In June 1541 King Henry VIII began to style himself ‘king of Ireland’, abandoning the title of ‘lord’ which English kings had used for four centuries. It has long been assumed that the English kings from Henry II to Henry VII were content to rule Ireland as lords, but the events of the later years … Read more
Is it possible to write famine out of Irish history? Note, the question refers to ‘famine’, not the ‘Great Famine’. The catastrophe of 1845-49 was unlike any previous famine. In the words of Peter Solar it ‘was no ordinary subsistence crisis’. Its singularity notwithstanding, Ireland’s story is often told with famine as a fugue running … Read more
Christine Kinealy (Palgrave, £15.50 pb, £47.50 hb) ISBN 0333677722 The Great Irish Potato Famine James S. Donnelly, Jr (Sutton Publishing, £20) ISBN 0750926325 These are two books which, at first sight, bear certain similarities. Both are surveys of the Great Famine by established scholars in the field, which combine elements of the author’s previous work … Read more
Arrested for treason against the British Crown and deported to the penal colonies of Australia, the Irish revolutionary John Boyle O’Reilly managed to escape to the United States and within a few years became one of Boston’s most prominent political and literary figures, one of the best known Irish immigrants in the United States, and … Read more
The National Library Manuscripts Department is the repository of many collections of manuscripts emanating from individual families, most frequently families belonging to the ‘big house’ tradition, whose status generally derives from their wealth and property and whose interest resides in their role as virtual potentates at the apex of hierarchical communities, the history of whose … Read more