Voices from the Desert. The Lost Legacy of the Skelligs by Hugh MacMahon (Columba Books. €14.99/£12.99) Skellig Michael is one of the most famous heritage sites in Ireland, which the Office of Public Works has made great effort to render more accessible to visitors. Having appeared in one of the segments of the Star Wars series…
Gazetteer of Irish Stained Glass, Revised New Edition by Nicola Gordon Bowe, David Caron and others (Irish Academic Press, €35.00/£29.99) Patrick Claffey It is 30 years since the original publication of this handsome work, the definitive guide to Irish stained glass from 1900 to the present day. The revision, the work of several hands, is to…
Faith and Fury: The Evangelical Campaign in Dingle and West Kerry 1825-45 by Bryan MacMahon (Wordwell, €20.00/£18.99) In these ecumenical times it is difficult to make sense of the distrust and hostility which existed between Catholics and Protestants in west Kerry between 1825 and 1845. Locally these years became known as the period of the second…
The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge and the Murders that Stunned an Empire by Julie Kavanagh (Grove Press, £18.99) The Queen v. Patrick O’Donnell: The Man who Shot the Informer James Carey by Seán Ó Cuirreáin (Four Courts Press, €17.95) Felix M. Larkin When Lord Frederick Cavendish was killed by the Invincibles in the Phoenix Park…
Peter J. Drumm, First Professor of Biochemistry at University College Cork by Ned Barrett (Clogher Historical Society, €15.00; Clogher Historical Society, St Macartan’s College, Mullaghmurphy, Monaghan; ; info@clogherhistory.ie) Peter J. Drumm was born in Drumod, Co. Monaghan, on October 24, 1898. He attended Derrygooney National School and was a boarder at St Macartan’s College in Monaghan Town from…
By the Books editor A little while ago, from a book picked up in my book-hunting rambles, I plucked a leaflet on Choosing pupils for The School around the Corner. This was once among the most popular programmes that Radió Éireann (as the single national station was then called) ever broadcast. Some reflections on it may…
Mission to a Suffering People: Irish Jesuits 1596-1696 by Thomas J. Morrissey SJ (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£18.95) The Jesuit historian T. J. Morrissey is well known for his books on the Irish trade union movement and on modern Church history, especially in Dublin. But he has also written widely about the more distant past. His new book…
The First Irish Cities: an Eighteenth-Century Transformation by David Dickson (Yale University Press, £25.00/€32.00) In this study Prof. Dickson selects ten Irish cities and towns, subjects them to a forensic historical analysis and illustrates in meticulous detail their evolution throughout the 18th Century. The urban centres he selects are: Belfast, Cork, Derry, Drogheda, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny,…
A Life of Sir Horace Plunkett by Maurice Colbert (Copies can be purchased directly from the author at: 086 821 9584, or email mcolbert@live.ie Price: €20+postage) This book brings to mind that passage in Gulliver’s Travels, where that hardy sea man is in dialogue with the king of Brobdingnag about the virtues of their respective nations. “And he gave…
Saint Francis of Assisi and the wolf of Gubbio St Francis of Assisi, canonised in 1228, a mere century after his death, must be one of the most universally venerated saints in the world, a man widely respected beyond the Christian community. This is partly due to his special relationship with birds and animals. In…
Peter Costello