In pursuit of land reform and Home Rule

Ancestral Voices in Irish Politics: Judging Dillon and Parnell, by Paul Bew (Oxford University Press, £25.00/ €29.50) The great Irish constitutional nationalist movement of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, with its twin aims of land reform and Home Rule, has been largely disregarded and uncelebrated in the Ireland that emerged from the 1916…

Serving the poor of Belfast for 270 years

The first great charity of this town: Belfast Charitable Society and its role in the developing city edited by Olwen Purdue (Irish Academic Press, €29.95/£24.99) The Belfast Charitable Society was established in 1752 for the purpose of raising funds to build a poorhouse and hospital for the poor of Belfast. The result was the building…

The Irish Famine: natural disaster or genocide?

Ireland’s Great Famine, Britain’s Great Failure William H. A. Williams (Anthem Press, £80.00/€94.00) It is impossible to write about certain matters, even in a scholarly context, without feelings of outrage. The Irish Famine of 1845-49, the subject of this new book by William H. A. Williams, an American historian who taught at University College Dublin…

The Irish who made it across the Atlantic

Irish lives in America Edited by Liz Evers and Niav Gallagher (Royal Irish Academy, €19.95/£18/$25) On this day every year Irish thoughts turn without fail to our relatives and friends in the United States. In reciprocation, President Joe Biden has this year issued a special proclamation from the White House declaring March 2022 as Irish-American…