Sir,—Referring to the article on the Civil War photographs in the last issue (HI vol.9, no.1, Spring 2001), it should be noted that the picture at the top of page 34 is shown in reverse. It shows a closer view of the same scene as the two lower pictures, but it will be noted that … Read more
Peter Pearson’s book is perhaps the best architectural history of Dublin since Maurice Craig’s Dublin 1660-1860. It presents an area by area account of the growth and development of the core of the city from its Viking origins through to the present day. The meticulously detailed account of the city’s built environment provides the reader … Read more
The cries of despair and outrage from the tourist sector following the current closure of Newgrange, Cashel, etc. because of foot-and-mouth disease restrictions clearly shows the extent to which the industry has become dependent on these cultural amenities. Heritage presentation is big business and has become the flagship of the tourist industry. Ireland has built … Read more
In the period 1250 to 1650 covered by this book there was no single entity known as Gaelic Ireland. The term has been devised by modern historians to signify collectively the numerous quasi-autonomous Gaelic and Gaelicised lordships that existed in medieval Ireland. The sources from which the detailed workings of individual Gaelic lordships in the … Read more
Reading these histories of Ireland, I could not help wondering who they were written for. The writers’ fellow historians? Hardly! They know too much already to be interested in a brief general survey of our history. The general Irish public? Perhaps, though many of them know the outline already and are more likely to seek … Read more