Land politics and society in eighteenth-century Tipperary

Tom Power (Clarendon, £40) Tipperary has been a hot county in terms of recent Irish history writing. The acknowledged epicentre of agrarian disturbance, the county’s fearsome reputation in the early nineteenth century and the subsequent wave of transportation added a new verb to the English language: administrators were afraid that these convicts would ‘Tipperaryify’ Australia. … Read more

Paddy and Mr Punch

R.F. Foster (Penguin, £22.50) While Paddy and Mr Punch is a collection of essays, not a general history, it nonetheless maps out the central preoccupations of a highly influential historian and sets out to analyse the past and current state of relations between ‘History and the Irish Question’. Foster welcomes the possibilities offered by an … Read more

Below Stairs: domestic service remembered in Dublin and beyond 1880-1922 and Husbandry to Housewifery: women, economic change and housework in Ireland 1890-1914

Below Stairs: domestic service remembered in Dublin and beyond 1880-1922 Mona Hearn (Lilliput Press, £) Husbandry to Housewifery: women, economic change and housework in Ireland 1890-1914 Joanna Bourke (Clarendon Press, £) Most dwelling-houses still have kitchens separate from the ‘public’ areas of the house where an impression of effortless ease and comfort is presented, and … Read more

More on Norman surnames

Sir,— Brendan Smith argues in his response to my letter (HI winter 1993) that the surname Delany, ‘where it appears in north Leinster’, derives from the Norman del Anie or De Launee. This speculation may or may not be well-founded, but it should not obscure the fact that the surname is at present concentrated in … Read more