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 […]

‘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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Dead, Sick and Wounded of the Nine Years War (1594-1603)

In every sixteenth century campaign in Ireland as elsewhere disease was a greater killer than battle wounds. Field hospitals and army surgeons tried to cope with both. For English survivors […]