Our Latest Publications

Eoin Kinsella

This richly illustrated book explores the landmark successes and achievements, struggles and missteps of the Defence Forces over the past century. Highlighting the men and women of the Army, Air Corps, Naval Service and Reserve, it offers the first complete overview of the development of the Irish Defence Forces from the foundation of the Irish Free State to the present day.

Peter Crooks & Thomas Mohr, editors.

This volume in the Irish Legal History Society series is the first to examine the importance of Ireland in the story of Magna Carta's dissemination. Contributors examine the legal, political and polemical uses to which Magna Carta was put from the thirteenth century onwards, as well as its modern invocations as a living presence in contemporary Irish law.

Conor Curran

This book is the first full-length assessment of the history of soccer in Dublin and the game’s role within society in the city. It examines the sport's growth there from the late 1800s to the early twenty-first century.

Elizabethanne Boran, E. Charles Nelson & Emer Lawlor, editors

This beautifully illustrated book explores sources for botany and gardening in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ireland.

Mary Anne Lyons & Brian MacCuarta S.J., editors

This collection featuring eleven essays by established and early career scholars, explores multiple dimensions to the Jesuit mission in early modern Ireland.

Charles Owen O’Conor, the O’Conor Don: landlordism, liberal Catholicism and unionism in nineteenth-century Ireland 
Aidan Enright
This book uncovers the world of Charles Owen O’Conor, the O’Conor Don (1838–1906), a Catholic landlord and MP from County Roscommon.

The Otherworld: Music and Song from Irish Tradition
Ríonach uí Ógáin & Tom Sherlock, editors
Belief in the existence of a parallel world and in otherworldly phenomena has long been established in Irish tradition and facets of such belief continue to be found in contemporary Irish society. This book, with two accompanying compact discs, examines aspects of the enduring belief and fascination which the Irish imagination has with supernatural beings, encounters and occurrences as represented in song and music.

Palles: The Legal Legacy of the last Lord Chief Baron
Oonagh B. Breen & Noel McGrath, editors
Marking the 2020 centenary of his death, this book explores the judicial legacy of chief baron Christopher Palles, the last chief baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland), in a judicial career spanning over 40 years from 1874 to 1916.

Lansdowne FC: A History
Charles Ivar McGrath
Lansdowne FC is one of the most iconic rugby club in Ireland. Based at the headquarters of Irish rugby, the Club was established even before the international game came to Lansdowne Road. 

Noraid and the Northern Ireland Troubles, 1970-94
Robert Collins
Since the end of the eighteenth century, the United States has offered sanctuary and support to Irish men and women engaged in the struggle for Irish independence from Britain. Founded in 1970, Irish Northern Aid (NORAID) became the chief moral and financial supporters of the Republican movement, raising millions of dollars. Critical reading for anyone interested in Irish American history and the Northern Ireland Troubles.

Commanders of the British Forces in Ireland, 1796-1922
Tony Gaynor
In December 1922 General Nevil Macready sailed away from Dublin for the last time, marking the end of British rule in most of Ireland. Macready was the last in a long line of commanders of the British army in Ireland. The contribution of these men to Irish history has been overlooked. This book seeks to highlight the significant impact made by generals who were household names in their time.

“Modest and civil people”: religion and society in medieval Galway
Rachel Moss & Cólman Ó Clabaigh OSB
The town of Galway occupied a unique situation in medieval Ireland. Conspicuously English in its religious and political allegiances, it existed in an overwhelmingly Gaelic hinterland, far from the institutions of the colonial administration. This study examines the town’s civic and religious institutions as well as in its remarkable medieval art and architecture. It argues that the revival of the town in the late fifteenth century sprang from a programme of economic, political and religious renewal that transformed it into a self-confident, self-regulating urban community, a veritable City of God.

Thomas Conolly (1823-76) of Castletown House and the social networking of power
Suzanne M. Pegley
This study is focused on Thomas Conolly of Castletown House, Co. Kildare, and the social networking of the power elite. Structured as a biography of Conolly, it acts as a prism through which to view the power of the ascendancy class in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The Burning of Knockcroghery Village, Co. Roscommon, 1921
Regina Donlon
On the evening of 20 June 1921, Colonel Commandant Thomas Stanton Lambert was assassinated at Benown near Glasson in Co. Westmeath. Hours later, the small village of Knockcroghery in south Co. Roscommon was set ablaze by the Black and Tans, seemingly in an act of retribution for Lambert’s murder. The burning was an unfortunate case of mistaken identity, however, that ultimately resulted in the decimation of the local economy and heralded the end of clay-pipe production in the area.

Nathaniel Colgan, 1851-1919: the life, times and genealogy of an enigmatic Dubliner
John Colgan
Nathaniel Colgan MRIA was known as a self-taught botanist for his research on the ‘real’ shamrock and his encyclopaedic survey, The flora of the county Dublin. Little was known of his early life and family and interests beyond botany, marine biology, mountaineering and his day-job. He was called shy, but being reserved about his background is more convincing. When he was 10, he and his siblings were orphaned and brought up in the Coombe, Dublin. Held in high esteem by his peers, he rose to become a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. This study uncovers his hidden past.