Issue 4 (Winter 2000)

Political Thought in Seventeenth-Century Ireland: kingdom or colony? Jane H. Ohlmeyer (ed.) (Cambridge University Press in association with the Folger Institute, Washington DC, £37.50) ISBN 0521650836

This volume on political thought in and concerning Ireland, is one of three resulting from a series of seminars convened at the Folger Institute under the aegis of John Pocock, which, regrettably, have not been published by the same press. The present volume, treating of the years pre-1641 to 1700, has four principal strengths. First, … Read more

The Last Secretary General Sean Lester and the League of Nations, Douglas Gageby. (Townhouse, £19.99) ISBN 1860591086

Sean Lester, Protestant nationalist, Irish diplomat, League of Nations High Commissioner in Danzig (Gdansk) and the last Secretary General of the League of Nations, is a fascinating subject for a biography. Douglas Gageby’s account of Lester’s life and times presents a vivid picture of Lester’s metamorphosis from nationalist to internationalist and from Irish diplomat to … Read more

Bunreacht na hÉireann: a study of the Irish text, Micheál Ó Cearúil. (Coiste Uile-Pháirtí an Oireachtais ar an mBunreacht/The All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, £15). ISBN 0707664004

On 20 August 1936, Éamon de Valera received ‘A Plan for a basic constitutional law and an Initial Version of a Draft’ from a legal adviser in the Department of External Affairs, John Hearne. That document marked the genesis of Bunreacht na hÉireann. By October 1936 the ‘plan’ had grown to seventy-eight articles and other … Read more

The Crowned Harp: Policing in Northern Ireland, Graham Ellison and Jim Smyth (Pluto Press, pb £14.99, hb £45) ISBN 0745313930, 0745313981

My most vivid memory of Northern Ireland remains the police stations in West Belfast. I was familiar from newspaper and television coverage with the murals and graffiti splashed walls that describe the depths of the loyalties and hatreds that have plagued that region. But it was the sight of police officers peering through wire-mesh and … Read more

Images of Erin

Throughout history, literary and graphic images of Ireland have taken various female forms. Among many examples are the demure, pure and desirable maiden, complete with harp, who adorned seventeenth-century coins. There’s the eighteenth-century version, a plain looking but smiling Hibernia breast feeding pygmy-sized politicians; other times depicted as part freedom fighter part vestal virgin. There … Read more