ANNE BORAN Geography Publications €35 ISBN 9780906602973 Reviewed by John Cunningham John Cunningham lectures in History at NUI Galway. The subject of this biography was a mineworker and union leader in Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny. It is written by his daughter, who brings scholarly insights to the task drawn from a working life as a sociologist, … Read more
MÁIRE COMERFORD (ed. Hillary Dully) Lilliput Press €20 ISBN 9781843518198 Reviewed by Angus Mitchell Angus Mitchell was recently commissioned to write The Casement Memorial Statue for Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown County Council. If this book been published ten years earlier, how might it have influenced the history written during the ‘decade of centenaries’? At the … Read more
EVE MORRISON Irish Academic Press €19.95 ISBN 9781788551458 Reviewed by Gerry White Gerry White is a former member of the Defence Forces and the author of The burning of Cork (Mercier Press, 2006). On 28 November 1920, an IRA flying column led by Tom Barry ambushed a mobile patrol of Auxiliaries near Kilmichael in West … Read more
ROBIN FRAME Four Courts Press €55 ISBN 9781846827945 Reviewed by Simon Egan Simon Egan is Assistant Professor of Medieval Irish and British History at Trinity College, Dublin. Recent years have witnessed a growing scholarly interest in locating the development of English power in medieval Ireland within a broader comparative framework of interpretation. This approach, commonly … Read more
RONAN McGREEVY Faber and Faber £20 ISBN 9780571372805 Reviewed by John M. Regan Writing in his diary in September 1920, Henry Wilson recorded British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill’s reaction to news from Ireland that ‘Shinners’ were being secretly assassinated by the Crown forces. ‘Winston saw very little harm in it,’ wrote Wilson, ‘but it horrifies … Read more