18th–19th – Century History

Vol. 1: The Origins of Empire, Nicholas Canny (ed.). (Oxford University Press, £30) ISBN 0198205627 Vol. 2: The Eighteenth Century, Peter Marshall (ed.). (Oxford University Press, £30) ISBN 0198205635

The first two volumes of the Oxford History of the British Empire survey ground last comprehensively covered in the Cambridge History of the British Empire, now over half a century old. As such they take their place among a growing number of attempts, ranging from the new Oxford History of England to the new Dictionary … Read more

Leaving the “dreadful rocks”

The ‘island of dreams’ notion hardly applies to the small islands off the north and west coasts of Ireland.  These have always been what Americans would call ‘hardscrabble’ places. Island life was especially hard in the past. The unusual survival of census documents from 1821 for the Aran Islands demonstrates this clearly. They show a … Read more

The Fenians in Context: Irish Politics and Society 1848-82, R.V. Comerford. (Wolfhound Press, £14.99) ISBN 086327627X Newspapers and Nationalism: The Irish Provincial Press 1850-1892 Marie-Louise Legg (Four Courts Press, £32.99) ISBN 185182341

R.V. Comerford’s The Fenians in Context, re-issued in paperback after thirteen years, has not aged gracefully. To revisit it is to be reminded of a particularly complacent moment in 1980s historical revisionism, then at its peak. By 1988 Comerford’s arguments were still sufficiently state-of-the-art to be incorporated wholesale into the relevant section of R.F. Foster’s … Read more

The writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763-98, Volume I, Tone’s career in Ireland to June 1795, T.W. Moody, R.B. McDowell and C.J. Woods (eds.). (Clarendon Press, £80) ISBN 0198223838.

Theobald Wolfe Tone (TWT) was born in 1763 and died in 1798. In 1963 the late Theodore William Moody (TWM) projected a definitive scholarly edition of TWT’s writings and in 1998 the first of three volumes reached the book shops. Tone, in other words, managed to pack three volumes-worth into his short life. Evidently the … Read more