For most people, historical knowledge is constituted by the oral and the visual. The oral tradition transmits a sense of tradition and belonging creating an identity which is buttressed by visual representations which help lodge potent images in the mind. Both oral and visual traditions are essentially backward looking, helping form a link with the … Read more
Socialism BC (before Connolly) is an episodic, disconnected subject. It staged a grand entry in the 1820s through such leading co-operators as Robert Owen and William Thompson, shrank to a shadow in the Irish Chartist movement, was re-introduced briefly by Karl Marx himself through the First International, and then found a flickering presence in reflections … Read more
The purpose of this book is to give an insight into the achievements and tribulations of an Irish family in exile—namely the descendants of Sorley Boy MacDonnell, a sixteenth-century County Antrim lord. The book is divided into three parts. Part I examines some prominent MacDonnells who made their homes in the Spanish Netherlands in the … Read more
It is a pleasure to see Alan Ford’s impressive study of the early Stuart church in Ireland reprinted. Four Courts Press is to be highly commended for undertaking this venture, and for producing a book whose format is infinitely superior to that of the edition of 1985. Dr Ford has not altered his original text … Read more
For Scots the name of Bruce conjures up the struggle against English conquest which began 700 years ago. Despite their distance in the past, the medieval king, Robert Bruce, and his great victory at Bannockburn in 1314 remain central to Scottish historical consciousness, seen as securing Scotland’s place as an independent realm and nation until … Read more