WILLIAM NOLAN and KIERAN O’CONOR (eds)
Geography Publications
€60
ISBN 9780906602676
EILEEN MURPHY and COLM DONNELLY (eds)
Geography Publications
€60
ISBN 9780906602621
REVIEWED BY
Arnold Horner
Sligo and Antrim represent the final volumes in a project that was initiated four decades ago with the appearance of Tipperary: history and society (1985; reprinted 1997), edited by William Nolan and Thomas G. McGrath. That pioneering Tipperary volume was a collection of nineteen essays contributed by a multidisciplinary group of scholars. It covered a diversity of topics, extending from the early archaeology of the county, through various aspects of the medieval and later periods to a review of twenty years of local authority planning in the South Riding. Three of the essays had a strong biographical component, two were in the Irish language and another (the opening chapter) rather appropriately offered ‘some reflections upon the local dimension in history’.
The Tipperary volume foreshadowed many of the characteristics that are now hallmarks of the Irish County History Series, most notably the eclectic and, generally, highly original nature of the topics covered. In these tomes, academic legitimacy is deservedly bestowed on such matters of significant local concern as the GAA, the parish, interdenominational relations, class struggle, local authors and traditional music. Evident, too, is the thoroughness of the footnotes and references, and the sometimes distinguished and often diverse backgrounds of the contributors. Many independent scholars have contributed, alongside a wide cadre from various academic institutions.
From its outset the series has been masterminded and guided to completion by Tipperary native William Nolan, whose early background was as a geographer but who might now be better acknowledged for many other talents. In the 1970s his publications included a short seminal volume, Sources for local studies (various editions, 1977–82), and a book on the north Kilkenny coal-mining barony of Fassadinin (1979). The latter was an early production of Geography Publications, Nolan’s own firm (in which his spouse Teresa has also played an invaluable role). This enterprise now has over 70 titles on its lists, with a central thread of its activities being the local history series that covers every Irish county. That series has now been brought to a conclusion, alongside another of Nolan’s abiding interests, the rising of 1848, on which he has recently offered an extended two-volume contextualisation: Remember ’48: Young Ireland and the rising and Young Irelanders beyond the rising (2023; reviewed in HI 32.2, March/April 2024, pp 60–1).
Other early volumes in the series included those on Wexford (1987), Kilkenny (1989) and Dublin (1992). The last-named, edited by Kevin Whelan and Fred Aalen, served also as a Dublin-orientated festschrift for the historical geographer John Andrews and seems to me to be a particularly good example of how the series has stimulated new perspectives that had not previously been explored in much detail. Of course, these volumes have left many topics un- or under-explored. Their value lies at least as much in opening up a selection of new areas as in offering the last word on a particular county. Collectively, they represent a massive stimulus to local studies, and an expansion of how the genre can be treated in a way that goes far beyond the model usually adopted by many locally orientated archaeological and historical journals.
As the series has developed, so too has the size of the volumes: 30–35 chapters and 800-plus pages have become the norm, presenting something of a challenge to those who like to carry and read their books comfortably. Sligo and Antrim are both profusely illustrated and representative of these more extended later volumes. Sligo opens with a wide-ranging and reflective review of the ‘personality of Sligo’ by Sligo-born Mary Gilmartin, now a geography professor at Maynooth University. Amongst many topics, she highlights the significance for Sligo town (now city) of Sligo Rovers Football Club, an institution that can arouse exceptional passion, and she muses over the links to Sligo, Kentucky. Her strongly personal contribution is complemented in the following chapter in which archaeologist Martin Timoney, a long-time champion of Sligo studies and an editorial veteran of many Sligo Field Club volumes, provides a barony-by-barony tour of the human landscape and its multitude of monuments dating from early prehistory to the near present.
The succeeding chapters offer more specific focus on particular periods, places and themes and are almost invariably of an exceptional level of scholarship. Issues in prehistory and several reviews of individual monastic buildings are followed by assessments of the early manuscript tradition of County Sligo by Nollaig Ó Muraíle and of Sligo place-names by Conchubar Ó Crualaoich. Three highly original treatments of the seventeenth century then explore the 1641 Depositions (Brendan Scott), the geography that framed military campaigns between 1641 and 1691 (Pádraig Lenihan) and the impact of Scots settlement and Presbyterianism in Sligo (Jack Johnston)—an essay that also follows through later centuries to the year 2000.
Later chapters include examinations of the early modern economy (David Fleming), the town of Sligo c. 1760–c. 1860 (David Dickson) and the Irish language in Sligo during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Ciarán MacMurchaidh). A further six chapters give attention to what is arguably the strongest feature of the book: an exploration of the landed estate system, which was such a dominant component of the social structure of the county into the early twentieth century. Included here are reviews of archival and printed sources (Marie Boran and Brigid Clesham), an introduction to the estate system (Jonathan Cherry) and summary assessments of the changing fortunes of the Castledargan branch of the Ormsbys (Patrick E. O’Brien) and of the O’Haras of Annaghmore (Tom Bartlett). The archived papers of the latter family now represent one of the most significant of the landlord estate records in the National Library of Ireland.
