Rebellion and Remembrance in Modern Ireland, Laurence M. Geary (ed.). (Four Courts Press, £35.44) ISBN 185182586X Revolution, Counter-Revolution and Union: Ireland in the 1790s, Jim Smyth (ed.). (Cambridge University Press, £35) ISBN 052166109

As the Irish parliament enacts the union a deputation of dissident MPs burst into the study of Robert Emmet, demanding that he go immediately to France in search of armed assistance. Elsewhere Father Murphy organises his parishioners into an insurrectionary band. Later Michael Dwyer marries Anne Devlin, before both flee to Australia. These self-evidently ludicrous ... Read more