This is a superb study of medieval Gaelic Ulster by the foremost living authority on the subject. The author, who has retired in recent years from Trinity College Dublin, mentions that the work began with her B.A. dissertation in 1969 on ‘The O’Neills in the later middle ages’ and that this was followed by her Ph.D. thesis (T.C.D., 1976) on ‘Gaelic lordships in Ulster in the later Middle Ages’. While the book under review may be seen as a development of the latter, it represents and incorporates the fruits of several decades of further work in the field, which has resulted in a number of books and dozens of high-quality articles. More than fifty titles are listed in the bibliography (the first appearing in 1974— in Irish Historical Studies — and the last described as ‘forthcoming’). The book distils material from an astonishingly wide range of sources. The aforementioned bibliography, running to more than forty pages, lists over a thousand separate items. This reflects just how widely and deeply the author has ranged through the body of relevant scholarship, citing works by almost five hundred authors — about three-quarters of whom have been active during her lifetime (quite a large cohort are, happily, still alive and active). The contributions of those authors are cited and suitably acknowledged in more than two thousand meticulously detailed footnotes. It will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the work of Katharine Simms that the book is wonderfully readable, as well as being mercifully free from any kind of petty point-scoring. The work is laid out with admirable logic and clarity, being divided into two sections of almost equal length. The first (pp 21–229), entitled ‘Political history’, has a brief ‘Introduction’, followed by six chapters, while the second (pp 233–494), entitled ‘Culture and society’, has seven chapters, followed by a brief fourteenth chapter, the ‘Epilogue’. All but that final chapter are subdivided, with from two to eight sub-headed segments per chapter. Each chapter may be read as an essay in its own right, but all fit neatly together to give the work an admirable overall coherence. The introduction explains the reason why a ‘focus on Ulster’ is called for and then discusses aspects of the supposedly archaic nature of early Gaelic society, including the topics of kingship, law and the learned classes. Chapter 1 treats of early Ulster, from the Iron Age down to the high middle ages, covering the best part of a millennium in just over thirty pages, while chapter 2 covers the eleventh and twelfth centuries in about fourteen pages. This latter chapter’s title refers to ‘Ulster’s growing isolation’, echoing a statement (perhaps debatable) that ‘Ulster was becoming a backwater’ (p. 70) and a suggestion that ‘The expulsion of nascent Viking settlements in Ulster ... in the late ninth century may have been [a] factor contributing to Ulster’s growing isolation’ (p. 82). The author continues:
{"title":"Gaelic Ulster in the middle ages: history, culture and society. By Katharine Simms. Pp 568. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 2020. €65.","authors":"Nollaig Ó Muraíle","doi":"10.1017/ihs.2022.28","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2022.28","url":null,"abstract":"This is a superb study of medieval Gaelic Ulster by the foremost living authority on the subject. The author, who has retired in recent years from Trinity College Dublin, mentions that the work began with her B.A. dissertation in 1969 on ‘The O’Neills in the later middle ages’ and that this was followed by her Ph.D. thesis (T.C.D., 1976) on ‘Gaelic lordships in Ulster in the later Middle Ages’. While the book under review may be seen as a development of the latter, it represents and incorporates the fruits of several decades of further work in the field, which has resulted in a number of books and dozens of high-quality articles. More than fifty titles are listed in the bibliography (the first appearing in 1974— in Irish Historical Studies — and the last described as ‘forthcoming’). The book distils material from an astonishingly wide range of sources. The aforementioned bibliography, running to more than forty pages, lists over a thousand separate items. This reflects just how widely and deeply the author has ranged through the body of relevant scholarship, citing works by almost five hundred authors — about three-quarters of whom have been active during her lifetime (quite a large cohort are, happily, still alive and active). The contributions of those authors are cited and suitably acknowledged in more than two thousand meticulously detailed footnotes. It will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the work of Katharine Simms that the book is wonderfully readable, as well as being mercifully free from any kind of petty point-scoring. The work is laid out with admirable logic and clarity, being divided into two sections of almost equal length. The first (pp 21–229), entitled ‘Political history’, has a brief ‘Introduction’, followed by six chapters, while the second (pp 233–494), entitled ‘Culture and society’, has seven chapters, followed by a brief fourteenth chapter, the ‘Epilogue’. All but that final chapter are subdivided, with from two to eight sub-headed segments per chapter. Each chapter may be read as an essay in its own right, but all fit neatly together to give the work an admirable overall coherence. The introduction explains the reason why a ‘focus on Ulster’ is called for and then discusses aspects of the supposedly archaic nature of early Gaelic society, including the topics of kingship, law and the learned classes. Chapter 1 treats of early Ulster, from the Iron Age down to the high middle ages, covering the best part of a millennium in just over thirty pages, while chapter 2 covers the eleventh and twelfth centuries in about fourteen pages. This latter chapter’s title refers to ‘Ulster’s growing isolation’, echoing a statement (perhaps debatable) that ‘Ulster was becoming a backwater’ (p. 70) and a suggestion that ‘The expulsion of nascent Viking settlements in Ulster ... in the late ninth century may have been [a] factor contributing to Ulster’s growing isolation’ (p. 82). The author continues:","PeriodicalId":44187,"journal":{"name":"IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES","volume":"46 1","pages":"358 - 361"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45690667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
that took place in Leitrim during the Irish Revolution, there ‘was little alteration in the structure of society’. Both books, as characteristic of the wider Irish Revolution series by Four Courts Press, are well-structured, providing a clear narrative of events between 1912 and 1923. That narrative is interspersed with frequent digressions during which particular aspects of each county’s history are analysed. Taken together, the books give a voice to a couple of the quiet counties and make a valuable addition to the historiography of the Irish Revolution.
