A.F. O’Brien lectures in medieval Irish history at NUI, Cork; Jim Smyth lectures in sociology at Queen’s University, Belfast; Patrick Maume lectures in Irish history at Queen’s University, Belfast; Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent of the London Independent.
Nicholas Mansergh was one of the last great historians of empire. He thus wrote with more elegance than Gibbon but with the dry wit of one who has witnessed folly amid the collapse of kings and princes. In a wonderful diary entry of 29 June 1937, the twenty-seven year old Mansergh cynically records a luncheon … Read more
Arthur Griffith has been overshadowed by more glamorous contemporaries. For many people the founder of Sinn Féin is the enemy of Larkin, the defender of anti-semitic pogroms, the opponent of Synge’s Playboy. Brian Maye has often defended Griffith’s memory; now he has produced this long-awaited biography. Maye adopts a thematic rather than a chronological format. … Read more
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
It would be hard to exaggerate the significance of Duffy’s book which marks an important stage in the development of Irish historiography. It represents a new point of departure in the study of medieval Irish history by beginning closer to the year 1000 than to 1169. Duffy identifies elements of continuity from pre- to post- … Read more