Latest Media

Announcing A New Australia/New Zealand Partnership Between Wiley Global & UCD Press



Announcing a new collaboration between UCD Press and Wiley, Australia and New Zealand


UCD Press is delighted to announce a new distribution, sales and marketing partnership with John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd, across Australia and New Zealand. Wiley will represent UCD Press from autumn 2023.

This new venture will greatly enhance UCD Press’s presence in the Australia/New Zealand academic markets – ensuring every UCD Press title is adequately sold, distributed and marketed well in all regions. The new relationship will further allow our current authors to build on their profiles and encourage authors from further afield to publish with us.

Finally, the alliance will further enhance University College Dublin’s name as a leading research university of international standing.

‘We are thrilled to be representing UCD Press in Australia and New Zealand and look forward to working with our retail partners to increase visibility and sales of UCD Press books throughout the region.’
– Maria Hendriks, Senior Director, Head of Education and Trade, Melbourne, Australia, Wiley

‘UCD Press is committed to a fruitful and wide-reaching working relationship with Wiley Australia and New Zealand. It is extremely good news for our Press, our University, our readers and our authors – present and future.’
– Noelle Moran, Executive Editor, UCD Press

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The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn Book Launch hosted by RCPI

DATE: 6pm, Tuesday 5 December 2023
VENUE: Royal College of Physicians Ireland, 6 Kildare St, D2

A huge thank you to everyone who came to the launch of The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn.
A special thank you to Stephen Wynne who donated the original diaries, Margaret Connolly who transcribed them & co-editors Mary McAuliffe and Harriet Wheelock.










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Launching The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn at the Dublin Book Festival

DATE: Saturday, 11th November 2023
VENUE: National Library of Ireland
GUEST SPEAKERS: Mary McAuliffe, Harriet Wheelock, Martina Devlin and Margaret Ward

There was a full house at the launch of The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn: A Life Revealed Through Personal Writing. The event was hosted by the Dublin Book Festival with a panel that included the book's editors Mary McAuliffe and Harriet Wheelock along with Martina Devlin and Margaret Ward.





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Media for The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn

'One of the most overlooked female figures in Irish history.'

In this episode of Nationwide, RTÉ, Anne Cassin, Mary McAuliffe and Harriet Wheelock discuss the legacy of Dr Kathleen Lynn, 8 March 2024.
Watch the full episode here.

‘A thorough introduction. The editors underwent a rigorous process when selecting “a representative sample of Lynn's words and life” ... An exceptional record of the opinions and emotions of an extraordinary, if modest and self-effacing, woman.’

Sylvie Kleinman, History Ireland, Jan 2024
Read the full review here.

'Diary of a true radical.'

Brian Maye, Irish Times, Dec 2023
Read the full review here.

'Lynn’s diaries are among the few eyewitness sources we have for a radical, revolutionary, socialist, and republican woman.'

RTÉ Brainstorm, 13 Nov 2023
Read the full article here.

‘Casts new light on many of the political and social concerns of three decades of Irish life. This volume is a significant addition to Irish history.
For me, though, The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn is a book about the human condition and how love sustains us’

Clodagh Finn, Irish Examiner, 11 Nov 2023
Read the full review here.

‘Through a careful selection of excerpts from Lynn’s extensive personal diaries, which commence in 1916 and continue almost daily until her death in 1955, The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn: A Life Revealed through Personal Writing provides an extraordinarily close insight into Lynn’s social, private and political life, and her relationship with many of the key political figures of Ireland in the first half of the 20th century.’

Connaught Telegraph, 4 Oct 2023
Read in full here.

‘Alive & throbbing, indeed, as long as breath was in her, and the world was better for the marks she left on it, which is only one reason why the long-overdue publication of a selection of Kathleen Lynn journals is a cause for what she would have called a loud hip hip DG.’ – Emma Donoghue

Irish Examiner, 16 Oct 2023
Read the full extract here.

Katie Hannon and guests talk about the proposed National Women's Museum, Kathleen Lynn's legacy and the forthcoming book The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn.

Women's Museum, RTÉ Radio 1, 16 OCT 2023
Listen back here.

‘The diaries demonstrate the revolutionary, socialist and feminist fervour of a radical revolutionary woman, what motivated her and the work she did for women, workers, and Ireland.’

Monmouthshire Beacon, November 2023
Read the full review below.



‘Famous health innovator took lead from Kerry woman’

Kerry’s Eye, November 2023

Read the full review below.



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The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn
A Life Revealed through Personal Writing


The diaries of Dr Kathleen Lynn, 1916-1955, cover her involvement in the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War, and the formative three and a half decades of the Irish Free State. They demonstrate the revolutionary, socialist and feminist fervour of a radical revolutionary woman, what motivated her and the work she did for women, workers, and Ireland. The diaries, held in the archives of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI), reveal the often-difficult road that radical political women forged in the new Irish Free State, which viewed women through the constraining lens of marriage, motherhood, and domesticity. The diaries are also revealing of the supportive networks of political women, who worked together for social and political change. Central to the diaries is Lynn's vital work in St Ultan's Hospital for Sick Infants which she co-founded in 1919. Her diaries demonstrate vividly the number of women who led advances in medical care in the first decades of the State alongside Lynn. The diaries also record her family and personal relationships, especially her lifelong relationship with fellow suffragist, revolutionary and social campaigner, Madeline ffrench-Mullen.

Few political women of the revolutionary era and Irish Free State have left behind as substantial an archive as Dr Kathleen Lynn. The publication of these selected extracts from her diaries are a move to readdress issues created by past archival practices which have, in many cases, marginalised or silenced the voices of women. The diaries add not only to our knowledge of the life of Dr Lynn but also to the histories of female activists, female networks, and intimate female lives in the Irish State during its formative decades.

FOREWORD by author Emma Donoghue.

Available to buy HERE 

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Review of Fearless Woman

‘Margaret Ward’s Fearless Woman, a well-researched and highly readable biography of the feminist and latter-day convert to Irish Republicanism Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, exemplifies the positive attributes of the recent crop of Irish women’s history.’

Aidan Beatty, Journal of Modern History, Feb 2024.
Read the full review here.

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Fearless Woman
Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Feminism and the Irish Revolution


This full-length biographical study - substantially rewritten and updated - of one of the most important women in Irish political life in the 20th century is now reissued by UCD Press. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, part of a pioneering generation, played a significant role in the early Irish Republic. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington was a leading figure in the suffrage movement, she was an activist in the anti-war movement of 1914-18 and was an executive member of Sinn Féin. She opposed the Free State and provided consistent support for women's resistance to anti-women measures enacted by both Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil. Her later career saw her as an electoral candidate to the Dáil in 1943 and she proved herself fearless in her fight for justice, confronting both the British Prime Minister and the President of the United States of America. Incorporating new archival research and featuring an array of newly discovered images, Ward brings to light previously unpublished material about Hanna's personal life: her relationship with her husband and her role as a single parent. This timely revised edition serves to highlight the fascinating life of a pivotal figure in feminist, labour and nationalist movements in Ireland.

Available to buy HERE



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Celebrating More Than Concrete Blocks Volume 3

DATE: Friday, 3rd November 2023
VENUE: City Assembly House
GUEST SPEAKERS: Valerie Mulvin+ Dr Edward McParland

Thank you to all speakers and attendees for an electric reception for More Than Concrete Blocks at The Georgian Society.
There was a wonderful turn out to celebrate this very special publication.





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Dublin Festival of History
presents
More Than Concrete Blocks: reflecting on the wins and losses in Dublin’s 20th century architectural history with authors Ellen Rowley & Carole Pollard

DATE: 4pm Sat, 30 Sept
VENUE: The Printworks, Dame Street, Dublin 2



A wonderful crowd listened intently as Rowley and Pollard discussed the links between Dublin’s buildings and its political, social, cultural, and economic history.

Watch back HERE

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The GENEROUS ARCHITECTURES symposium was held in November at the City Assembly House to coincide with the publication of More Than Concrete Blocks Vol 3.

Watch the recordings of the talks at the links below:

Carole Pollard's talk '1970s Office Blocks - the losses and the gains' concerned the importance of sustaining this building typology and suggested how a different type of value assessment process might ensure our achidiversity isn't lost.

Watch HERE

Ellen Rowley's talk 'Back to the Streets with New Homes from Old Stock' looked to Gerry Cahill and Sister Stanislaus Kennedy's (Focus Ireland) efforts to turn Stanhope Green into housing to explore such overlooked adaptive architecture.

Watch HERE

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Media For More Than Concrete Blocks Volume 3

‘The fantastic series More than Concrete Blocks is an ideal gift for anyone who wonders about the capital and its development, and this latest instalment takes us from the 1970s to the 1990s.’

Sunday Times, December 2023.
Read the full list of ‘Best Buys for Christmas’ here.

Carole Pollard joins Emma Farrell on Northside Today to discuss More Than Concrete
 Blocks Vol 3.

Northside Today, near90.3fm, 14 November 2023.
Listen back HERE

'Dublin’s 20th century architecture can get a raw deal, More Than Concrete Blocks highlights its many strengths'

Frank McDonald, Irish Times, December 2023
Read the full review here.




