Jeremy Williams (Irish Academic Press, £35) In his foreword to this book Mark Girouard recalls schoolboy holidays in Ireland and a youthful appreciation of Irish nineteenth-century classicism gained through the seat of his trousers on sliding down the staircase balustrade of an aunt’s Greek-revival house. Jeremy Williams A Companion Guide to Architecture in Ireland, 1837-1921 … Read more
Landlords and tenants in mid-Victorian Ireland W.E. Vaughan (Clarendon Press, £40) This scholarly work is the result of long, methodical research based on an impressive range of primary sources, most notably estate papers. It is delivered free from irritating jargon with the econometric analysis lightened by a varied array of anecdotal backup. Vaughan questions conventional … Read more
Aristocrats Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox 1740-1832 Stella Tillyard (Chatto and Windus, £20) Aristocrats is a tour de force. Stella Tillyard has used the stories of the four sisters of its subtitle, largely taken from their copious correspondence, to immerse the reader in the eighteenth century on both sides of the Irish Sea. The … Read more
By ideology is meant the framework of ideas—the world-view—that moulded how individuals and groups perceived the problems that faced them. Ideological constructions shaped the interpretation of catastrophes like the potato blight. They were significant in determining what were acceptable modes and levels of response to the crisis, giving legitimacy to some and not to others. … Read more
The Prints and Drawings Section alone houses at least 90,000 prints, drawings and water-colours and for the past five years an active programme to develop and properly exploit the collection has been ongoing. Only about five per cent of the material had been listed previously and currently stock checking and item-recording are regular features of … Read more