bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The United Irish League and the reunion of the Irish parliamentary party, 1898–1900
Authors: Bull Philip
Published: August 2016

The chronic factionalism and dissension which had plagued Irish nationalist politics after the fall of Parnell in 1890 was finally brought to an end with the reunion of the Irish parliamentary party in January 1900. During the 1890s the monolithic parliamentary movement of Parnell’s time had degenerated into three separate and warring factions. One of these factions, led for most of this period by John Dillon, consisted of the majority of those who had opposed Parnell’s continued leadership in 1890. A breakaway group of anti-Parnellites, led by T.M. Healy, had adopted both a clericalist and a localist position in relation to nationalist politics, thus separating themselves from the secular and centralised structure of the majority party. The third faction consisted of the supporters of Parnell, led by John Redmond, but by 1897 these Parnellites had split into two groups as a result of differences between Redmond and Harrington over the issue of reunion with the anti-Parnellites. With the formerly impressive edifice of parliamentary nationalism thus split into four fragments, and with two leaders in particular — Healy and Redmond — openly frustrating any moves towards reunion, most nationalists must have felt further than ever removed from the prospect of an effective, united political movement.
Court-Castle faction and the Irish viceroyalty: the appointment of Oliver St John as lord deputy of Ireland in 1616
Authors: Rutledge Vera L.
Published: August 2016

In the spring of 1616 observers at James I’s court were somewhat startled to learn that an Irish official holding a post below the rank of great office had been appointed lord deputy of Ireland. In the king’s name, English privy councillors announced that Oliver St John, former master of the ordnance in Ireland, had been chosen to succeed Arthur Chichester, the incumbent Irish governor. Preoccupied with notions of hierarchy, the royal court reacted with contempt and shock to the announcement. Edward Sherburne, agent to Dudley Carleton, England’s ambassador to the Hague, perhaps reflects best the contemporary attitude in his biting comment that such an unusual appointment could have only one possible explanation. St John was a distant kinsman of the rising favourite, George Villiers, and Sherburne noted with undertones of cynicism: ‘Sir Oliver St John made lord deputy of Ireland by Villiers’ influence whose power is so great “as what he will, shall be’”.
An English record of the founding of a university in Dublin in 1358
Authors: Mooney Linne R.
Published: August 2016

A chronicle of the Franciscan convent at Bridgewater, Somerset, in B.L., Cottonian MS Domitian A.ii, preserves a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century record of the founding of a university in Dublin in 1358. The entry, on f. 5v, notes the founding of the university at Dublin as the second entry for the year 1358:

Ysabellamater Edwarditercii obiit; vniuersitas diflinie in hibernia incepit.

Since the main scribe of the chronicle — perhaps the astronomer John Somer, O.F.M. (fl. 1380-1409) — appears to have recorded his portion of the entries in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, this is one of the earliest extant recordings of this event. The founding in 1358 is confirmed by an entry inRotulorum patentium et clausorum cancellariae Hiberniae calendariumrecording, according to Fitzmaurice and Little, ‘the King[’s promise [of] special protection to scholars travelling thither’.
The Church of Ireland: a critical bibliography, 1536–1992 Part VI: 1870–1992
Authors: Milne Kenneth
Published: August 2016

The standard general histories of the Church of Ireland are inevitably curtailed in their treatment of the years under review in this section. Mant’s two volumes were published in 1840, and the relevant volume of Phillips’s three-part work appeared in 1934. The final chapter (by C. A. Webster) is entitled ‘The church since disestablishment’, and its tone is consistent with the instructions given to the team of authors by the general synod in 1929, when the work was commissioned, that it should constitute ‘a measure of defence against hostile propaganda’. Accordingly, considerable attention is paid to such Church of Ireland grievances as the bullApostolicae curiaeand theNe temeredecree. Several pages are devoted to the St Bartholomew’s ritual cases, and space is given to changes in the church constitution and to missionary work overseas. Of the Church of Ireland's interaction with the profound social and political changes then taking place in the country, little is said, apart from a reference to the need for church extension in Belfast. Perhaps it was too soon. Scarcely of the same magnitude as Phillips's extensive survey, the single-volume history by Johnston, Robinson and Jackson, though published thirty years later, takes the story no further, nor can it be said to show evidence of the transformation in Irish historiography that had taken place in the intervening decades.
‘The red livery of shame’: the campaign against army recruitment in Ireland, 1899—1914
Authors: Denman Terence
Published: August 2016

In November 1899 The Times published a letter from a correspondent in Enniskillen recalling the army’s recruiting parades when he was a boy:

The recruiting party — members of the regiment stationed here — usually fell in about 2 o’clock. There were two rows of non-commissioned officers (sergeants) in front, with swords drawn and ribbons streaming from their caps, then came the band playing spirit-stirring airs, a few rows of corporals forming the rear. Their appearance was quite imposing and invariably attracted a large crowd of stalwart peasant lads, as well as town youths and others. And it was certainly calculated to inspire a military enthusiasm in the breasts of the people . . . and many a fine young fellow, becoming enamoured of the service, was induced to accompany the party to the barracks and finally take the shilling.

