Of the challenges they faced they found prison reform to be among the greatest. There was the popular view that people in jail were there because they were wicked and, therefore, deserved the punishment they received. To argue that no prisoner deserved that much punishment was an argument that too often fell flat in the … Read more
The rationale behind the Tudor attempt to ‘reform’ the Irish polity and the Gaelic section of its population was provided by humanists variously inspired by classical ideas of government, civility and imperialism. The idea of patria or fatherland is one revived classical concept which has been touched upon in the debate about the ideological background … Read more
In a parliament which met at Dublin in 1460 a famous statute was passed in which it was stated that the land of Ireland is, and at all times has been, corporate of itself by the ancient laws and customs used in the same, freed of the burden of any special law of the realm … Read more
Sir,—I feel I should step in between Mr Bowman and Professor Boyce, if only to declare a ‘no contest’ (HI Winter 1994). As I said in my book on the 16th (Irish) Division (Ireland’s unknown soldiers), the formation’s infantry (as distinct from its supporting arms) was always largely Catholic Irish. Bowman should not cite my … Read more
(3:1) Reviewed by Tony Canavan In the wake of the revisionist/anti-revisionist debate in Irish history, one approaches any book with a title like The Cause of Ireland with a certain trepidation, especially when the author’s previous works include Ireland: the Propaganda War. What one is afraid of is a romanticised unreconstructed nationalist narrative of the … Read more