Ulster 1820 -1939 … Read more
Catherine Shannon, Professor of History at Westfield State College in Massachusetts, has been actively promoting Irish-American academic exchange for many years, both in her own career and in organisations such as the American Committee for Irish Studies. Peter Collins talked to her recently. PC: Tell us about your background. CS: I was born in Boston … Read more
Not many years ago, a popular BBC television series succeeded in making its audience experience an emotion that few could have thought would arise out of one of the greatest tragedies of this century, the First World War. This was to laugh at the efforts of Captain Blackadder to escape the inexorable folly of the … Read more
To this day Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill remains an enigmatic figure who played his cards so close to his chest that his inner motives are still difficult to discern. Nevertheless an overall impression of what Ó Néill hoped to achieve in Ulster and Ireland in general can be gleaned from his writings and correspondence. In … Read more
‘Undeterred by the dread of infectious diseases, undismayed by degrees of filth, stench, and darkness inconceivable, by those who have not experienced them’, the Revd William Whitelaw and his assistants ‘explored, in the burning months of the summer of 1798, every room of these wretched habitations [of Dublin], from the cellar to the garret, and … Read more