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
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 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
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
Interview with Margaret MacCurtain by Thomas O’Loughlin TO’L: Why did you become a historian? MMacC: I can see many cycles in the pattern of my life, and in my intellectual life in particular, that play into my becoming becoming a professional historian. The choice of history ran right though my school subjects, especially as … Read more