ALLYSON McCABE University of Texas Press $24.95 ISBN 9781477325704 Reviewed by Éamon Ó Caoineachan Éamon Ó Caoineachan is a freelance writer and poet at the University of St Thomas, Houston, Texas. ‘She didn’t just want to sing. She needed to scream’, writes music journalist Allyson McCabe in this biography, published in May, just two months … Read more
THE BATTLE TO CONTROL FEMALE FERTILITY IN MODERN IRELAND MARY E. DALY Cambridge University Press £25.99 ISBN 9781009314879 CONTRACEPTION AND MODERN IRELAND: A SOCIAL HISTORY, c. 1922–92 LAURA KELLY Cambridge University Press £22.99 ISBN 9781108839105 Reviewed by Mary Kenny Mary Kenny is the author of The way we were: Catholic Ireland since 1922 (Veritas, 2022). … Read more
PAUL O’BRIEN Cork University Press €49 ISBN 9781782053415 Reviewed by Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel is the author of Bernard Shaw, Seán O’Casey, and the dead James Connolly (Palgrave, 2021). As the centennial years of Seán O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy plays, The Shadow of the Gunman (1923), Juno and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and … Read more
JOOST AUGUSTEIJN Four Courts Press €22.45 ISBN 9781846825859 Reviewed by Liam Alex Heffron Liam Alex Heffron is a Ph.D student at the University of Galway and author of No revolution: igniting war in north Mayo, 1917–1923 (Mayo County Library, 2017). This is the thirteenth book in the county studies series, drawing on new archival records … Read more
National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks By Donal Fallon For many people, RTÉ’s Brainstorm website offered a first introduction to the work of museum curator and GAA historian Siobhán Doyle. While live sports were absent for much of 2020, Doyle’s fascinating insights into the history and culture of the Gaelic Athletic Association explored subjects as … Read more