When the potato crop failed due to blight in 1846 it was obvious, in Ireland at any rate, that a major catastrophe was about to occur. The first failure in 1845 had been partial but it left the country debilitated with reserves run down, while individuals had few possessions left to sell or pawn. Few … Read more
Reviewed by Michael Ryan This very welcome study by Matthew Stout represents surprisingly the first ever book devoted to the most common field monument of Irish archaeology. During the Early Medieval Period—the Early Christian Period of less secular-minded archaeologists and historical geographers—according to Stout, whose figures must be regarded as authoritative, about 45,000 examples … Read more
Jim Dooge To find the title Hibernia im Ruhrgebiet (Ireland in the Ruhr) on a ninth-century map of ecclesiastical centres would cause little or no surprise. To find the title on a nineteenth-century map of successful mining enterprises is altogether more unexpected. In Britain and Industrial Europe 1750-1870 W.O. … Read more
Paul Weber By 1795, the United Irishmen’s hope of bringing about change in Ireland by peaceful means had been shattered once and for all. French assistance to an Irish independence movement seemed to be the only way out of the vicious circle of growing popular radicalisation and government counter measures. Revolutionary France had already developed … Read more
Eoin Bourke When the bankrupt dandy Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau arrived in 1828 more or less by coincidence, his mind was a clean slate with regard to Ireland. He was appalled by the squalor he saw. ‘The dirt, poverty and ragged dress of the common man’, he exclaimed, ‘is beyond belief!’ Of the city of … Read more