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More Than Concrete Blocks
Dublin City's twentieth-century buildings and their stories Volume 3 1973-1999


More Than Concrete Blocks: Dublin city’s twentieth-century buildings and their stories is a three volume series of architectural history books which are richly illustrated and written for the general reader. Unpacking the history of Dublin’s architecture during the twentieth century, each book covers a period, in chronological sequence: Volume 1, 1900–1939; Volume 2, 1940–1972; Volume 3, 1973–1999.

The series comes out of a pioneering research and survey project commissioned and funded by Dublin City Council’s Heritage Office and has received grant support from the Heritage Council and the Department of Housing Local Government and Heritage. Edited by Dr Ellen Rowley, the series considers the city as a layered and complex place. It makes links between Dublin’s buildings and Dublin’s political, social, cultural and economic histories. By focusing on architecture as the central thread in the story of the city in formation, 1900–2000, More Than Concrete Blocks is about the relationship between architecture and people in Dublin City.

For Volume 3, the series editor is joined by Dr Carole Pollard as co-editor. This volume contains three introductory historical essays covering the building culture in Dublin of the 1970s (Carole Pollard), the 1980s (Ellen Rowley) and the 1990s (Merlo Kelly). These overview essays are followed by 31 studies ranging from iconic situations such as the Poolbeg Chimneys (1971–78), the Papal Cross (Phoenix Park, 1979) or the Central Bank (1979) on Dame Street, to lesser-known structures like the Willowfield housing scheme (1985) in Sandymount, the AnCO Training Centre (1981) in Finglas or the Donaghmede RC parish church (1979). Each study is framed according to key historic questions, and raises issues around architectural technology and materials, patronage, economic histories and urban planning, residents and ceremonial or daily use, and so on. Importantly, Volume 3 covers the decades of the end of the twentieth century, as Ireland joined the European Commission and Dublin city grew confident enough to reimagine Temple Bar. So, much of this history captures the energy and subsequent architectural framing of social infrastructure during this period. Volume 3 also presents an overview, in guidebook style, of 140 sites; a survey of the city’s buildings over the period 1973 to 1999, not as ‘a best of’ but as a representation of architectural endeavour at the time.

Available to buy HERE

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Belfast Book Launch for William Sharman Crawford

DATE: 4.30pm, Monday 11 Dec 2023
VENUE: Lanyon OG/074, Queen's University Belfast



There was a lovely atmosphere at the Belfast book launch of Peter Gray’s William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism and Sean Farrell’s Thomas Drew and the Marking of Victorian Belfast.
Watch the video of launch here.

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Launching William Sharman Crawford

DATE: Thursday 9th November 2023
VENUE: RIA, Dawson St, Dublin 2
GUEST SPEAKER: Professor Mary Daly (UCD and RIA)





Thank you to all attendees for coming out to the Royal Irish Academy
this evening to celebrate Peter Gray's new book William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism

Lovely speeches from Mary Daly and Peter himself.

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Media for William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism

'A zealous reformer'

Brian Maye, Irish Times, January 2024.
Read the full review bel
ow.



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William Sharman Crawford And Ulster Radicalism

William Sharman Crawford (1780‐1861) was the leading agrarian and democratic radical active in Ulster politics between the early 1830s and the 1850s. William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism is the first full biography of his life.

It places his life and ideas in the context of the development of radical liberalism in the province over a more extended period, from his father's involvement in the Volunteers in the era of the American and French revolutions, through William's own leadership in Irish and British radical reform movements, including the Repeal Association, Chartism, and the Tenant League. It explores his attempts to reconcile Irish patriotism with the existence of the Union through the concept of 'Federalism', his efforts to act as an 'ideal landlord' in the face of agrarian unrest and famine, and his deep commitment to attaining land and welfare reforms that he believed would empower both tenant farmers and the labouring poor.

William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism traces the legacy of his politics through the political careers of his children James in Gladstonian liberalism and Mabel in the women's suffrage movement, both of whom sought, in common with Presbyterian allies such as James McKnight, to carry his ideas into the later nineteenth century. It concludes with the collapse of the family's radical tradition in the following generation, as his grandson Robert Gordon came to reject liberal unionism and take an active role in the Ulster Unionist movement from the 1890s.

Through an assessment of the Sharman Crawford family over four generations, William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism explores the resilience of the Ulster Protestant radical tradition in the wake of the setbacks of 1798, its strengths and weaknesses, and its relations with Irish Catholic nationalism, British radicalism, the conservative landed, and Orange traditions within Ulster.

Available to buy HERE

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Launching The World Unmade by Frank Ormsby

DATE: Friday 6th October 2023
VENUE: The Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast

Thanks to all attendees at this very special event to celebrate Frank Ormsby’s The World Unmade tonight. Present were family members including his daughter, Lucy Collins, Michael Longley & many members of the poetry world at the lovely Crescent Arts Centre.





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Media for The World Unmade

'My Life In Books: Frank Ormsby'

Belfast Telegraph, December 2023
Read the full interview here.

‘Ormsby says his “poems are populated with whole communities of isolated people”, which touches upon one meaning of poetry in itself, in this enjoyable, slim book.’

Irish Times, Nov 2023
Read the full article here.

‘There are some poems that come out almost fully formed, but there are others that I have struggled with, and still more that eventually spring from a single line or image that I have stored away.’

RTÉ Culture, 8 November 2023
Read the full extract here.

‘Ormsby says his “poems are populated with whole communities of isolated people”, which touches upon one meaning of poetry in itself, in this enjoyable, slim book.’

Irish Times, November 2023
Read the full review below.



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The World Unmade

In The World Unmade Frank Ormsby explores the poetic diversity of Northern Ireland, with a particular focus on the poetry of the Troubles. He draws on his own experience as editor of a literary magazine and a number of anthologies. He also explores the structuring of his next collection, The Tumbling Paddy, which extends the range of his most recent poems. He retains a sharp eye for the absurdities and fragilities of history, as well as its impact on the present.

The Ireland Chair of Poetry was established in 1998 following the award of the Nobel Prize of Literature to Seamus Heaney and is supported by Queen’s University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Arts Council 1/An Chomhairle Ealaíon. Other poets in the series include Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, John Montague, Paul Durcan, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Michael Longley, Harry Clifton and Paula Meehan.

Available to buy HERE

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Launching Vying for Victory

DATE: 6.30pm, Thursday 7 December 2023
VENUE: Irish Georgian Society, 58 William St S, Dublin 2, D02 X751
HOST: David McCullagh
GUEST SPEAKER: Professor Terry Dooley, Maynooth University

It was a wonderful evening celebrating Vying for Victory at the final launch of the year at the beautiful Irish Georgian Society
Thanks to Terry Dooley for a great launch speech, to David McCullagh for hosting, and to our lovely editors and all attendees.







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Media for Vying for Victory

‘This publication provides a valuable snapshot in time of an important election and of the factors which influenced its conduct and outcome.’

Noel Ward, Saothar ILHS, 2024.
Read the full review here.

Mel Farrell talked about the impact of the 1923 General Election on newly independent Ireland on BookLine.

Liffey Sound 96.4FM, Dec 2023
Listen back here

‘The research of Kerry writer and historian, Owen O’Shea, features in a new book on the 1923 general election. Vying for Victory, edited by Elaine Callinan, Mel Farrel and Thomas Tormey, is an essential series of essays on the crucially important election of 1923, which took place just a few months after the end of the Irish Civil War.’

Owen O’Shea, 12 Dec 2023
Read the full review here.


'In August 1923 the Irish Free State had its first general election after the Irish Civil War. Cathal Brennan and John Dorney are joined by Mel Farrell and Elaine Callinan on the new book on the subject.'

The Irish Story Podcast, November 2023
Listen back here.

'This is the kind of book that gives academic anthologies a good name.'

Books Ireland, November 2023
Read the full review here.

Listen back to co-editors of Vying for Victory, Elaine Callinan and Mel Farrell on the Irish History Show discussing their new book, Vying for Victory, about the 1923 General Election in the Irish Free State.

Irish History Show, November 2023
Listen back here.

Angela Faull speaks with one of the authors of the new publication Vying For Victory - The 1923 General Election in the Irish Free State The first book on the 1923 election exclusively in the centenary year.

crcfm102.9, November 2023
Listen back here.

Mel Farrell chats about his new co-authored book Vying for Victory which offers a deeply researched, original & fascinating analysis of the very first democratic step of a free Irish nation.

Nearfm, October 2023.
Listen back here.

'This welcome book adds to a growing literature reassessing the first decade of the Irish Free State, highlighting its success as an independent state operating under difficult circumstances.'

Brian Girvin, History Ireland, January 2024.
Read the full review below.



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Vying for Victory
The 1923 General Election in the Irish Free State


After 11 arduous months, on 24 May 1923, the guns fell silent, and the Irish Civil War finally came to an end. Twelve weeks later, all adults aged 21 or over - regardless of social status or gender - cast their vote in the State's first general election. The 1923 General Election marks the true beginning of modern Irish democracy.

