Bøger udgivet af Four Courts Press Ltd

Political culture is not an idea that many historians of Ireland have engaged with, preferring more straightforward ways of thinking about the distribution of political power through institutions such as the vice regal court, parliament, or the law. The essays in this volume take an organic approach to the way in which power is made manifest and distributed across the social world, considering such diverse themes as the role of political life in identity formation and maintenance, civic unity and the problem of urban poverty in Dublin, the role of money in the exercise of authority by Dublin Corporation, public ritual and ceremony in political culture, rumour and rancour in provincial Ireland, the public and the growth of Dublin city, and the Belfast/Bordeaux merchant, John Black III's vision of Belfast society in the era of improvement. By focusing on the idea of political cultures and how they intersected with more formal political structures, these essays reveal new and unexpected disjunctions that contemporaries were well aware of, and carefully managed, but which have been marginalized by historians. This volume resituates power where it was exercised on a daily basis and in doing so opens fascinating windows into past worlds in pre-modern Ireland.

Between 1910 and 1940 Dublin's suburbs grew considerably. For the first time, planned suburbanization of the working classes became a stated policy, with new and idealistic schemes such as Marino, Drumcondra, and Crumlin being built. At the same time, private speculative development was continuing at the edges of the city, where individual builders, such as Alexander Strain, often had a major impact on the layout and style of the suburbs. The extent of the interaction between State, local authority, public utility societies, and private speculators suggests that a development continuum existed rather than a strict division between public and private development. This was also a period when the modern town planning movement and evolving ideas about citizenship in the new State impacted on the shaping of the city. Many of the formative decisions that came to shape the modern low-rise, low-density city were taken at this time. The story of Dublin's development in the period from 1910 to 1940 covers a time of major political and social change in Ireland. The book is illustrated with maps and photographs.

The Friends of Irish Freedom has been described as one of the most effective propaganda machines in Irish-American history. The author describes the factors that led to the establishment of the Friends and those that coloured its nationalist outlook. He examines the motives behind the Friends' campaign to prevent American entry into the First World War on Britain's side. One might have expected a close working relationship, based on mutual self-interest, between the Friends and the main nationalist organization in Ireland, Sinn Féin. Yet significant divisions soon emerged between both organizations and an explanation for this feud forms the core of this work; it reached such a pass that Bishop Michael Gallagher, the president of the Friends, denounced de Valera as a 'foreign potentate.'

Adomnán (c.625-704) was ninth abbot of the monastery on Iona off the Scottish coast. Adomnán came from what is now County Donegal. He was one of the most significant churchmen and intellectuals of the seventh century. The copying and re-copying of his written works meant that, in medieval times, his reputation spread widely on the Continent. He was, in modern parlance, an 'all-rounder' monk, priest, manager, writer, historian, lawmaker and diplomat, to name just a few things. He was the author of one of the first laws, anywhere, for the protection of non-combatants in times of conflict, and compiled an exegetical 'guide-book' to the 'sites' of the Holy Land - the oldest surviving text of its kind from anywhere in Western Europe. He also wrote a major hagiographical 'Life' of his predecessor and distant relative Columba. So powerful and influential a text was that book that it all but shoved Adomnán himself out of the limelight, in favour of his illustrious forerunner. Although much has been written about individual aspects of Adomnán's career, this is the first study to outline the totality of his life and reputation - in so far as we can know it!

This volume of essays explores a range of country house collections in Ireland, the UK, the US, and Europe. It examines how collections were built up over time, how they were dispersed or destroyed, and how they have been interpreted and valued. Among the topics considered are the impact of exhibitions, auctions, and tax systems, private versus institutional collectors, the range of audiences who appreciate art, and how collections are made to tell national stories.

On 21 June 1798, 20,000 men, women, and children found themselves trapped on a hill outside Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, facing a Crown force of some 15,000 troops led by no less than four generals and 16 general officers. It was the dying days of a rebellion that had shaken British rule in Ireland to its core. The army that now surrounded the hill was determined that none should escape. Now a multi-disciplinary research programme involving archaeologists, historians, folklorists, architectural historians, and military specialists provides startling new insight into what actually happened at Vinegar Hill on that fateful day in June 1798. Using cutting-edge technology and traditional research, the sequence of the battle jumps sharply into focus, beginning with the 'shock-and awe' bombardment at dawn, the attack on Enniscorthy and the hill, and the critical defence of the bridge across the Slaney that allowed so many of the defenders on the hill to escape.

This is the first operational account of the Irish House of Commons in the early Stuart period, a time of immense change in early modern Ireland, when the parliament's structures and operations were established in a manner that would endure until the Act of Union. This book describes the structures, powers, personnel, culture, and operations of the lower house of the Irish parliament, including electoral practice, the legislative process, economics of parliaments, including costs, taxation, and MPs' wages, MPs' individual and collective relationships with government, the House of Lords and their own constituents, the crown, and the English parliament. It also explores how the parliament, its personnel, and work changed during the government of lord deputies Arthur Chichester and Thomas Wentworth and during the period of the Confederation of Kilkenny.