Only weeks before the Boer War had broken out, and the question of seducing ‘stalwart peasant lads’ to ‘take the shilling’ was becoming one of acute political concern in Ireland. For the Boer War was ‘nearly as crucial an event for Irish nationalism as the death of Parnell’. The sight of England engaged in a major colonial war and, in the early months, being ‘worsted in the game’ stimulated national sentiment: ‘the feeling against the British government was brought out in a remarkable manner, owing to the difficulties of the South African War’. Yet there were thousands of Irishmen in Britain’s army in South Africa.
The Confederate Catholics of Ireland: the personnel of the Confederation, 1642–9
Authors: Cregan Donol F.
Published: August 2016

The term ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ is not of ancient lineage. It dates from the nineteenth century and, as Professor J. C. Beckett has pointed out, seems to have originated in the title of a book by Father C. P. Meehan first published in 1846. Those members of the confederacy which ruled the major portion of the country between the rising of 1641 and the advent of Cromwell officially designated themselves as ‘the Confederate Catholics of Ireland’. Their own description of themselves has been chosen to head this essay not because the pedigree of the term ‘Confederation of Kilkenny’ is insufficiently old or respectable, but simply because their official title accurately describes what the essay is about. It is not concerned with the general history of the Confederate movement, nor with its prolonged diplomatic activities; still less does it deal with the ebb and flow of its military fortunes; nor even with the governmental structures of the Confederation. Of course I am relying on all these for background information and illustration, and, in particular, use has been made of the fact that I have been able to determine the number, and to identify almost the entire personnel, of the Confederation’s successive Supreme Councils. The history of the Confederation, political, diplomatic, constitutional and military, has been taken for granted. I want, then, to look at the people who individually bound themselves together by oath to form the confederacy; more particularly, to look at those who were members of the General Assemblies—constituting, in effect, the Confederate parliament; and more particularly still, to look at the members of the Supreme Councils, which virtually constituted the Confederate governments. This essay, therefore, is concerned with persons—with ‘the Confederate Catholics of Ireland’. It will briefly discuss their family origins, their educational and cultural background, their professions or occupations, and finally their political outlook.
O’Connell’s liberal rivals in 1843
Authors: Sloan Robert
Published: August 2016

In 1843 Daniel O’Connell’s campaign for repeal of the Act of Union won the support of millions of Irish Catholics. This movement, of which the famous ‘monster meetings’ were the most striking feature, greatly alarmed adherents to the union in both Britain and Ireland. This article is concerned with the response of those M.P.s who supported the union but repudiated ‘Protestant ascendancy’ and advocated removal of the grievances of Ireland’s Catholic majority. There were about forty such ‘liberal-unionist’ members then in parliament, their landed influence and popular sympathies having enabled them to emerge relatively unscathed from the Whig electoral disaster of 1841. They were a mixed bag of Protestants and Catholics, Whigs and liberals, and they had as little idea of party unity as the stereotypical independent member of nineteenth-century fame. This picture of unco-ordinated individual activity was to change dramatically in response to the momentous events of what O’Connell called ‘the great Repeal Year’.
The Rockefeller Foundation and medical education in Ireland in the 1920s
Authors: Jones Greta
Published: August 2016

In 1913 part of the enormous fortune of the American millionaire John D. Rockefeller was put aside for philanthropic and charitable purposes under the direction of the Rockefeller Foundation. Throughout the twentieth century the Rockefeller Foundation disbursed money to a wide range of economic, scientific and artistic projects. Among its interests were health and medical research, and Rockefeller invested funds in public health programmes throughout the world for the eradication of particular diseases or to strengthen the effectiveness of existing public health structures.

The Rockefeller Foundation was also interested in providing aid for the reorganisation and modernisation of medical education. It was, however, loath to part with any of its monies unless it was assured of the political and social stability of a country, and also of the competence, honesty and good intentions of those to whom it entrusted funds. In order to assess this, the officers of the Rockefeller Foundation visited potential recipients. They reported back to the New York headquarters of the Foundation on the political and social background of the countries to which assistance might be given and also on the feasibility of the programmes of assistance devised to help them.
Negotiations leading to the Anglo-Polish agreement of 31 March 1939
Authors: Williams T. Desmond
Published: August 2016

The second World War was to find Germany and Italy as allies in a conflict in which their initial opponents were Britain, France and Poland. Italy did not immediately enter the war, but by the terms of the ‘pact of steel’ of 22 May 1939 she was to become a belligerent. The war broke out over the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. The circumstances under which it arose were peculiar in one particular point, namely in that Great Britain entered the conflict directly and immediately as an ally of a power in eastern Europe. She had entered the wars of 1914 and of 1793 in a secondary manner—as an ally of powers already at war and over commitments which related primarily to western and central Europe. It was novel therefore that she should have become involved directly in a conflict relating to eastern Europe.