Born in blood, the new Irish Free state was set on course to become a remarkably stable democracy in the late 1920s and early 1930s, in stark contrast to the rise of dictatorships across Europe. The Irish public had an opportunity to cast their judgement on who they wanted to govern their new free state, and cast their opinion on the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, even though it had been ratified in January 1922. A record 376 candidates stood for election, so every seat was contested - another first in Irish electoral history.

Vying for Victory: The 1923 General Election in the Irish Free State unifies writings by leading scholars on various aspects of the 1923 election. It offers fresh and thought-provoking insights rooted deeply in original archival research. The Cumann na nGaedheal Party's 'safety first' election campaign; the importance of the election for Éamon de Valera; the perspectives of the Labour and Farmers' Parties; the propaganda and electioneering tactics deployed by the various parties, and newspaper coverage of the election, amongst many other areas, are all richly explored. Further this collection takes a forensic look at: the end of the Irish Civil War and the August 1923 Election in a wider European context; the Catholic Church's attitude to the election; the roles of women in the 1923 election; and the engagement of the Irish diaspora in North America.

Vying for Victory offers a deeply researched, original, and fascinating analysis of the very first democratic step of a free Irish nation. It will be a valuable resource to Irish history enthusiasts, as well as students and scholars of Irish history.

Available to buy HERE

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Book Launch: One Foot in a Spanish Grave

DATE: 7pm Thursday, 19 October
VENUE: Labour History Museum, Begger’s Bush, Haddington Road, D4






A full house for a very special evening celebrating the launch of the English translation of Eugene Downing’s memoir, One Foot in a Spanish Grave and remembering his nephew, Brendan Byrne.

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One Foot In A Spanish Grave
Eugene Downing's Memoir Of The International Brigades In Spain


Eugene Downing (1913-2003) was not your usual Irish brigader: a communist from his teenage years, an urbanised skilled worker, and an Irish language enthusiast. Downing had no immediate Republican record, joining the communist Workers Groups in Dublin just out of his apprenticeship as an electrician. Despite this backdrop, Downing spent nine months in the International Brigades Spain before being invalided home (amputated lower left leg) in December 1938. His memoirs are presented here in English for the first time.

One Foot in a Spanish Grave: Eugene Downing's Memoir of the International Brigades in Spain - published in the Irish language as La Nina Bonita agus An Róisín Dubh: Cuimhní Cinn ar Chogadh Cathartha na Spáinne - has been long worthy of a translation into English. The structure of the original Irish text has been altered slightly, with some appendices omitted. Translated by Micheál Ó hAodha, edited and introduced by Barry McLoughlin, One Foot in a Spanish Grave begins with Brendan Byrne, Eugene's nephew, sharing his memories of a highly non-conformist uncle.

Downing's portrayal of life in the International Brigades is often humourous, greatly generous when judging others, but ultimately critical of political zealotry. He proves himself to be a wry observer of his fellow volunteers and of his own youthful militancy in the virulently anti-communist Dublin of the 1930s.

This text is a translation of Eoghan Ó Duinnín's (Eugene Downing's) book La Nina Bonita agus An Róisín Dubh: Cuimhní Cinn ar Chogadh Cathartha na Spáinne (An Clóchomhar, Baile Átha Cliath, 1986). The Irish-language rights for this book lie with Cló Iar-Chonnacht, Indreabhán, Co. na Gaillimhe.

Available to buy HERE

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Stones in Water: Inheritance in the Built Environment

'A pilgrimage of thought. A window into the author consciousness as they move through a life lived in sharp focus to the intricacies of contradiction.
Should been seen as essential for any student or practitioner of heritage conservation in Ireland.'

Review by Catríona O'Connor, MRIAI
Architecture Ireland, September 2023

Read the full review HERE



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'Within living memory, Irish society has been transformed, sometimes in paradoxical ways. It is no longer a society based predominantly on rural settlements and small towns, but is instead a first-generation urban society with a discernible urban/rural divide.'

RTÉ Culture, July 2023
Read the full extract HERE

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Stones in Water explores how the inherited built environment is understood and valued. This inheritance, created by the forebears of communities worldwide, is central to cultural identity everywhere. It is variously protected, exploited and at times weaponised, used to celebrate human achievement and also to undermine it.

This curated collection, written over a period of years, reflects on persistent themes in heritage protection. These range from the implications of tourism for the cultural heritage of buildings and landscapes, to supporting recovery from the impacts of catastrophic events affecting historic places.

The need to maintain the useful lives of inherited environments brings new demands and, also, fresh opportunities. Stones in Water: Inheritance in the Built Environment draws on the author's work, nationally and internationally, to interrogate how current and emerging challenges are changing perceptions of this endowment, and how new understandings can contribute positively to constructing a sustainable future.

Available to buy HERE

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Irish Women's Speeches: A Rich Chorus of Voices

‘The book’s subtitle is “a rich chorus of voices”, and diversity of theme and tone certainly apples as painters, actors, journalists, writers, human-rights activists and others feature.’

Irish Times, August 2023



Watch back Sonja Tiernan's interview with the Irish American Heritage Museum HERE

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Irish Women's Speeches (Vol. II): A Rich Chorus of Voices follows on from the ground-breaking, best-selling Voices that Rocked the System. Related to arts, culture and heritage this compilation of Irish women's speeches, includes those of authors, journalists, actors, artists and women who have influenced arts and culture more broadly.

The speeches chosen identify how women have shaped and continue to shape Irish culture, language, literature, theatre and art at home and abroad. Related topics include Sarah Purser's founding of a stained-glass cooperative, An Túr Gloine which ensured that churches and formidable buildings in Ireland and further afield now house Irish produced stained glass. Edna O'Brien's speech showcases how one female author persisted despite her condemnation by the Catholic Church and suppression by the Irish censorship board to have her literary classics The Country Girls trilogy named One Dublin One Book in 2019.

A number of speeches chosen highlight the array of social and political reforms led by creative women and writers abroad including Margaret Cousins, who helped found the Irish National Theatre and later moved to India where she was arrested for supporting Gandhi's call for a Civil Disobedience Movement. While journalist Norah Dacre Fox became a key member of a militant suffragette organisation in England and was imprisoned for the cause.

Other speeches showcase well-remembered figures such as Hollywood icon Maureen O'Hara and investigative reporter Veronica Guerin. While less well known figures include Charlotte Stoker who is credited with greatly impacting on the literature of her son Bram. The wide range of topics identify the impressive contributions that Irish women have made to the development of Irish society and culture as well as internationally. A must have alongside its sister volume.

Available to buy HERE

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Redress: Ireland's Institutions and Transitional Justice

'This truly outstanding academic endeavour convincingly argues for its timeliness. It illustrates continuity of institutional abuse in Ireland, as the state and religious congregations resist accepting responsibility for their roles.’

Review by Klára Witzany Hutková, Charles University Prague
Review of Irish Studies in Europe 6.1

Read the full review HERE

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'With twenty-four chapters plus a substantive introduction, this book makes an impression. … Most chapters are academic in character, but the reader will also find poetry, photography, creative writing, songs, journalism and survivors’ testimonies in this profoundly interdisciplinary volume.’

Review by Stephen Winter, Historical Dialogues Justice, and Memory Network

Read the full review HERE


Redress, a volume edited by Katherine O’Donnell, Maeve O’Rourke and James M. Smith, brings together survivors, academics, and activists (and those who fit into multiple categories), demonstrating the varied types of expertise and knowledge, all of which are vital in uncovering the histories of institutionalisation and their myriad effects.’

Review by Sophie Cooper, Australasian Journal of Irish Studies

Read the full review HERE

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With diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives, this collection considers how a Transitional Justice-based, survivor-centred, approach might assist those personally affected, policy makers, the public, and academics to evaluate the complex ways in which both the Republic and Northern Ireland (and other states in a comparative context) have responded to their histories of institutionalisation and family separation. Importantly, the essays collected in REDRESS: Ireland’s Institutions and Transitional Justice seek to offer avenues by which to redress this legacy of continuing harms.

Available to buy HERE

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Dublin and the Great Irish Famine



'Much remains to be researched on Dublin’s Famine-era history, but this finely produced and illustrated volume has done much to raise the veil.’

Review by Peter Gray, UCD Today (Spring/Summer 2023)

Read the full review HERE

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This collection breaks new ground and reconsiders the Famine and its historiography by locating Dublin city and its inhabitants at the centre of its focus. Richly illustrated with a variety of images.

Available to buy HERE

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Walls of Containment

'The richness and originality of this book lies in these typographical comparisons, which is a substantial and important contribution to Ireland’s architectural history.’

Review by Dervla MacManus, Architecture Ireland (May 2023)

Read the full review HERE

***


Ireland was not unique in creating and perpetuating an institutional response to insanity, but did enjoy the dubious distinction of having, by 1950s, the world's highest number of psychiatric beds per capita. Social and medical historians have posited various theories for this, but to date none have examined the spaces and landscapes created to facilitate this spectacular expansion in institutional provision. The research on which this book is based reveals the meaning and significance of the architectural and landscape legacy from the inception of the asylum system to its extinction, in the context of an evolving political, social, medical and economic climate.

