Early Modern History (1500–1700)

Conquest and Union: Fashioning a British State 1485-1725 Steven G. Ellis and Sarah Barber (eds.) (Longman, hb £36, pb £14.99) ISBN 0-5822-0964-1, 0-5822-0963-3

It is hardly more than twenty years since John Pocock first called for the creation of the ‘unknown subject’ (as he called it) of British History. Although the concept has not yet managed to penetrate to book shops (where shelves labelled ‘British History’ tend to be occupied by old-fashioned ‘popular’ histories of England). It is … Read more

Presbyterians and the Irish Language Roger Blaney (Ulster Historical Foundation/The Ultach Trust, £6.50) ISBN 0-901905-75-5

The events of last summer raised many questions about the nature and exercise of certain aspects of unionist cultural traditions in the North. Whilst historically it is the case that only a minority of the Protestant population there has, at any time, ever had actual membership of organisations such as the Orange Order, the Royal … Read more

‘No heroes now’?

GH:    Did you always want to study history? EC:    I used to read historical novels endlessly as a teenager and I went to UCD in the late ‘50s to study English and History. I switched off English within weeks, I’m afraid, whereas I found History tremendously exciting. In the History Department people like Maureen Wall, … Read more

Castles and fortifications in Ireland 1485-1945, Paul M. Kerrigan (Collins Press, £24.95)

‘Power’, as Mao Zse-tung observed, ‘comes from the barrel of a gun’. His aphorism is true in the most literal sense of early modern Europe where the introduction of gunpowder and artillery precipitated a military revolution, which so overthrew traditional medieval security arrangements as to beget an entirely new military system, whose organisational needs triggered … Read more

Celibacy in the Catholic Church: a brief history

One of the most carefully fostered aspects of the image of the Catholic priest is that he is without a wife. Indeed, this image has been built up by the church administration as an essential part of its own esprit de corps. In recent centuries, certainly since clerical problems in mid-eighteenth-century France, church authorities have … Read more