If one had tried to predict, in 1919, the circumstances under which Britain would fight another war with Germany, few would have hazarded the opinion that she would choose the crossing of the Polish frontier as a casus belli. In addition, if one had, in 1938, tried also to predict Britain’s ally in an eventual conflict, Poland would have come towards the end of the list. Since 1934, Poland had generally been regarded as a power which was endeavouring to keep out of conflicts between Germany and the western powers—at least in the early stages of such a war. The relations between Berlin and Warsaw were, as from their agreement of 26 January 1934, surprisingly cautious; and the personal relations between leading Germans and Poles reflected—or so it appeared—the existence of such friendly relations. However, within a very short period after the Munich agreement of 30 September 1938, Britain was to become deeply involved in the defence of a frontier which British public opinion had previously regarded as the most open to criticism and revision of all the arrangements concluded at Versailles.
The Patrician problem and a possible solution
Authors: Esposito M.
Published: August 2016

Readers of Gibbon will recall the words with which the great historian terminated his brilliant sketch of the career of England’s patron saint: ‘The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter’.

This sweeping denunciation of the renowned St George as a myth has left Englishmen completely indifferent. In Ireland, however, such Olympian detachment is not to be expected, for the national saint is taken seriously—very seriously—and when a brilliant German scholar, in the course of a visit to Ireland, following the opinion of certain eminent writers (among them an Irishman), proclaimed that the St Patrick ‘of the snakes and shamrocks’ had never existed, or was perhaps some other person masquerading under the same name, his announcement created an outburst of indignation and hostility so violent that the professor thought it wiser to curtail his sojourn.
The writing of history in Ireland 1800—30
Authors: MacCartney Donald
Published: August 2016

Few of the writings on the more modern history of Ireland, written in the period between the union and the granting of emancipation, may be said to have been the result of original investigation. Neither from the standpoint of sources nor from the manner of presentation were there any obvious signs of development. The general histories by Gordon, Burdy, Taaffe, Lawless, and the rest relied for their facts upon general histories written in the eighteenth century, such as Leland, Warner, Hume or Curry, or upon the authorities cited in these and for the most part re-edited during our period—such as Cambrensis, Spenser, Keating, Ussher and Ware. Indeed, very often the general historians were only too content to rely solely on each other. Thus, Lawless (1814) was greatly indebted to Taaffe (1811), who, in turn, had leaned upon Plowden (1803). And Burdy (1817) was, for all practical purposes, a re-edition of Gordon (1805), even to the very sentences and marginal indications of the contents of paragraphs.
The Irish courts of law, 1801–1914
Authors: McDowell R.B.
Published: August 2016

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were six superior courts in Ireland—chancery, the three common law courts (king’s bench, common pleas and exchequer), the admiralty court and the prerogative court (an ecclesiastical court with jurisdiction over testamentary matters).Four of these courts were of medieval origin. The exchequer was probably in existence before the close of the twelfth century, the Irish chancery was founded early in the thirteenth century, the first Irish chancellor being appointed in 1244, and the antecedents of the courts of king’s bench and common pleas are to be found in the thirteenth century. The other two courts were comparatively modern. The court of prerogative and faculties based its rights to exercise jurisdiction on two sixteenth century acts and two seventeenth century patents, one of James I and one of Charles I. And though admiralty jurisdiction had been exercised in Ireland from medieval times, the Irish court of admiralty had been created by statute in 1784. From the court of chancery and the three common law courts there was an appeal to the court of error (known as the court of exchequer chamber) composed of the judges of the three common law courts, and in 1857 it was enacted that the court of exchequer chamber when hearing an appeal should consist of the judges of the two courts from which the appeal did not arise. From the admiralty court and from the prerogative court there was an appeal to delegates in chancery.
Connacht in the eighteenth century
Authors: Simms J.G.
Published: August 2016

Connacht in the eighteenth century was regarded as the most remote and the most catholic part of Ireland. These two qualities gave the region a very individual character, and the few travellers who ventured to cross the Shannon had the sensation of entering another world. This did not apply to two of the five counties—Leitrim and Sligo, which had been allotted tothe soldiers of the parliamentary army in the Cromwellian settlement and for this reason were not typical of the province. The essential Connacht lay beyond the Shannon in the counties of Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, the greater part of which had been reserved for catholic landowners in the Cromwellian settlement. The result of this arrangement was to leave the catholic gentry in a much stronger position in Connacht than in the rest of Ireland. This position remained largely unshaken by the Jacobite war, as the treaty of Limerick, the terms of the surrender of Galway, and their own solidarity protected most of the Connacht landholders from confiscation at the end of the war.