Available to buy HERE

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Douglas Hyde: My Americn Journey

‘This book seeks to address this paucity, and does so in an outstanding fashion. It recounts an important period in Douglas Hyde’s life when he was at the pinnacle of his powers and captures an Ireland on the cusp of change, while bring Hyde’s contributions to the revival and to the making of modern Ireland to a new audience.’

Review by Bobbie Nolan, Studia Hibernica No. 48 (2022)

Read the full review HERE

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'First published in Irish in 1937, this collection of journal and diary entries is a compelling first-hand account of Douglas Hyde's eight-month fundraising odyssey through the United States from 1905 to 1906.'

Available to buy HERE

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Launch of Stones in Water in Dublin Castle

DATE: Tuesday, 16th May 2023
VENUE: Castle Hall, Dublin Castle, Dame Street, Dublin 2
GUEST SPEAKER: Yvonne Farrell, Grafton Architects

We enjoyed a wonderful celebration in the stunning surroundings of Dublin Castle for the launch of Stones in Water. Special thanks to Yvonne Farrell from Grafton Architects for kindly launching the book.







***

Media for Stones in Water

‘This curated collection, written over a period of years, reflects on persistent themes in heritage protection. These range from the implications of tourism for the cultural heritage of buildings and landscapes, to supporting recovery from the impacts of catastrophic events affecting historic places.’

RTÉ Culture (06/07/2023)

Read the full extract HERE

***



Stones in Water explores how the inherited built environment is understood and valued. This inheritance, created by the forebears of communities worldwide, is central to cultural identity everywhere. It is variously protected, exploited and at times weaponised, used to celebrate human achievement and also to undermine it.


Available to buy HERE

***

Launch of Doing Research in Education

DATE: Wednesday, 15th February 2023
VENUE: NUI, 49 Merrion Square, Dublin 2
GUEST SPEAKER: Professor Emer Smyth, ESRI

There was a fantastic turn out for the launch of Doing Research in Education in NUI. Many thanks to guest speaker Professor Emer Smyth, from the ESRI, for her warm and supportive words.





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Doing Research in Education: A Beginner's Guide is written for the novice education researcher. It offers practical advice and guidance for each step of the research process including choosing what to research; formulating a research question; deciding on a suitable research methodology; and writing a thesis.

Available to buy HERE.

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UCD Press is delighted to announce a new distribution, sales and marketing partnership with Wiley Distribution, Australia and New Zealand, the leading distributor of books in these regions. Wiley will represent UCD Press from July 2023.

This new venture will greatly enhance UCD Press’s presence in the Australia/New Zealand academic markets – ensuring every UCD Press title is adequately sold, distributed and marketed well in all regions. The new relationship will further allow our current authors to build on their profiles and encourage authors from further afield to publish with us.

Finally, the alliance will further enhance University College Dublin’s name as a leading research university of international standing.

‘We are thrilled to be representing UCD Press in Australia and New Zealand and look forward to working with our retail partners to increase visibility and sales of UCD Press books throughout the region.’
– Marie-Anna Sultani, Marketing Manager, Melbourne, Australia, WILEY

‘UCD Press is committed to a fruitful and wide-reaching working relationship with Wiley Australia and New Zealand. It is extremely good news for our Press, our University, our readers and our authors – present and future.’

– Noelle Moran, Executive Editor, UCD Press


***

Launch of Enduring Ruin

DATE: Thursday, 8th December 2022
VENUE: Books Upstairs, 17 D'Olier Street,
Dublin 2
GUEST SPEAKER: Diarmaid Ferriter, Professor of History, UCD

Diarmaid Ferriter joined us in Books Upstairs to launch
Enduring Ruin: Environmental destruction during the Irish Revolution by Justin Dolan Stover.






***

Media for Enduring Ruin

Dr Marie Coleman and Justin Dolan Stover discuss Stover's book Enduring Ruin: Environmental destruction during the Irish Revolution.
Watch the discussion back here.

‘The first serious examination of the environmental impact of the revolution that paves the way for other works on this important & evolving topic within the ever-evolving new history of the revolution.’

Marie Coleman, Irish Literary Supplement 43:2, Spring 2024.
Read the full review here.

Enduring Ruin is a good read and a welcome innovation in the practice of Irish historiography, integrating newly diverse sources into a broader understanding of the island as a series of disturbed landscapes, some of which are placed in richer context than others.’

Nicholas Allen, H-Environment, Oct 2023.
Read the full review here.

'Enduring Ruin is a welcome study in that it departs from the normal discussions around either politics or the metrics of death and violence in quantifying revolutionary activity in Ireland from 1916 to 1923.’

Westmeath Examiner, Dec 2022
Read the full review here.

'Ernie O’Malley’s description of the destruction of the Four Courts as "duelling orchestras of crashing stone & singing flame" was poetic, but this book does justice to the range of environmental destruction behind such lyricism.'

Diarmaid Ferriter, The Irish Times, January 2023.
Read the full review here.

Listen to Justin Dolan Stover discuss Enduring Ruin on Northside Today, near90.3fm

***



Enduring Ruin examines how and to what degree revolutionary activity degraded, damaged and destroyed Ireland’s landscapes. This book represents the first environmental history of the revolutionary period and in doing so incorporates the roles animals, earth, water, trees, weather, and man-made infrastructure played in directing and absorbing revolutionary violence.

Available to buy HERE

***

Launch of Emmet O'Connor's New Book

DATE: Friday 9th December
VENUE: Books Upstairs, 17 D’Olier Street, Dublin 2
GUEST SPEAKER: Terry Dunne, Historian in Residence, Laois County Council


We returned to Books Upstairs for the launch of Emmet O'Connor's new book Rotten Prod: The Unlikely Career of Dongaree Baird





***
Media for Rotten Prod

‘“Rotten Prod” immerses the reader in a rollercoaster of political tension, tumult and turbulence, introducing us to a very determined, awkward, single minded and probably difficult customer who operated during the political upheaval at the birth of both the Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State.’
Brian Campfield, Saothar ILHS, 2024.
Read the full review here.

‘One sentence sums up much of what the book is about: “Like the militancy and radicalism of 1917–23 Baird was consigned to the dustbin of history.”’
Peter Collins, Familia. Ulster Genealogical Review No. 39, 2023.
Read the full review here.

‘Baird was an outstanding figure amongst the ‘rotten Prods’ but he represented an element of the Protestant working class who were radicalised by the political ferment of the post-war years and whose history O’Connor’s book brings out of the shadows.’

Peter Connell, Sound Post, Winter 2023.
Read the full review here.

‘Recounts the history of an exceptional man who was also typical of many Ulster Protestant trade unionists in becoming radicalised & in concluding that partition was not in the interest of the working class.’

Martin Doyle, The Irish Times, December 2022.
Read the full review here.

‘His is a rare story, not just of a man too radical for Belfast but of one of the subalterns of the failed and forgotten social revolution of 1917–23.’

Belfast Telegraph (03/12/2022)
Read the full review here.

‘An eloquent memorial to the man Jim Larkin described as “a sober, intelligent and strangely honest and courageous spokesman for his class”.’

Henry Patterson, Dublin Review of Books (12/2022)
Read the full review here.

‘O’Connor’s study offers a detailed account of the turbulent years surrounding the emergence of a partitioned Ireland, and an insight into a marginalised group of labour activists who paid a heavy price for their commitment.’

Society for the Study of Labour History (17/01/2023)
Read the full review here.

'Emmet O’Connor has successfully retrieved a remarkable leader and his times from history’s dustbin. Baird deserves to be remembered; this book should be read.'

Niall Meehan, History Ireland (March 2023)
Read the full review here.



James 'Dongaree' Baird, a boilermaker in Harland and Wolff's shipyard, was one of hundreds of 'rotten Prods', and thousands of Catholics, driven from their place of work by loyalists in 1920. This new title by Emmet O'Connor offers a rare insight into the radicalisation of Protestant workers who opposed the partition of Ireland and reasons why loyalists targeted Labour as the enemy.
A compelling account of a rotten Prod and a Labour hero.

Available to buy HERE

***

Dublin Book Festival: Irish Women’s Speeches II

DATE: Tuesday 8th November
VENUE: LexIcon Library and Cultural Centre, Dun Laoghaire

A wonderful audience joined Sonja Tiernan, Eilish O’Carroll & Nora Owen, for a stimulating evening of discussion chaired by Catriona Crowe, featuring rare video footage from Irish Women's Speeches





***

Media for Irish Women's Speeches II: A Rich Chorus of Voices

Irish Women's Speeches II by Sonja Tiernan featured in The Irish Daily Mirror (11/11/2022)


'It is an inspired format, the author turning compere and raising the curtain to allow her subjects stand in the spotlight centre stage.’

Clodagh Finn, Irish Examiner, (17/12/2022)
Read the full review here.



‘The book is full to the brim of impactful women and is a great way to learn about Irish women’s history this winter.’

GCN Mag (12/12/2022)
Read the full review here.

‘Tiernan’s astute curatorial decisions create a fascinating record of both causes and voices.’

Henrietta McKervey, The Sunday Business Post (08/01/2023)
Read the full review here.

‘When you’re done reading it, pass it on to your daughter. Or, maybe more importantly, to your son.’

