Palgrave Advances in Irish History

Palgrave Advances

by Mary McAuliffe (Editor), K. O'Donnell (Editor), L. Lane (Editor)

This book provides a much-needed historiographical overview of modern Irish History, which is  often written mainly from a socio-political perspective. This guide offers a comprehensive account of Irish History in its manifold aspects such as family, famine, labour, institutional, women, cultural, art, identity and migration histories.

307 pages, Hardcover

First published February 17, 2009

About the author

Mary McAuliffe holds a PhD in history from the University of Maryland, has taught at several universities, and lectured at the Smithsonian Institution. She has traveled extensively in France, and for many years she was a regular contributor to Paris Notes. Her books include Dawn of the Belle Epoque, Twilight of the Belle Epoque, When Paris Sizzled, Paris on the Brink, Clash of Crowns, and Paris Discovered. She lives in New York City with her husband.

Dawn of the Belle Epoque
Twilight of the Belle Epoque
When Paris Sizzled
Paris on the Brink
Clash of Crowns
Paris Discovered

Reviews

[Deirdre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting series of essays on how the perception of various ideas has changed over the 20th Century with finding further information and looking at things in a different, and sometimes less politicised or polarised way.

The first Essay is on Irish Political History: Guidelines and reflections, looking at Irish Politics and political figures from O'Connell to the 21st Century.

Ireland 1600-1780: new approaches is the next chapter, looking at what it meant to be Irish and English in Ireland and abroad

The Irish Famine: history and representation looks again at the Irish Famine and how different writers have had different opinions on the causes and effects

Economic and Labour History looks at how poor the scholarship in this area is but how it's growing

Conceiving Irish diasporas: Irish Migration and migrant communities in the modern period - what it ways

Local History looks at the growth of local, mostly non-Dublin-centric histories of the country

Institutionalisation in Irish history and society looks at how institutions grew, from the poor law workhouses to psychiatric institutions, including a small amount about Magdalene houses, the concept behind them and their legacy.

Irish Histories: Gender, women and sexualities looks at how women are occasionally written out of history and how people have attempted to put them back in, it's a bit of a struggle. I often objected to gendered teaching because I believed it enabled the general history departments to continue to ignore women in history and just point at the "gender studies" department as where to go to include that. I think we still haven't really resolved that issue.

Ireland: Identities and cultural how the concept of Irishness and catholicism in particular excluded others.

Visualising Irish history talks about painting, popular imagery and how Ireland has been depicted in image and how this has changed over time.

All fairly interesting, none of it really made me want to write any of it down but it did make me think.