When the eighteenth century began, several hundred catholic landholders were in occupation of a substantial part of Galway and Mayo and, to a lesser degree, of Roscommon. This situation was a constant source of anxiety to the authorities, who from time to time were alarmed about the prospect of a French landing in the west supported by catholic landlords and catholic peasants. It was said that catholics in Connacht outnumbered protestants by fifty to one and that in some counties there were so few protestant freeholders to serve on juries that the region could scarcely be held to acknowledge the authority of the government.
Irish home-rule finance: a neglected dimension of the Irish question, 1910–14
Authors: Jalland Patricia
Published: August 2016

‘Home rule’, complained Augustine Birrell, ‘is the most unlucky cause mortal man was ever associated with. Its path is strewn with ghosts and skeletons — wine, women and money. Now it is money. … Sentiment is easily kept alive, from one generation to another; it costs nothing but a harp and a song. But cash — where is that to come from?’ The problem of finance proved to be an insurmountable obstacle to any compromise over Irish home rule at the abortive Irish Convention of 1917–18. By contrast, the struggle over the third home-rule bill from 1912 to 1914 was dominated by the question of Ulster and not finance. The bill was ultimately wrecked by the opposition of the Ulster protestants to any home-rule bill for a united Ireland. Home-rule finance has been overlooked by most historians because it seemed less important and no doubt also because it was immensely complicated. But the problem of finance was a very real difficulty which still confronted politicians even if the objections of the Ulster protestants could be overcome. More important, the complex relationship between Ireland and Britain cannot be fully understood unless the financial dimension is taken into account.
Official reaction to native land claims in the plantation of Munster
Authors: Sheehan Anthony J.
Published: August 2016

The historiography of the Munster plantation has not been extensive; in the ninety-five years since Robert Dunlop published the first proper study of the greatest of all the Tudor settlements in Ireland, only D. B. Quinn has treated the subject in any detail. In the absence therefore, of any full-scale study of the plantation, it is fair to say that it has usually been characterised as the process of driving the native Irish off their lands and settling them with English colonists. In this scenario, the administrations, both in England and Ireland, are seen as backing the settlers judicially and extra-judicially, and the natives come off distinctly the worst; as Quinn puts it, the native population greatly resented the ‘presence and domination of the planters who were felt to twist the law in favour of a minority’. Yet, a study of the extant evidence does not support this simple stereotyping; rather, both the privy council (to which many of the native land claims were directed) and the government commission of 1592 were quite willing to consider cases against the undertakers and their tenants and to rule in favour of the native claimant. For instance, Hugh Cuffe, who had originally been granted a seignory of 12,000 acres in Cork, lost most of it to appeals by Ellen Fitzedmund Gibbon and James MacShane to the privy council in 1591, and had to make do with a new grant of a mere 1,953 acres in the same area.
The Irish remonstrance of 1317: an international perspective
Authors: Phillips J.R.S.
Published: August 2016

The document commonly known as the ‘Remonstrance of the Irish princes’, which was sent to Pope John XXII in or about 1317, has inspired a great deal of written comment since the text first became generally available during the nineteenth century. It has been seen as an early statement and vindication of Irish national identity and political independence; it throws light on the application of the English common law in early fourteenth-century Ireland; it illustrates the relations between English and Irish monks and secular clergy within the Irish church; it demonstrates that in the early fourteenth century Pope Adrian IV’s bullLaudabiliter, in which he had urged Henry II of England to conquer Ireland, was regarded even by enemies of the English as a key element in the English monarchy’s claims to the lordship of Ireland; and its account of the English settlers in Ireland has been used to demonstrate a growing distinction between them and their cousins in England. In recent years the remonstrance has also been quarried for evidence on the application of the canon law of the just war, and for information on racial attitudes on the frontiers of medieval Europe.
Irish smuggling in the eighteenth century
Authors: James F.G.
Published: August 2016

Since the work of Beer, or at least since the studies of Andrews and Harper, no serious historian has failed to recognize that the British mercantile system did not bear too heavily upon the American colonies before 1763. In the first place, some regulations either directly and intentionally, or indirectly and unintentionally, fostered colonial development. In the second place, enforcement was often so lax and evasion so common that a number of regulations Lvere practically inoperative. Yet though the beneficent effects of ‘salutary neglect’ upon the American colonies have long been accepted, writers on Irish history have continued to assume that the mercantile system was applied to Ireland with devastating effectiveness. Was this indeed true? Or was British mercantilism in Ireland mitigated in the same ways as in the overseas colonies —by compensating advantages and by evasion? The present article concerns itself only with the latter point, the question of enforcement and evasion of British restrictions on Irish trade.
The census in Ireland of 1813-15
Authors: Froggatt P.
Published: August 2016

The first reliable statutory census of the population of Ireland was taken in 1821 and started the decennial series. An earlier census authorised by statute had been taken between 1813 and 1815. The results, however, were defective and neither printed nor presented to parliament. The causes or this failure air discussed below.