Anne Cunningham, Meath Chronicle (01/2023)



***






Irish Women’s Speeches (Vol. II): A Rich Chorus of Voices follows on from the ground-breaking, best-selling Voices that Rocked the System. Related to arts, culture and heritage this compilation of Irish women’s speeches, includes those of authors, journalists, actors, artists and women who have influenced arts and culture more broadly.
The wide range of topics identify the impressive contributions that Irish women have made to the development of Irish society and culture as well as internationally. A must have alongside its sister volume.

Available to buy HERE

***

Dublin and the Great Irish Famine Launches at Kilmainham Gaol!


DATE: Monday, 17 October 2022
VENUE: Kilmainham Gaol, Inchicore Road,
Kilmainham, Dublin 8
GUEST SPEAKER: Professor David Dickson, TCD

We had a wonderful evening launching Dublin and the Great Irish Famine at Kilmainham Gaol!
A special thanks to Professor David Dickson and Professor Regina Uí Chollatáin for their warm words of praise for the book.







***
Media for Dublin and the Great Irish Famine

‘It is a welcome intervention, offering compelling evidence of how daily life in the colonial garrison town was affected by the social and economic catastrophe.’

Sara Keating, Sunday Business Post (13/11/2022)
Read the full review here.

‘Without question the Famine in the capital was not as devastating as what was experienced in other parts of the island. However, as impoverished people crowded into the city seeking work or relief, Dublin’s streets appeared like a gigantic refugee camp’
Irish Independent (05/11/2022)
Read the full article here.

Listen to Dr Patrick Geoghegan interview Dr Emily Mark-FitzGerald, Brian Crowley, and Ciarán McCabe.
Talking History, Newstalk (30/10/2022)





This collection breaks new ground and reconsiders the Famine and its historiography by locating Dublin city and its inhabitants at the centre of its focus. Richly illustrated with a variety of images.

Available to buy HERE


***
Media for Walls of Containment

'The Magdalen Laundries and the mother-and-baby homes are not the only institutions Irish society has used for hiding its embarrassments'

Mary Leland, Irish Examiner (February 2022)
Read the full fantastic review of Walls of Containment here.

'Visiting these places, majestic, imperious, brooding, it is impossible not to be awestruck by their scale, their complexity, their embodiment of societies in microcosm. But most powerful of all is the profound emptiness of spaces which resonate with the memories of thousands of lives lived under an institutional regime which outlived and outgrew the ideals on which it was founded. And whether the future of Ireland’s empty asylums holds fiery destruction, prolonged limbo or glorious resurrection, I hope that this publication will encourage communities to look again at these buildings which our forefathers built with such solidity to express the notions of their day, and appreciate them in all of their complex, contradictory grandeur.'

Patrick Quinlan, Irish Times (August 2021)
Read the full article here.

'STANDING proudly in its own grounds at Mulgrave Street, St Joseph's Hospital is a landmark building on the edge of the city.
Now architect and historian Patrick Quinlan has uncovered a fascinating history of the facility which includes tales of its earliest patients escaping and "nocturnal sorties by unmarried colleagues"'.

Read the full fascinating piece in the Limerick Leader here.

‘Quinlan’s wonderful book will undoubtedly become the vade mecum for the history of Ireland’s “mental hospital” buildings and, as such, adds significantly to the broader historiography of psychiatry in Ireland.’

The Medical Independent (17/10/2022)



***


Ireland was not unique in creating and perpetuating an institutional response to insanity, but did enjoy the dubious distinction of having, by 1950s, the world's highest number of psychiatric beds per capita. Social and medical historians have posited various theories for this, but to date none have examined the spaces and landscapes created to facilitate this spectacular expansion in institutional provision. The research on which this book is based reveals the meaning and significance of the architectural and landscape legacy from the inception of the asylum system to its extinction, in the context of an evolving political, social, medical and economic climate.

Available to buy HERE

***


James Joyce Remembered Special Edition & Limited Edition Print designed by plattenbaustudio

Every copy of the James Joyce Remembered: Special Edition is accompanied by a limited edition print designed by plattenbaustudio
Mid-Afternoon in the Early Summer of 1904 on North Circular Road, Dublin, 950 x 620mm lithograph print, edition of 150, by plattenbaustudio. Based on *that* photo of James Joyce.
Plattenbaustudio's digital line drawing, is currently on exhibition at The Glucksman, Cork.







James Joyce Remembered Special Edition with plattenbaustudio print is available to buy HERE



***
James Joyce Remembered|Conversations on Joyce, drawing, photography and Dublin city


DATE: 19th October 2022
VENUE: UCD Architecture, Richview
GUEST SPEAKERS: Brian Fay, Luke Gibbons, Dorothy Smith, Hugh Campbell and plattenbaustudio

A wonderful evening listening to Hugh Campbell, Brian Fay, Luke Gibbons, Dorothy Smith and plattenbaustudio.



***


James Joyce Remembered Edition 2022 in the Media 

'James Joyce Remembered by C.P. Curran - read an extract'

RTE Culture (May 2022)
Read the extract here.

Listen back to Professor Helen Solterer discussing James Joyce Remebered by C.P. Curran with John Bowman on RTE Radio 1

'His defiance of a media ban by the then invading Russians earned the attentions of a famous general, who considered shooting him but instead became a close friend.' 

Terence Killeen, The Irish Times (June 2022)
Read the full review here.


'Curran Affairs – Frank McNally on the extraordinary
friends (and relatives) of CP Curran'

Frank McNally, The Irish Times (March 2022)
Read the full artcile here.

'Curran’s book is not only an empathetic & nuanced account of Joyce but also, in effect, of a whole galaxy of UCD graduates who contributed to the Irish Revival & to the formation of the state'

UCD Today (Spring/Summer 2022)
Read the full review here.



In 1968, Conn Curran summed up his life-long companionship with Joyce, including the 1904 photograph he took of his friend in his family's back garden. With this re-issue of Curran's book, another group of University College Dubliners takes a new look at his work, delving into the Curran-Laird collection at the James Joyce Library.

With essays by Hugh Campbell, Diarmaid Ferriter, Anne Fogarty, Margaret Kelleher and Helen Solterer, the UCD Curran-Laird collection presented by Eugene Roche and Evelyn Flanagan,
The 2022 collective edition offers an uncommon picture of this inventive and committed cohort, their work, and their worlds.

This is a full colour, highly illustrated book with special edition design features throughout.

Available to buy HERE

***

Bloomsday at Áras an Uachtaráin

A very special Sunday on the 13th June 2022 for all independent publishers, booksellers and writers of books at the Aras with President Michael D Higgins and Sabina Higgins celebrating #Ulysses100 and the rich contribution books offer Irish culture.
Such a joy to see James Joyce Remembered Edition 2022 among the many great new books released in this centenary year.





***



Launch of James Joyce Remembered


DATE: Monday, 28 March 2022
VENUE: Museum of Literature Ireland, 86 St Stephen’s Green
HOST: Frank McNally

Watch back the launch of James Joyce Remembered HERE









***
US Book Launch of Redress: Ireland's Institutions and Transitional Justice

DATE: 6th September 2022
VENUE: Burns Library, Boston College
GUEST SPEAKERS:
Guy Beiner, Boston College
M. Brinton Lykes, Boston College
Katherine O'Donnell, University College Dublin
Maeve O'Rourke, National Uinversity of Ireland Galway
James Smith, Boston College

'This book is an invitation to participate. Not the final word.'

A huge crowd in the John J. Burns Library to celebrate the US book launch of Redress with editors Maeve O'Rourke, Katherine O'Donnell and Jim Smith.



***

 Launch of REDRESS: Ireland's Institutions and Transitional Justice


DATE: Thursday, 26th May 2022
VENUE: National Museum of Ireland, Decorative Arts & History, Collins Barracks
GUEST SPEAKERS: Catherine Connolly TD

We had a very special launch event on 26 May at Collins Barracks
.
 

Thanks to guest speaker Catherine Connolly TD and to all attendees for supporting this publication.

'This book provides the definitive word on Ireland's history of institutionalising women and children, and places survivors at its core. Congratulations to the editors and contributors'
- Catherine Connolly TD

Here are some images from the night:









***
 
Media for REDRESS: Ireland's Institutions and Transitional Justice

'This edited book, Redress, coming from three of the leading activists and academics on these matters, captures this current fractious moment and tries to offer resources with which we can confront the legacies of these injustices.'

Critical Social Policy
(23/3/2023)
Read the full review here.

'Most chapters are academic in character, but the reader will also find poetry, photography, creative writing, songs, journalism and survivors’ testimonies in this profoundly interdisciplinary volume.'

Historical Dialogues, Justice, And Memory Network
(5/4/2023)
Read the full review here.

‘The contributors to this volume offer a different perspective, one that draws on the pain and truth-telling of survivors themselves.’

James M Smith,
The Irish Times (13/06/22)
Read the full article here.

'My mother was given a half hour’s notice to get me ready to have me taken from her.'

The Journal
(12/06/22)
Read the full extract here.

'Redress should be read by anyone who cares about the vulnerable, & those who can infl
uence how they are treated today.'

Tina Neylon,
The Irish Examiner
(12/10/22)
Read the full review here.

'It is a brave, creative, radical and unflinching collection'

Lindsey Earner-Byrne,
The Sunday Independent (7/08/22)
Read the full review here.

