Mrs. Margaret Leeson 1727-1797 was Georgian Dublin’s version of Christine Keeler or Heidi Fleiss. Her long career contained elements of both Keeler and Fleiss but, judging by her memoirs, she was more colourful and interesting than either of them. Mrs. Leeson was born into a reasonably comfortable family in County Westmeath but, following her mother’s … Read more
In view of the centrality of parliament to the history and historiography of the Ireland of the ‘Protestant ascendancy’, it is surprising that there is no modern study to compare with P.D.G. Thomas’s forensically detailed reconstruction of the operation of the British House of Commons in the eighteenth century for either house of the Irish … Read more
To be asked to review three new publications on Irish women’s history is in itself a heart-warming and encouraging experience, and a clear indication of the progress currently being made by researchers and writers in this field. At a time when we are particularly concerned to recognise and celebrate the multi-faceted nature of female experience—to … Read more
This collection of essays in honour of Professor J.F. Lydon, recently retired Lecky Professor of Modern History at Trinity College, is a worthy tribute to a scholar who has contributed so much to our present understanding of the history of the Anglo-Norman colony, and who has inspired a new generation of historians, many of them … Read more
In the wake of the Second World War the pillorying of ‘Éire’ for perfidy and treachery by abrasive Stormontites caused much resentment among so-called ‘southerners’ from Donegal down, who suspected that there was more than a grain of truth in the canard that the loyalists were ‘more loyal to the half-crown than to the crown’. … Read more