The first decennial census of Great Britain (taken in 1801) was a success, and a bill to take a single census of Ireland was introduced on 31 January 1806 ‘to assimilate the laws and regulations of Ireland to those of this country as far as it is just and expedient’. It was thrown out at the first readiilg. During the commons’ debate on the second census of Great Britain (taken in 1811), several members deprecated that Ireland had again been excluded and attributed this to ‘a species of timidity on the part of certain persons who were afraid even of letting themselves know the real amount of the inhabitants of the sister kingdom’. More probably, however, Ireland was omitted because of the formidable practical difficulties her inclusion would have presented. A second bill for a census of Ireland, which became law on 18 July 1812, made light of these difficulties or suggested how they might be overcome.
Thirty years’ work in Irish history (II)
Authors: Byrne Francis John
Published: August 2016

It is a sad admission that the historical work of the past thirty years on the first seven centuries of Irish history can be very rapidly surveyed. Eóin MacNeill, who first laid the foundations for the serious study of early Irish history (and indeed of the Gaelic world down to its dissolution), expended his scholarship in many learned articles and brilliant essays. The task of weaving a consecutive narrative was left to the over-enthusiastic hands of Mrs Alice Stopford Green, since whose time no one has ventured to write a full-scale history of the period before the Norman invasion.
The Irish Registry of Deeds: a comparative study
Authors: Roebuck Peter
Published: August 2016

The value of the Irish Registry of Deeds as a source, particularly for social and economic historians, has long been underestimated. It first received serious consideration in a lecture delivered to the Conference of Irish Historians in 1943 by Mr Samuel Weir. Mr Weir’s estimate of the usefulness of this source ran as follows : ‘while making no claim that the documents preserved in the Registry of Deeds are primarily of historical value, it is claimed that they can be of immense value as corroborative evidence’. This guarded, almost apologetic statement was typical of the diffident attitude towards the registry which prevailed among historians both then and for some time thereafter.
Nationalism and the catholic church in the 1840s: views of Dublin repealers
Authors: Hill Jacqueline R.
Published: August 2016

The 1840s, when O’Connell’s Repeal Association and Young Ireland flourished, constitute an important period in the history of the relationship between the catholic church and the Irish national movement. One of the major themes in Young Ireland’s challenge to O’Connell’s leadership of the repeal movement was that under O’Connell the association paid too much attention to religious issues, and was too closely identified with the interests of the catholic church. According to Young Ireland, Irishmen should sink their differences—including religious ones—and join together to discover their real interests, which lay in seeking Irish independence from England.
The Lancashire Irish and the catholic church, 1846-71: the social dimension
Authors: Lowe W. J.
Published: August 2016

One of the most important influences on Irish life during the past century and a half has been the Roman Catholic church. This is true not only in Ireland, but also in Irish emigrant communities. What I hope to demonstrate is that the emergence of the catholic church in Lancashire as a primary social institution. which fostered the growth of a community identity, gave the immigrant Irish a valuable sense of constancy and continuity and paralleled developments in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century. But the church’s influence, which was scarcely diminished, and was perhaps strengthened, by the experience of emigration, must have been founded on a very sound base to be in a position to assume such a dynamic role among the Irish in Ireland and the Irish living elsewhere.
The Irish grain trade, 1839-48
Authors: Bourke P.M. Austin
Published: August 2016

As a step towards a fuller understanding of the food situation in Ireland on the eve of and during the great famine it is necessary to analyse the exports and imports of grain and grain products in those years.

There are a number of major obstacles to doing this. To begin with the available statistics on the Irish grain trade are neither orderly nor complete. The most extensive of the relevant series covers each calendar year during the period 1839–48. Monthly figures are available only for the year 1846 and apply to exports only. Other official returns refer to isolated periods of varying length.
The Reaction of the British Government to the 1922 Collins-de Valera Pact
Authors: Towey Thomas
Published: August 2016

In the months following signature of the Anglo-Irish treaty the British government was particularly concerned with the transfer of power to a legally constituted government and parliament in Dublin which would be committed to implementation of the treaty and supported by an electoral majority This goal was, however, subject to an overriding consideration: preservation, at almost any cost, of the agreement embodied in the treaty The Collins-de Valera pact brought these considerations into conflict. It is the purpose of this paper to examine why the British government, and Winston Churchill in particular, objected so strenuously to the pact and why, despite these objections, an election under the terms of the pact was permitted.
The Irish catholic clergy and emigration during the great famine
Authors: MacDonagh Oliver
Published: August 2016