{"title":"Birth of a state: the Anglo-Irish Treaty. By Mícheál Ó Fathartaigh and Liam Weeks. Pp 272. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. 2021. €19.95.","authors":"P. Donnelly","doi":"10.1017/ihs.2022.37","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2022.37","url":null,"abstract":"that took place in Leitrim during the Irish Revolution, there ‘was little alteration in the structure of society’. Both books, as characteristic of the wider Irish Revolution series by Four Courts Press, are well-structured, providing a clear narrative of events between 1912 and 1923. That narrative is interspersed with frequent digressions during which particular aspects of each county’s history are analysed. Taken together, the books give a voice to a couple of the quiet counties and make a valuable addition to the historiography of the Irish Revolution.","PeriodicalId":44187,"journal":{"name":"IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES","volume":"46 1","pages":"375 - 376"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41699389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
‘Wisdom it was I loved and searched for her from my youth. I resolved to have her as my companion. I fell in love with her beauty ….’ At the funeral mass for Margaret MacCurtain, her grandnephew, Michael, read the first reading from the Book of Wisdom, a moving and appropriate text with which to begin a celebration of Margaret's life. The words carried an added significance as Michael's reading emphasised that wisdom was represented in the biblical verse as female.
{"title":"Margaret MacCurtain (1929–2020): an appreciation","authors":"M. O'Dowd","doi":"10.1017/ihs.2022.49","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2022.49","url":null,"abstract":"‘Wisdom it was I loved and searched for her from my youth. I resolved to have her as my companion. I fell in love with her beauty ….’ At the funeral mass for Margaret MacCurtain, her grandnephew, Michael, read the first reading from the Book of Wisdom, a moving and appropriate text with which to begin a celebration of Margaret's life. The words carried an added significance as Michael's reading emphasised that wisdom was represented in the biblical verse as female.","PeriodicalId":44187,"journal":{"name":"IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES","volume":"46 1","pages":"217 - 223"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48624330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Plantagenet Ireland. By Robin Frame. Pp 384. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 2022. €55.","authors":"Brendan G C Smith","doi":"10.1017/ihs.2022.27","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2022.27","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44187,"journal":{"name":"IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES","volume":"46 1","pages":"356 - 358"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43926982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Following some of the themes of the original ‘An agenda for women's history in Ireland, 1500–1900’ and others that were not as prominent, this article considers progress since 1992 and highlights opportunities for the further development of Irish early modern women's and gender history. It considers aspects of the life cycle of women and men, especially birth, youth and marriage; the economic roles of women, especially when it came to work and property; and the importance of movement to and from Ireland in both personal biographies and wider contexts. It also reflects on some of the ways in which understandings of early modern politics and of religion and belief for the period c.1550–1720 have been transformed by consideration of the role of women. While the ‘Agenda’ noted the potential of buildings and spaces, there has been a new emphasis on ‘things’ as remnants of lives and labour, expressions of cultural norms and tools in the construction of gender, selfhood and social status. Very early on, the ‘Agenda’ strongly stated that ‘the history of women is also the history of men’, and this article also notes the green shoots of the history of masculinity in early modern Ireland.
{"title":"Progress, challenges and opportunities in early modern gender history, c.1550–1720","authors":"C. Tait","doi":"10.1017/ihs.2022.43","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2022.43","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Following some of the themes of the original ‘An agenda for women's history in Ireland, 1500–1900’ and others that were not as prominent, this article considers progress since 1992 and highlights opportunities for the further development of Irish early modern women's and gender history. It considers aspects of the life cycle of women and men, especially birth, youth and marriage; the economic roles of women, especially when it came to work and property; and the importance of movement to and from Ireland in both personal biographies and wider contexts. It also reflects on some of the ways in which understandings of early modern politics and of religion and belief for the period c.1550–1720 have been transformed by consideration of the role of women. While the ‘Agenda’ noted the potential of buildings and spaces, there has been a new emphasis on ‘things’ as remnants of lives and labour, expressions of cultural norms and tools in the construction of gender, selfhood and social status. Very early on, the ‘Agenda’ strongly stated that ‘the history of women is also the history of men’, and this article also notes the green shoots of the history of masculinity in early modern Ireland.","PeriodicalId":44187,"journal":{"name":"IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES","volume":"46 1","pages":"244 - 269"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44383795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In the thirty years since the publication of ‘An agenda for women's history in Ireland’, the study of women's and gender history has been transformed. The introduction to this special issue contextualises the ‘Agenda’ within this evolving landscape, underlining the significant role it played in stimulating scholarship by outlining some of the major developments in the field since 1992. The introduction also points to developments that the authors, Margaret MacCurtain, Mary O'Dowd and Maria Luddy, could not have foreseen when writing the ‘Agenda’, such as rapid technological advances and the possibilities they have opened up for scholars of women and gender in Irish history. By tracing these developments, the introduction serves as a gateway into the articles that form the special issue: contributions that demonstrate the wide-reaching and multifaceted impact of the ‘Agenda’ and the three pioneering scholars who authored it, and that provide thought-provoking analysis of existing and future scholarship in the field.
