Lone crusader: David Thornley and the intellectuals Edward Thornley (Ashfield Press, €21.50) ISBN 9789068798 The premature death of David Thornley in June 1978 deprived Ireland of a significant intellectual best known for his current affairs work on RTÉ’s Seven Days programme and as a Labour TD for Dublin North-West from 1969 to 1977. Unseated … Read more
The men will talk to me: Kerry interviews by Ernie O’Malley Cormac K.H. O’Malley and Tim Horgan (eds) (Mercier Press, €19.99) ISBN 9781856359528 The title of this collection conveys the point that, as a highly respected IRA veteran, Ernie O’Malley had unique access to his former comrades when in the late 1940s and early … Read more
Coercive confinement in Ireland: patients, prisoners and penitents Eoin O’Sullivan and Ian O’Donnell (Manchester University Press, £65) ISBN 9780719086489 Coercive confinement in Ireland puts the spotlight on the wide range of institutions used by independent Ireland to confine ordinary criminals and those who flouted the moral codes of the period, along with children and … Read more
Dublin Fire Brigade and the Irish Revolution Las Fallon (South Dublin Libraries, €7.50) ISBN 9780956580481 Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB) has a pivotal if unsung role in the history of the Troubles, 1916–23, and as the individual responsible for destroying one of the last artefacts from that time, I feel that I am particularly well … Read more
The Book of Kells Bernard Meehan (Thames and Hudson, €60) ISBN 9780500238943 The codex of the four Gospels, translated into Latin, in Trinity College, Dublin, known since at least 1621 as ‘the Book of Kells’ (a detail we learn on p. 24 of this book), is no ordinary manuscript! It is viewed, indeed treasured, … Read more