P. Bew, K. Darwin and G. Gillespie (eds.) (Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast, £6.50) Community relations initiatives in Northern Ireland have been accorded such significance in recent years that one commentator has referred to the ‘fetishisation of talking’. Passion and Prejudice reminds us that in previous years dialogue was more problematic. It presents the background … Read more
D. G. Boyce, R. Eccleshall and V. Geogheghan (eds.) (Routledge, £40, £25 in Ireland) Niche marketing is no longer confined to fancy automobiles and exotic salad dressings but is part and parcel of the post-Thatcherite academic industry. The increasingly ramshackle knowledge industry has developed a complex hierarchy identified more by image than content. Within the … Read more
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