Topics in the final chapters continue to be wide-ranging, covering such matters as the progress of Sligo town in the Victorian era, sectarianism in the nineteenth century, the Yeats family and Sligo, the Civil War, the evolution of the creamery system, traditional music and folklife objects. The book concludes with a venture into the 21st century, as Mary Cawley writes on population and economy during the period 2006–22.
With such a far-reaching agenda, it would be churlish in the extreme to comment at any length on what does not appear, but it might perhaps be suggested that gaps are noticeable; for example, there seems little here on the ringforts that are so prolific across the lowlands around Sligo Bay. Arguably, too, the treatment of the twentieth century might have been reinforced to give a greater sense of how both the economy and the demography of the county modernised. But such absences are a characteristic of the Irish County History Series, a necessity to be accepted in exchange for such a quality, if selective, collection of well-written, specialised yet accessible essays.
Antrim is comparably eclectic, its selectivity in this instance being accentuated by the challenge of balancing a range of essays on a very large city, Belfast, with a treatment that offers a coverage of topics that reach across a large county. Although there is an important bridging chapter on Belfast at the start of the Troubles, little enough appears on such defining features of the twentieth-century city as life and destruction during the Second World War or the de-industrialisation processes that paralleled the Troubles in the closing decades of the century. Those with an interest in such relatively large places as Ballymena, Carrickfergus or Larne may feel that more could have appeared. The coverage is nonetheless impressive, ranging from a beautifully illustrated opening piece on the distinctive geology through, to take just a few examples, chapters on the early years of Antrim town and Lisburn/Lisnagarvey to pieces on place-names, surnames, folklore-collecting and camogie. A particularly touching chapter is a ‘photographic essay’ on the physical and human landscapes of the county, consisting of over 50 exceptionally fine oblique-angle colour air photos taken by the late Noel Mitchel (1924–2023). An aviation enthusiast, the far-travelled Mitchel was for long a geography lecturer at Queen’s University, Belfast.
Almost inevitably, religion gets some prominence, with chapters on the growth of Catholicism in Belfast, the provision of places of worship of the Established Church 1660–1740, and a fascinating exploration of the many sides to the schism-prone free thinking of early modern and later Presbyterianism. The latter chapter, which offers important perspectives on Presbyterian involvement in the 1798 and other conflicts, was contributed by Revd Stewart Jones, formerly Presbyterian minister at Donemana, Co. Tyrone, who died in 2014. It complements an earlier (2001) article by Dr Jones which appeared in the Armagh volume of the series.
Another group of chapters focuses on Belfast during the nineteenth century, with particular attention being given to the growth of the industrial city, the Famine, the middle class and the role of science, as exemplified by the vitality of the city’s cultural and intellectual life. In the perception of Queen Victoria, industrial Belfast could be characterised as the ‘Manchester and Liverpool of Ireland’ (p. 525), but the city also enjoyed a reputation as ‘the Athens of the North’ (p. 537). Particularly for the middle classes, a range of societies and institutions flourished. The Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society (founded in 1821) and the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club (founded in 1863) were amongst the most popular of the knowledge-orientated societies (the latter set up an Irish-language class in 1892, a year before the foundation of the Gaelic League).
Yet other chapters cover matters as diverse as reading and writing c. 1760–c. 1860, the smaller towns, migration, female criminals in the nineteenth century, Rathlin Island and the Gaelic revival, women’s unionism 1886–1939, and northern nationalism in the era of, and leading up to, the Great War and 1916. A particularly fine, methodologically stimulating early chapter is contributed by Russell Ó Ríagáin and Patrick Gleeson: a ‘historical archaeology’ of the early medieval period that is notable for its good use of maps, and reviews documentary sources in combination with archaeological and geographical techniques such as ‘heatmaps’ and nearest-neighbour analysis.
The final chapter, by Liam Campbell, is on Lough Neagh and its Antrim shoreline. Here the focus is on the diatomite earth and other extractive industries—activities that have offered short-term economic benefits that must be set against long-term environmental scars. The final sentence appropriately addresses the future, commenting that, ‘as a landscape once seen as worthless and peripheral historically, [the Lough] may yet be seen to have enormous value, beyond the economic, and be a key player in a sustainable future’.
Thus ends this major series, a huge achievement that William Nolan has sustained for so long. His personal memoir offering further reflection will hopefully be offered in due time. Meanwhile, fans of this series, old and new, may look forward with anticipation to the e-book versions which are apparently now projected by Geography Publications. This series has a lasting—indeed, a growing—value that deserves to be so rendered. A further wider evaluation will hopefully also be made which will explore just how much this series has boosted Irish local history, and the broader field of Irish local studies, over the last four decades. It would be hard to overestimate the impact.
Arnold Horner formerly lectured in Geography at University College Dublin.