The catholic church in Ireland never, as a church, defined for itself an attitude towards emigration. Priests and bishops, when they spoke of emigration, usually spoke as individuals, not as members of their order. The relatively small number who have left any opinions on record were not necessarily the most influential. We cannot be certain that their views represented the feelings of the clergy as a whole. The day to day conversations and advice of ordinary priests, of which we can know little, mere far more influential in this matter than the pastorals or public letters which survive. In the place of a single voice speaking with authority or the steady murmur of unanimity, we can hear only the heterogeneous confusion of a score of voices, some perhaps seriously distorted by the public controversy in which they were raised.
The Ulster liberal unionists and local government reform, 1885–98
Authors: Shannon Catherine B.
Published: August 2016

In the mid-1880s English political leaders found it essential to develop new policies for Ireland. While the liberals, led by Gladstone, were converted to the home-rule solution, the tories sought to preserve the union with a two-pronged policy. First, Ireland’s economic disorders were to be cured by vigorously developing the system of state-aided land purchase, and by having the imperial treasuly assume a large portion of the cost of developing the country’s natural resources and industrial potential. This aspect of the policy rested upon the tory conviction that Irish support of home rule would diminish in direct proportion to significant economic and social advance. The second part of the policy called for the establishment of a democratic system of local government which was to be the limit of political concessions to Irish nationalist sentiment.
Protestants, planters and apartheid in early modern Ireland
Authors: Canny Nicholas
Published: August 2016

Two recent books, one on protestantism, the other on plantation, have much in common. Both are by young authors who as undergraduates at Trinity College, Dublin, identified aspects of the history of early modern Ireland that were in urgent need of investigation and who then proceeded with the necessary research in British universities; in one case under the supervision of Dr Brendan Bradshaw and in the other under the tutelage of Dr Toby Barnard. The enthusiasm and combativeness of their undergraduate years still linger on in these pages but there is even clearer evidence of the skills, interests and approaches to historical study that have been cultivated by their graduate mentors. Furthermore, each book derives its authority from the systematic examination of a mass of source material that has previously been neglected, and each author advances his conclusions in a vigorous fashion and relates them to developments in Britain and on the Continent as well as to what was happening in Ireland. The fact that authors of such ability and accomplishment have been forced to make careers for themselves outside the university world is a sad reflection upon Irish national priorities and raises serious questions about recruitment and tenure practices in universities and other third-level institutions that have a concern for the study of Irish history.
Legal aspects of the Irish secret service fund, 1793–1833
Authors: McEldowney John F
Published: August 2016

Eunan O’Halpin’s short paper, ‘The secret service vote and Ireland, 1868- 1922’, raises important questions about accountability for the payment of money for secret service work, a term not defined in any statute in nineteenth-century Ireland. What did ‘secret service work’ include and to what extent was the money properly authorised?

The purpose of this article is to examine some of the legal implications of the use of secret service money Accounts for 1833 in the Hatherton papers show the amount of money paid, to whom and for what purposes. Edward John Littleton, first Baron Hatherton (1791 – 1863), was chief secretary for Ireland in 1833 and 1834 during the second lord lieutenancy of Marquis Wellesley This article is based largely on evidence drawn from the Hatherton papers and raises questions about the impartiality of justice in Ireland.
Women and poultry in Ireland, 1891–1914
Authors: Bourke Joanna
Published: August 2016

Historical comment upon the years between the death of Parnell and the outbreak of the First World War ranges widely. The historian’s vision focusses on conflict and change — nationalism, unionism, home rule, urban disruption, rural disorder, land reform and incessant social debate. This paper looks at one series of arguments partially obscured amidst the turmoil of those years. For rural-dwellers, state and private institutional intervention into the rural economy during this period radically affected power-relations and work-relations within their community. The attempts to reform the poultry industry provides one example of these changes.

Rearing poultry for sale rather than for household consumption was one of the most important occupations of the farm woman. Indeed, despite the impassioned debates and controversial decisions concerning the poultry industry from the 1890s, one thing was agreed: for better or (more commonly) for worse, the poultry industry was dominated by women.
The impact of the 1641 rebellion upon England and Wales, 1641–5
Authors: Lindley Keith
Published: August 2016

The risings in Ulster in late October 1641 marked the climax of one of those key periods in Anglo-Irish history in which events in Ireland had a direct and crucial impact upon the course of events in England. For at least a year prior to the outbreak of the 1641 rebellion, there had been a complex interaction of English and Irish events which, to a significant extent, conditioned the English response to the news of the risings. Not only was thc Irish rebellion of central importance in helping to precipitate the armed confrontation of king and parliament, and in reinforcing party alignment, but sharp memories of the rebellion inay also have made some contribution to the final collapse of royalist fortunes. The great significancc of the 1641 rebellion in the escalation into civil war in England was recalled by Richard Baxter in his autobiography.
County Down elections 1783–1831
Authors: Jupp Peter
Published: August 2016