{"title":"Introduction: a new agenda for women's and gender history in Ireland","authors":"Frances Nolan, B. McShane","doi":"10.1017/ihs.2022.26","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2022.26","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the thirty years since the publication of ‘An agenda for women's history in Ireland’, the study of women's and gender history has been transformed. The introduction to this special issue contextualises the ‘Agenda’ within this evolving landscape, underlining the significant role it played in stimulating scholarship by outlining some of the major developments in the field since 1992. The introduction also points to developments that the authors, Margaret MacCurtain, Mary O'Dowd and Maria Luddy, could not have foreseen when writing the ‘Agenda’, such as rapid technological advances and the possibilities they have opened up for scholars of women and gender in Irish history. By tracing these developments, the introduction serves as a gateway into the articles that form the special issue: contributions that demonstrate the wide-reaching and multifaceted impact of the ‘Agenda’ and the three pioneering scholars who authored it, and that provide thought-provoking analysis of existing and future scholarship in the field.","PeriodicalId":44187,"journal":{"name":"IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES","volume":"66 19","pages":"207 - 216"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41332019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gay and lesbian activism in the Republic of Ireland, 1973–93. By Patrick McDonagh. Pp 219. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 2022. £76.50.","authors":"A. Fletcher","doi":"10.1017/ihs.2022.41","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2022.41","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44187,"journal":{"name":"IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES","volume":"46 1","pages":"380 - 382"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45900687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Critiques of women's history based on intersectional analysis have demonstrated the importance of recognising differences between women and the perils of assuming commonality of experience based on gender. The idea that we can treat women as a group in some meaningful way is further complicated in medieval legal history by the fact that women's legal entitlements differed depending on their marital status. This paper examines women's experiences of the law in the English colony in late medieval Ireland. It argues that, despite the importance of ethnicity, social status and marital status in shaping different women's experiences of the law, gender played a significant role in their legal arguments and the ways in which juries and justices perceived them. Women's experiences at law were influenced in myriad ways by shared societal assumptions about their vulnerability and subordination to men. These assumptions influenced women regardless of the many social divisions and circumstances that made each woman unique. This study finds, therefore, that ‘women’ is a legitimate and productive category for historical research in the late medieval legal context but urges historians to interrogate more robustly why ‘women’ is an appropriate analytical category for their specific historical questions.
{"title":"The challenge of writing histories of ‘women’: the case of women and the law in late medieval Ireland","authors":"Sparky Booker","doi":"10.1017/ihs.2022.42","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2022.42","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Critiques of women's history based on intersectional analysis have demonstrated the importance of recognising differences between women and the perils of assuming commonality of experience based on gender. The idea that we can treat women as a group in some meaningful way is further complicated in medieval legal history by the fact that women's legal entitlements differed depending on their marital status. This paper examines women's experiences of the law in the English colony in late medieval Ireland. It argues that, despite the importance of ethnicity, social status and marital status in shaping different women's experiences of the law, gender played a significant role in their legal arguments and the ways in which juries and justices perceived them. Women's experiences at law were influenced in myriad ways by shared societal assumptions about their vulnerability and subordination to men. These assumptions influenced women regardless of the many social divisions and circumstances that made each woman unique. This study finds, therefore, that ‘women’ is a legitimate and productive category for historical research in the late medieval legal context but urges historians to interrogate more robustly why ‘women’ is an appropriate analytical category for their specific historical questions.","PeriodicalId":44187,"journal":{"name":"IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES","volume":"46 1","pages":"224 - 243"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41782001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Une révolutionnaire Irlandaise en France: Maud Gonne et l'internationale nationaliste, 1887–1914. By Pierre Ranger and Anne Magny. Pp 171. Oxford: Peter Lang. 2021. €52.86.","authors":"Sylvie Kleinman","doi":"10.1017/ihs.2022.34","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2022.34","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44187,"journal":{"name":"IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES","volume":"46 1","pages":"371 - 372"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42096591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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