An insight into what the great Catholic landowners achieved

The Political world of Sir Thomas Henry Grattan Esmonde of Ballynastragh, Co. Wexford, 1862-1935, by Brian Fennell (Four Courts Press, €12.95)   The Catholic Church in Ireland that attained a position of dominance in many spheres of Irish life in the nineteenth and twentieth century has always been slow to acknowledge the debt owed for its…