'This is a compelling collection of essays, testimonies, analysis & interrogation. From the loss & denial of identity of the survivor, to the empty rhetorical gestures of state & church, to the closure of access to truth'

Christopher Stanley,
The Village (24/08/22)
Read the full review here.

'It is a brave, creative, radical and unflinching collection, rooted in the concept of transitional justice'

ACIS (07/08/22)
Read the full article here.

‘There isn’t a book long enough to contain the stories of the suffering endured by all mothers and their children over the last century, but this one at least puts their experiences to the fore.’

Clodagh Finn, Irish Examiner (06/22)
Read the full review here.

'An Ongoing Injustice: State Responses to "Historical" Abuses in Ireland'

Maeve O'Rourke, The Irish Story (31/07/22)
Read the full extended extract here.

'Lawyer calls for full baby homes inquiry instead of insincere remorse for survivors'

Nicola Byrne, Irish Mail on Sunday (19/06/22)
Read the full interview here.

'The collection snaps our mind’s eye from the past and handwringing over what we did or did not know, could or should have done differently. These problems confront us with just as much urgency today. So, what is it we are going to do now?

Louise Brangan, Critical Social Policy (03/2023)
Read the full review here.

Listen to Pat Kenny interview with Maeve O'Rourke 


Listen to CRCFM interview with Katherine O'Donnell

Listen to Dr Maeve O’Rourke on ‘This Irish American Life’ hosted by Dr. Miriam Nyhan Grey on Irish Radio Network USA (10/12/2022)



With diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives, this collection considers how a Transitional Justice-based, survivor-centred, approach might assist those personally affected, policy makers, the public, and academics to evaluate the complex ways in which both the Republic and Northern Ireland (and other states in a comparative context) have responded to their histories of institutionalisation and family separation. Importantly, the essays collected in REDRESS: Ireland’s Institutions and Transitional Justice seek to offer avenues by which to redress this legacy of continuing harms.

Available to buy HERE

***
Launch of Creative Impulses, Cultural Accents: Brian Boydell's Music, Advocacy, Painting and Legacy

DATE: Thursday, 3 March 2022
VENUE: Irish Georgian Society
GUEST SPEAKER: Professor Harry White







***

Special St Brigid’s Day Event

DATE: Thursday, 3 February 2022

Special thanks to Olivia O’Leary, Monica McWilliams, Nora Owen and Saffa Musleh who joined author Sonja Tiernan in conversation.

Watch the event back here.





***
 

Welcome to Museum of Literature Ireland's Hold Open the Door podcast series

Presented by Professor Margaret Kelleher, Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at the School of English, Drama and Film in UCD, the Hold Open the Door podcast is a series of conversations with contributors to the anthology.
This first episode features poet Paula Meehan and Kelly O'Brien talking on topics such as creative workshops, cycles of poverty in inner-city Dublin and poetry as protest.
Listen to episode one here. 

Episode two features poets Nithy Kasa and Jean O’Brien on topics such as learning not to be strong, writing in English as a fourth language, finding trusted readers, plus inspiring readings.
Listen to episode two here.

Episode three features poets Bebe Ashley, Emma Must and Sinéad Morrissey in conversation about the influence they have had on one another, Belfast as a key theme in their work, and the importance of getting feedback.
Listen to episode three here.

Episode four features Annemarie Ní Churreáin and Rory Duffy in conversation about topics such as the value of creative writing groups and rediscovering a creative path.
Listen to episode four here. 

This final episode features Mícheál McCann, Summer Meline, Marcella L.A. Prince and Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, the editors of this beautiful anthology. They discuss the birth of the project, the importance of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Student Award and talk about their mentors and others who have been critically important to them throughout their careers so far.
Listen to episode five here. 

***
Readings from
Hold Open the Door

Watch contributors featured in
Hold Open the Door read their poetry HERE

***


Media for Irish Women's Speeches



'The record of Irish women’s speeches provides an inspiring account of Irish women whose words continue to shake people out of apathy and enthuse new generations.'

Sonja Tiernan, The Irish Times (November 2021)
Read the full article here.

'The balanced, alternative view of history found in Eamon Cleary Chair of Irish Studies Professor Sonja Tiernan’s new book Irish Women’s Speeches: Voices that rocked the system has resonated with readers in Ireland, with the book already reprinted four times.'

University of Otago (December 2021)
Read the full article here.


'My single hope for the year ahead is that when we talk of women’s contributions, past and present, the adjectives ‘unseen’, ‘unheard’, or ‘unsung’ will no longer be needed to describe them.'

Clodagh Finn, Irish Examiner (December 2021)
Read the full review here.

Listen back to author Sonja Tiernan speaking with Oliver Callan on the Ryan Tubridy Show about her book
Irish Women's Speeches with clips from Mary Robinson and more!
LISTEN NOW! 

Watch back Sonja Tiernan's interview with the Irish American Heritage Museum HERE
***

Christmas book launches!
We were delighted to be able to launch in person our two most recent titles, Connecting a Nation (Dec 16) and Irish Women's Speeches (Dec 15).

Thank you to all who attended and thank you to Moli and Irish Georgian Society for hosting in extraordinary times.











***
Media for Connecting a Nation

'Deryck Fay’s Connecting a Nation isn’t just about SIM cards, cables, mobile masts, and the internet, it’s a story of people and the development of Ireland, and the pivotal role that telecommunications have played in it. This book is a valuable resource for future researchers with appendices that stretch to almost 25% of the total page count'

Mark Twomey, The Irish Examiner
Read the full review here.

'"Frank in sex matters": How Ireland got hooked on British TV, from 1953 to today'

Deryk Fay, The Irish Times (January 2022)
Read the full piece here.

'Deryck Fay on his fascinating history of Irish phones, the first televisions and how we went online.'

Irish Independent (January 2022)
Read the full interview here.

***
Launch of Living with Cancer

DATE: Friday, 22 October 2021
VENUE: Museum of Literature Ireland, 86 St Stephen’s Green
GUEST SPEAKER: Áine Lawlor, RTE Journalist and Broadcaster






***

AUTUMN RELEASES


Queer Whispers
OUT 30 SEPTEMBER



The writings in Queer Whispers expose the limitations imposed by silence and articulate a new language of recognition and resilience of the continued struggles faced by queer Ireland

‘Kudos to José Carregal for gathering the scattered pieces of LGBT representation in Irish literature from the 1970s and producing an intelligent and insightful analysis. Queer Whispers is a long overdue and crucial study.'

- Emma Donoghue

*
Creative Impulses, Cultural Accents
Brian Boydell’s music, advocacy, painting and legacy


OUT 30 SEPTEMBER



Described as ‘a renaissance man’, and by President Mary Robinson as
a ‘tireless wheeler-dealer for music’, Brian Boydell was one of Ireland’s leading twentieth-century composers, an often outspoken agitator for the enrichment and expansion of music and cultural identity in Ireland, and a person of wide-ranging interests. this collection of essays is a celebratory salutation to an entirely fascinating figure who contributed immensely to the cultural
evolution of a modern nation.

*

Living with Cancer
with Hope amid the Uncertainty

OUT 30 SEPTEMBER





Aiming to address the information overload often described by those affected by cancer, this book will provide a non-jargon, reliable, peer reviewed, one-stop information shop for people diagnosed and living with cancer and for those who care for them. Living with Cancer is a deeply human and compassionate hand-book.

*
Connecting A Nation
The story of telecommunications in Ireland

OUT 15 OCTOBER



How did we get from that old-world Ireland to this modern super-connected one? Connecting a Nation tells this story — a story not just of cables, exchanges, SIM cards and broadband but of how telecommunications has played a pivotal role in the development of the country from 1852 to the present. Telecommunications is intimately bound up with politics and economics, with place and people. Connecting a Nation illustrates these interconnections by drawing on personal stories, from the first day of work for an operator at Dublin’s new telephone exchange in 1881, via the painful process of getting a phone installed in the 1970s, to the Ryanair website created by two students that ignited the digital revolution in Ireland.
Connecting the past to the present, Connecting a Nation offers an insider’s perspective on how the decisions of the past continue to shape who we are as individuals – and as a nation.


****


In Spanish Trenches REVIEWS

'McLoughlin and O’Connor have written an excellent account of the Irish who fought for the Republic that, in its scope and scholarship, stands alongside the many books – thoroughly researched and objective in approach – that now cover many of the national contingents in the International Brigades.'

Labour History Review (2/3/2023)
Read the full review here.


'A superb overview of Ireland's role in an oversea conflict'
- Dermot Bolger in the Sunday Business Post

Full review: 





'A definitive political, military and cultural history of the Irish International Brigaders'
- Irish Political Review

Full review:



***

Summer Sale
Creating Northern Ireland

In a post-Brexit world many are asking how we found ourselves in this predicament.

To better understand the creation of Northern Ireland, we've gathered a range of books that explain the Ulster question, right through to partition and its fallout, to the era of the Troubles and the Good Friday Agreement.

Browse the full list HERE. 40% discount for the summer season.


LAUNCH CELEBRATIONS!

