KIERAN KEENAGHAN and JAMES SCULLY Offaly History €20 ISBN 9781909822429 Reviewed by Eileen Casey Eileen Casey is a poet, fiction writer and journalist. Co-authored by local historians Kieran Keenaghan and James Scully (recipient of a Heritage Hero Award), this handsome full-colour edition addresses any lingering doubts or questions about an expression in spoken usage for … Read more
JOSEPH BRADY and PAUL FERGUSON Birlinn £30 ISBN 9781780279640 Reviewed by Thomas O’Loughlin Thomas O’Loughlin is Professor Emeritus of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham. Books involving mapping can invariably be located on a simple grid of two axes. On the horizonal axis there are the notional extremes of the history of cartography—i.e. the … Read more
PATRICK GLEESONFour Courts Press€45 ISBN 9781801511650 Reviewed bySimon Egan Simon Egan is a lecturer in Medieval Irish History at Queen’s University, Belfast. The study of medieval Irish kingship and society is undergoing something of a renaissance. The last few years alone have witnessed the production of some truly excellent work: Katharine Simms’s Gaelic Ulster in … Read more
By Daragh Fitzgerald We begin the new year with a new uachtarán, after Catherine Connolly’s resounding victory in October’s presidential election. While her campaign was helped by the incompetence of her opponents, you can only beat who you are up against, as Jim Gavin should know. Connolly’s independent background and vigorous campaign involving the participation … Read more
National Gallery of Ireland, Beir Wing, Rooms 6–10 Until 22 February 2026 By Donal Fallon In the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, a work by the artist Michael Farrell shows a meeting of James Joyce and Pablo Picasso at the famed Café de Flore in Paris. The idea of the two regulars … Read more