If the major themes in Irish history during these years were the progressive decline of the protestant ascendancy, the rise of a catholic middle class, the growth of agrarian and urban popular politics and the social and economic consequences of a swelling population, then it would be generally assumed that parliamentary electioneering—at least until the passage of catholic emancipation in 1829—had very little to do with them. Supporters of such an assumption would argue that elections were largely the preserve of an élite—the protestant ascendancy—and that despite catholic enfranchisement in 1793 and the pruning of the most notorious close and rotten boroughs by the act of union, electioneering in Ireland was largely confined to wearisome bargaining between landlords, excessive drilling of freeholders both genuine and fictitious, unbecoming scrambles for Castle patronage and the almost indecent disposal of such ill-gotten gains amongst squads of dependents. Furthermore they might add as a confirmatory postscript, that the disfranchisement of the 40s.
The identification of some pestilences recorded in the Irish Annals
Authors: MacArthur William P.
Published: August 2016

In attempting to determine the medical nature of the various widespread diseases recorded by the Irish chroniclers, my procedure has been to collate the accounts given in the several annals, thus securing the maximum amount of information obtainable about each outbreak. In making these comparisons it was distressing to come across some isolated and incomprehensible statement, clearly a relic of what was once a fuller description but now curtailed through the arbitrary omission of details which the early transcribers did not understand. Where Ireland was involved in a more generalized epidemic, it was sometimes possible to supplement a meagre native account by drawing on subject matter recorded elsewhere. For example, little could be made of the Irish entries of the pestilence of 664, were it not for the story of its course in England which we owe to the Venerable Bede. These assembled data were studied in the light of present medical knowledge, aided materially in many instances by my own experience of the diseases concerned. In such ways it has proved possible to give a firm and I believe a correct opinion on the identity of some of the pestilences. In other instances, no more can be done than to suggest some probability; and if even this is impossible because of insufficient data, such evidence as there may be is presented for consideration, even though the problem is left unsolved.
The cult of St Finnian of Clonard from the eighth to the eleventh century
Authors: Hughes Kathleen
Published: August 2016

St Finnian of Clonard died, according to the Annals of Ulster, in 549. With the possible exception of the sixth, seventh and eighth century annal entries and of the Catalogus Sanctorum all the evidence for a study of his work dates from or after the ninth century. It is however possible to say with reasonable assurance what traditions of his life were accepted about three hundred years after his death, and to trace the development of his cult from the late eighth century onwards.

St Finnian's Irish Life gives the most primitive account now extant of his career. All manuscripts go back ultimately to the same original, which was compiled by a Leinsterman writing in Leinster, almost certainly a monk of one of Finnian's foundations, possibly Clonard, who drew on both oral and written traditions for his material. The Life is an unsophisticated collection of miracle stories, combined with extravagant claims concerning the spiritual power and prestige of the saint, and giving full particulars, including a considerable amount of accurate information on local topography, of the churches which Finnian is reputed to have founded.
XIII. A Handlist of the Voters of Maryborough, 1760
Authors: Kearney H. F.
Published: August 2016

This handlist of the voters of Maryborough Corporation in 1760 is taken from a notebook which forms part of the Drogheda MSS in the National Library of Ireland. There are three items of interest in the notebook; in the first place, a short diary of events within the borough from 1 March 1738/9 to 29 September 1754; secondly, a rough alphabetical list of the freemen and burgesses of the borough, which was kept up to date by additions and corrections to the year 1759; thirdly, an amended list, brought up to date and dated 1760. It is this last item which is printed here. The notebook apparently found its way into the Drogheda family papers sometime after 1765, when Charles Moore, sixth earl of Drogheda, was appointed governor of Maryborough, an office which had long been vacant; in 1773 he was described as having lately got possession’ of the borough.
The Financing of the British Armies in Ireland, 1641–9
Authors: Hazlett Hugh
Published: August 2016

The history of financial administration in both Great Britain and Ireland is such a neglected subject that it is not surprising to find the years 1641–9, which form a period of special difficulty and confusion, receiving scarcely any attention from serious historical scholars. During this time the responsible authorities in Ireland, England, and Scotland, devoted much time and thought to raising money for the British forces in Ireland. The problems with which they were confronted, and the methods by which they attempted to solve these problems, have an important bearing on the course of the rebellion in Ireland and on its ultimate result.
VIII. The Vindication of the Earl of Kildare from Treason, 1496
Authors: Sayles G. O.
Published: August 2016

