Volume 23

KEVIN MYERS Lilliput Press €20 ISBN 9781843516354 Reviewed by Myles Dungan Sometime back in the 1970s a seventeen-year-old UCD scholarship candidate faced the might of Prof. Kevin B. Nowlan and Prof. F.X. Martin in an oral examination. Early on in the inquisition he was asked by the affable Prof. Nowlan, ‘Can you name any Irishmen … Read more

R. F. FOSTER Allen Lane €29.99 ISBN 9781846144639 Reviewed by Ronan Fanning ‘When did the Irish revolution begin?’ The question is Roy Foster’s point of departure, the pivot around which Vivid faces revolves. The core of the book is the ‘change of mentality, a change in hearts and minds’, that took place in the immediate … Read more

PÁDRAIG LENIHAN University College Dublin Press €42.85 ISBN 9781906359836 Reviewed by Martin Mansergh Few past military leaders are associated with melodies still played today. Handel’s glorious See the conquering hero comes was written in 1747 in honour of ‘Butcher’ Cumberland’s ruthless suppression of the Jacobites. Marshal Radetzky, who crushed revolution in northern Italy in 1849, … Read more

ROB GOODBODY Royal Irish Academy in association with Dublin City Council €30 ISBN 9781908996343 Reviewed by Arnold Horner Now in its fourth decade and operating under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy, the Irish Historic Towns Atlas has produced a steady, impressive and quite distinctive flow of publications focusing on historical aspects of the … Read more