We had a superb online panel discussion to celebrate the publication of Walls of Containment. Thank you to all who attended and a special thank you also to Chairperson Professor Hugh Campbell (UCD Architecture) and panelists: Professor Catherine Cox (UCD History), Professor Harry Kennedy (Executive Clinical Director of the National Forensic Mental Health Service) and author Patrick Quinlan.

Some images below






SHADOWS FROM THE TRENCHES LAUNCH

We enjoyed a wonderfully engaging online panel discussion between author Emmanuel Destenay and Professor William Murphy, DCU History

The centenary of the War of Independence and the Civil War represents an unexpected yet welcome moment to challenge traditional narratives and shed light on the contribution of Great War veterans to the Irish Revolution. What happened in Ireland was far from being an isolated case in European history. Re-mobilisations and re-engagements of Great War veterans characterised the internal dynamics within other European countries and states undergoing post-war transformations, revolutions or civil conflicts. Drawing on archives in in England, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and on hitherto unsolicited testimonies, Emmanuel Destenay tracks the trajectories of these shadows from the trenches, unveiling their hopes, expectations and uncertainties.


DIVERSE REPUBLIC LAUNCH

Author Professor Bryan Fanning had a very lively and well attended discussion with Irish Times Journalist Sorcha Pollak

Diverse Republic examines, as part of a wider focus on how immigration has changed Irish society, the emergence of anti immigrant far-right groups through a focus on some key figures within these. It also considers the response of mainstream politics to immigration and examines efforts to encourage the integration of newcomers.

Some images from both events BELOW









NEW SPRING RELEASES 

We are delighted to announce our upcoming spring releases:

Diverse Republic, Shadows from the Trenches and Walls of Containment all out later this month.








****

'In Spanish Trenches is ... a meticulously detailed history of all the Irish who fought for the Republic in the Connolly Column'
– Dublin Review of Books, March 2021

Thank you to the Dublin Review of Books for such a generous review of In Spanish Trenches 

Full review available here



****

A huge thank you to all who attended our virtual book launches for Ireland's Rivers and In Spanish Trenches 

We were delighted to see such large turn outs and such engaged discussion around the books.

We look forward to having in-person launches again some time this year! 


Ireland's Rivers



Professor Mary Kelly-Quinn, UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science, and Dr Julian Reynolds, Fellow Emeritus, Zoology, Trinity College Dublin, launch Ireland's Rivers. Thank you to the 200+ people who tuned in on the night.



In Spanish Trenches 


Our final event of the year saw John Cunningham (above) officially launch In Spanish Trenches by Barry McLoughlin (below) and Emmet O'Connor. Thank you to all who attended virtually and for the fantastic and engaged debate!



****

Virtual Launch of Making Belfield

29 Sept marked the 50th anniversary of the move by UCD from Earlsfort Terrace to Belfield.

To celebrate, UCD Press virtually launched our stunning book Making Belfield: Space & Place at UCD

You can watch the full event here: BELFIELD 50 LAUNCH

****

Meet the Author Series 

Over the course of lockdown UCD Press launched its Meet the Author series. 

You can browse a selection below and see the rest on the UCD Press YouTube Channel 

Meet the Author - Colin Barr
Meet the Author - Fergus O'Farrell
Meet the Author - Margaret Ward
Meet the Author - Bryan Fanning
Meet the Author - Dr Pauline Cullen and Professor Mary P. Corcoran
Meet the Author - Trish Ferguson
Meet the Author - Emmet O'Connor and Barry McLoughlin
Meet the Author - Mary McAuliffe Part 1 & Part 2
Meet the Author - Professor Margaret Kelleher with Deirdre Raftery

Meet the Author – Catriona Crowe
Meet the Author - Douglas Hyde: My American Journey
****


The Glasgow launch of

Margaret Skinnider


Thank you to all who attende
d





 ***

The homecoming launch of

Douglas Hyde: My American Journey




took place on

Monday 9th March 2020
at the National Library of Ireland

Thank you to the guest speakers, editors, all attendees and the team at the NLI for a memorable night.


Some images below:








......

We had a wonderful evening at MoLI for International Women's Day 2020



MEET, KNOW AND CELEBRATE:
The Unmanageable Revolutionaries

took place on
Sunday, 8 March 2020 


Margaret Skinnider, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington and Dorothy Macardle – a 1916 sniper and trade unionist, a suffragette and republican political activist, a nationalist propagandist and gothic fiction writer.

All teachers, feminists and nationalists. All three knew each other, and all their lives intersected and diverged at times as each navigated Ireland's turbulent history.

A huge thank you to Dr Mary McAuliffe (UCD), Dr Leeann Lane (DCU) and Dr Margaret Ward (Queen's University Belfast) and host David McCullagh for a fascinating discussion and insightful readings for all these great UCD Press books.

 

Some images from the night here:




..........
 

EBooks EBooks EBooks


We have a wonderful selection of EBooks on our website all on discount

 

Enjoy browsing

here

 

We will be adding MANY new EBooks over summer 2020 including these bestsellers


Look out for:
Douglas Hyde: My American Journey


Royal Irish Constabulary


Migration and the Making of Ireland


Something to Chew On


Cathal Brugha Life and Times New Series


Years of Turbulence


Maud Gonne Life and Times New Series


Endangered Masculinities


Ever Seen a Fat Fox?


Terence O'Neill


......

A wonderful launch for
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin's
Instead of a Shrine

19 December 2019


A who's who of the world of Irish poetry with superb readings from Eilean & a wonderful opening speech by Edna Longley.

Looking forward to many future collaborations with Poetry Ireland and the
Ireland Chair of Poetry. We look forward to the next title in this gorgeous Poet's Chair series.

A selection of nice images from the evening. Thanks to everyone who attended.

 

 

 









 .................

UCD PRESS LAUNCHES ANNE ENRIGHT'S 
NO AUTHORITY
WRITINGS FROM HER LAUREATESHIP OF IRISH FICTION
29 November 2019

On Friday 29 November 2019, UCD Press and the Arts Council launched Anne Enright's new book No Authority, the writings from her Laureateship of Irish Fiction. 

    


The event was held at MoLI, the Museum of Literature Ireland. The event was opened by speakers from MoLI and the Arts Council. 



Anne Enright did a reading from No Authority to a delighted crowd. 



She was then in conversation with Margaret Kelleher where the two discussed the book and it's theme of authority. 





Afterwards, attendees queued up to purchase a copy of the book and then were thrilled to get it personally signed by Anne. 





UCD Press wishes to give a warm thanks to everyone that attended this wonderful launch of No Authority and to everyone that bought a copy on the night. 



Many thanks to Margaret Kelleher, all the staff at MoLI for hosting and selling the books on the night, Jennifer Barker for her photography of the event, the Arts Council and our guest speakers.   

Buy the book here 

 

.........................

MARGARET WARD
AT DUBLIN BOOK FESTIVAL
16 NOV 2019 


Saturday, 16 November at the National Library of Ireland saw Margaret Ward and Lorcan Collins in conversation with David McCullagh for a fascinating discussion on Ireland’s War of Independence.

Margaret Ward discussed Hanna Sheehy Skeffington and her newly published book Fearless Woman (2019).  



What a great turnout and an excellent conversation. Many thanks to The Dublin Book Festival for putting on such a lovely event over an excellent weekend.   


LEEANN LANE
AT DUBLIN BOOK FESTIVAL 15 NOV 2019 


We were delighted to see our author Leeann Lane discussing her newly published book Dorothy Macardle (2019) at the Dublin Book Festival. 

In the Winter Garden in Smock Alley Theatre, Leeann was in conversation with Louise Kennedy and Eoin O'Brien, all discussing 'Voices from the Past'. 



It was so lovely to see our biography of Dorothy Macardle displayed alongside three republished works of hers by Tramp Press at the event.  

It was so interesting to hear about these three recovered voices, collected here for one special event, that until recently had not been noted in the arena of Irish writing. Big thanks to The Dublin Book Festival for organising such a wonderful event.

BRYAN FANNING AT
DUBLIN BOOK FESTIVAL 14 NOV 2019


UCD Press were delighted to be so represented at this years Dublin Book Festival 14th-17th November. Our authors were at three different events throughout the weekend and it was a pleasure to get to see them discuss their books. 

The first of our authors was Bryan Fanning, Professor of Migration and Social Policy at UCD and author of Migration and the Making of Ireland (2018). 



Bryan Fanning was chair of a conversation with Séan Ó Tuathaigh and Suad Aldarra at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum. 




 

.........

 

UCD PRESS LAUNCH 

FEARLESS WOMAN

IN BELFAST 


Thank you to all who came out to celebrate us launching

Fearless Woman by Margaret Ward

16 October 2019

Special thanks to the Connolly Centre for hosting and Susan McKay for speaking on the night


 

Get a copy of Fearless Woman here




......


Douglas Hyde My American Journey has had a very special launch tour of North America

With launch events, debates and talks in the following cities and Universities:


San Fransisco

 University of California, Berkeley

New York

University of Notre Dame

and

Boston


Some memorable images here:











*************************************************** 



AUTUMN/WINTER 2019 CATALOGUE RELEASED


We have just released our brand new A/W 2019 Catalogue which details all of our new and upcoming releases

Have a browse here:
UCD A/W 2019 Catalogue


******************


Announcing a new partnership between


UCD Press


and

The University of Chicago Press




UCD Press is delighted to announce a new distribution, sales and marketing partnership with the University of Chicago Press. UCD Press joins an illustrious list of over 100 international scholarly presses that are currently served by UCP. UCD Press is the first Irish press to join the list.