It may perhaps be useful for me to express at the outset my belief that the documents which explain the actions of the eighth earl of Kildare, who served either as justiciar or as deputy lieutenant of Ireland during the years 1477–92 and 1496–1513, still await a scientific and objective examination : the interpretation of them has so far been too much the result of an attitude of parti pris, and it has made the earl&s relations with the English government unintelligible. This note is, however, intended to do no more than resolve some perplexities that have gathered round his attainder in the Irish parliament in 1495 at tne instigation of Sir Edward Poynings, the then deputy.
The Old Irish Life of St. Brigit
Authors: O'Brien M.A.
Published: August 2016

The only extant copy of this recension of the life of St. Brigit is found in Rawlinson B 512, a Bodleian MS. of the fourteenth or fifteėnth Century. This MS. has been frequently described and catalogued, most fully by Whitley Stokes (Tripartite Life of Patrick (1887), pp. xiv ff.) and again in his edition of the Martyrology of Oengus (1905, pp. xxii-xxiv). With the exception of the Lebor Gabála, the greater part of the Contents has been edited in various places. The arrangement of the gatherings, the various foliations and paginations of the MS., and the different hands have been described by Dr. Best in ‘Notes on Rawlinson B 512’ (ZCP, xvii. 388 ff.).
The transformation of the Society of United Irishmen into a mass-based revolutionary organisation, 1794-6
Authors: Curtin Nancy J.
Published: August 2016

The Society of United Irishmen, formed in the autumn of 1791 as a middle-class club dedicated to achieving parliamentary reform and catholic emancipation, was eventually transformed into a mass-based, secret revolutionary organisation determined to establish a non-sectarian republic in Ireland. Approaching near extinction in 1794, the United Irishmen recovered within the next two years to become a formidable revolutionary threat. With amazing rapidity the United Irishmen managed to harness a politically-discontented middle class, radical artisans and tradesmen, economically and socially vexed peasants, amfa loose association of catholic agrarian rebels commonly known as Defenders into a more or less coherent force. The swiftness with which this” alliance was formed, burdened as it was with tensions along class and sectarian lines, was matched only by the quickness with which it collapsed under the strain of internal dissension and vigorous government repression.
Theodore William Moody (1907–84): an appreciation
Authors: Mulvey Helen F
Published: August 2016

Professor T W Moody, whose scholarly career was linked so closely to the history and fortunes of this journal, died in Dublin on 11 February 1984, in his seventy-seventh year. One of his former students, now a contributor to the New History of Ireland, remembers a conversation with him only a few days before, and tells of Theo’s lively consideration of plans and projects, of his mind, crystal clear as ever.

Grieved and shocked as his family, friends and colleagues are at his sudden going, they will surely find solace in this memory of full activity and vitality so close to the end. Theo was spared the suffering of long illness, inactivity, and the dependence that these entail, which would have been a hard trial for his active spirit. Indeed, affirmation is a word that comes to mind in remembering his life as a man and a scholar It is reflected in his devotion to his family, in his concern for the work and careers of his students, in his care and never-ceasing responsibility for the projects he had been involved in founding or originating, the two most notable examples being Irish Historical Studies and A New History of Ireland, and in his assistance and kindness to foreign scholars who came to work in Dublin.
Language, nationality and cultural identity in the Irish Free State, 1922-7: the Irish Statesman and the Catholic Bulletin reappraised
Authors: O’Callaghan Margaret
Published: August 2016

In 1967 the late F S. L. Lyons published an essay entitled ‘The minority problem in the 26 counties’, defining the minority in the Irish Free State as ‘unionist in politics and mainly protestant in religion’. Since that date the topic has received considerable scholarly attention. Indeed the tendency has been to approach the cultural development of the new state in the years after independence from the point of view of that minority. While this paper does not seek to minimise the significance of the minority’s role in the evolution of the new state, it does seek to question the validity of the perspective produced by an excessive preoccupation with that role. That perspective is most clearly articulated in the published version of Lyons’s Ford lectures, Culture and anarchy in Ireland, 1890-1939. The vision there presented is of an island rent by ‘four irrevocably warring cultures’ (Gaelic, English, Anglo-Irish and Ulster protestant). The cultural history of the Irish Free State in the first decade of independence, it is argued, is best understood as a battle between two of these apparently immutable cultures. In essence this view presents the nineteen-twenties as the decade during which Gaelic and Anglo-Irish Ireland confronted one another in the arenas of language and religion. The images are now fixed.
Norman Ireland in 1212
Authors: Richardson H. G.
Published: August 2016

The publication of the Irish pipe roll of the fourteenth year of King John calls for more than the brief notice that would normally be given to a stray historical document of similar length published unobtrusively as a supplement to an archaeological journal, for this slender volume is the most important single contribution to the history of Norman Ireland that has come to light for many a long day, and one that has been worth the great labour and care that the editors have spent upon it. Our first thought is to compare this Irish roll with the English and Norman pipe rolls of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, without which our knowledge of the history of England and Normandy would be sadly defective.