University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest North American university presses. With a special focus on producing books that promote education, foster public understanding and enrich cultural life, UCP are at the forefront of academic publishing. They have a strong sales department and wide-reaching marketing and distribution wings. UCD Press publishes contemporary scholarly writing in a broad range of subjects including history, literary studies, music, science and more recently migration studies, gender studies, and a special focus on Irish Studies.

This new venture will greatly enhance UCD Press’s presence in the North American academic market – ensuring every UCD Press title is adequately sold, distributed and marketed on both sides of the Atlantic. The new relationship will further allow our current authors to build on their profiles across the Atlantic and encourage authors from further afield to publish with us. Finally, the alliance will further enhance University College Dublin’s name as a leading research university of international standing.


‘University of Chicago Press is one of the leading university presses in North America with a strong name in academic publishing, distribution and sales. The international research output of UCD Press will be greatly enhanced by this new relationship. We at University College Dublin looks forward a long and fruitful collaboration between both internationally respected presses.’


– Professor Orla Feely, Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact, UCD

‘We are pleased to add UCD Press, our first Irish publisher, to our family of international publishers and excited to promote the visibility and sales of UCD Press’s books throughout North America.’


– Saleem Dhamee, Director, Client Services and Business Operations, The University of Chicago Press

‘UCD Press is committed to a fruitful and wide-reaching working relationship with the University of Chicago Press. It is extremely good news for our Press, our University, our readers and our authors – present and future.’

– Noelle Moran, Executive Editor, UCD Press
__________
As of 1 October 2019, all backlist and forthcoming titles will ship from the Chicago Distribution Center for North America.
Booksellers in North America should contact the University of Chicago Press sales team:
The University of Chicago Press|Chicago Distribution Center|11030 South Langley|Chicago|IL 60628|USA
Tel: 1-800-621-2736 (US & Canada); (773) 702-7000 (Rest of world)|Fax: 1-800-621-8476 (US & Canada); (773) 702-7212 (Rest of world)|E: custserv@press.uchicago.edu|www.press.uchicago.edu
__________

For more information, please contact UCD Press directly:
UCD Press|UCD Humanities Institute|Room H103|Belfield|Dublin 4|Ireland
Tel: +353 (0)1 7164680|E: ucdpress@ucd.ie|www.ucdpress.ie



******************


A fantastic community celebration of

Professor Margaret Kelleher's The Maamtrasna Murders

at Mallow Library, Cork
on Saturday, 27th April 2019

Thank you to all who attended!






******************



A very proud moment for UCD Press.
A private meeting with President Michael D Higgins at the Áras
Thursday, 16 May 2019 to mark the landmark publication of

The Maamtrasna Murders

by Professor Margaret Kelleher

Congratulations to all involved.


 
  






******************





We are delighted to announce that Margaret Kelleher's

T
he Maamtrasna Murders: Language, Life and Death in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

has won the 2019 Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language and Culture.

A fantastic achievement for all involved and on behalf of everyone here at the Press we would like to offer our warmest congratulations to Margaret.


You can read the Durcan Prize Committee’s citation below:

'This study examines the murders of five family members and subsequent trial of eight men in 1882. It argues that much of the evidence offered at the trial turned out to be inconsistent or false and at least one of those executed proved to be innocent. In a powerfully written conclusion, Kelleher links the story of the trial to the concerns of today’s refugees, asylum-seekers, and undocumented migrants, many of whom also face interrogation in courtrooms in which they do not speak the prevailing language. The Maamtrasna Murders is one of those rare books that brings together a gripping story, meticulous archival research, and a concern for justice and human rights.'




UCD Press recently launched Emer Crooke's

White Elephants: The Country House and the State in Independent Ireland, 1922–73

in the Irish Georgian Society

A special thank you to our special guest speaker, Senator David Norris, and to all who attended. 

Some pictures of the night below:

  
         
.
   
****

UCD Press cordially invites you to the launch of


White Elephants: The Country House and the State in
Independent Ireland, 1922–73


by Emer Crooke

with special guest speaker

Senator David Norris

at The Irish Georgian Society, 58 South William St.
on Thursday, 6 December, 2018, 6.30pm

rsvp ucdpress@ucd.ie



With generous support from the Centre for the Study of
Historic Irish Houses and Estates
Department of History, Maynooth University


***********


UCD Press at the Dublin Book Featival, 2018

Several UCD Press authors took aprt in this year's wonderful Dublin Book Festival. Thank you to all who attended the events. 

Photos of the various events below:

    
.
.
                       
.
    
.
 

******

Christmas Exam Strategy Seminar

UCD Press, in conjunction with the UCD Writing Centre, are hosting a seminar aimed at helping students succeed in the upcoming Christmas Exams.

Professor Aidan Moran and Dr Audrey McNamara will guide students through some of the common pitfalls of university exams.

Topics will include: how to prepare for an exam, writing exam essays, dealing with MCQ exams and much more.


ALL WELCOME

Full details:



***************************

 

We are delighted to announce that Philip O’Leary’s title 

has been awarded the Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language and Culture. 

A fantastic achievement to all involved and on behalf of everyone here at the Press we would like to offer our warmest congratulations to Philip O’Leary. 

 

You can read the Durcan Prize Committee’s citation below: 
 
Philip O’Leary’s An Underground Theatre: Major Playwrights in the Irish Language 1930-80 is an incredible contribution to scholarship on Irish theatre and the Irish language. The book is wide ranging, encyclopedic, and engagingly well written. In covering the works of five twentieth century playwrights writing in the Irish language, O’Leary offers detailed creation and production histories, right down to the specific theatres across the country that presented the plays under consideration. It is not an overstatement to say that this book will likely remain a resource for scholars and students of Irish language plays for decades if not centuries to come.

 


****
Reflecting on a historic moment when President Michael D. Higgins unveiled a plaque commemorating the smashing of windows at Dublin Castle by Hannah Sheehy Skeffington. 

 

President Higgins was also presented with a copy of Margaret Ward's Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: Suffragette and Sinn Feiner.

  
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UCD Press and GDPR
UCD Press is fully committed to protecting the privacy of your data. We are currently underdoing a full review of operations and systems to ensure GDPR compliance, and any updates needed will be made in line with the GDPR deadline of 25 May.
 
UCD Press will not disclose a user’s personally identifiable information to any third party without the user’s express permission, except where applicable for the purpose of supplying the service for which the user has registered. We do not collect Personal Information about you other than information that you voluntarily provide (for example, when you provide shipping and billing information for an online purchase). Any personal information you provide while visiting this site is confidential and only used for the purposes to which you have consented. We guarantee never to sell Personal Information or share that information with third parties unrelated to UCD Press or any associated companies which may be located outside the European Union.
 
Our site provides users with the opportunity to opt-in to receive promotional and marketing information from UCD Press. To unsubscribe, click the ‘unsubscribe’ button in the email received.
 
Through your use of this site, you consent to the above policy regarding use and collection of your Personal Information by UCD Press.
 
Further information on your data privacy rights are available on the website of the Irish data protection commissioner. http://www.dataprivacy.ie. If you have any questions about this privacy statement, or the security practices of this site, you can contact us at ucdpress@ucd.ie.
 
For further information on our privacy policy, please see our full privacy statement, linked on our home page.

***************** 

 

Reflecting on a great night of community at the London launch of Bryan Fanning's Migration and the Making of Ireland. 

 
A special thanks to the inspiring and moving speakers: Conrad Bryan, Mary Hickman and Rosemary Adaser. 
 
Photos of the event:
 


   
 

 
*******

Migration and the Making of Ireland, by Bryan Fanning, was officially launched by Professor Michael Laffan in the wonderful Books Upstairs on Wednesday, March 7. 

  

Thank you to everyone who attended. 

Images of the event below:

 

 


   

 
  

Read more about the book below:

'Migration and the Making of Ireland richly explores accounts of migrant experiences across more than four centuries. The motivations that drove migration to Ireland and emigration from Ireland since the Plantation of Ulster are assessed. Commonalities and differences across space and time between the experiences of incoming and outgoing migrants, with a strong emphasis on the recent waves of immigration that are re-shaping twenty-first century Ireland, are deeply explored.

This book makes a landmark contribution to our understanding of modern Ireland and will be essential reading for anybody seeking to understand the diversity of twenty-first century Irish society.'


......
2018 is the centenary year of the right to vote for Irish women over 30 years old. It is wonderful to see such visible displays celebrating heroines such as Hanna Sheehy Skeffington.

Here is the Hodges Figgis suffragette window display to celebrate this special year. Great to see our Hanna book taking pride of place...



Pop in to Hodges Figgis, Dawson St, Dublin 2 and get your copy today!

..........

On 9th November 2017 Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin launched the next 3 Poet's Chair books at the RIA Dawson Street:

The Bag Apron
by John Montague
Cead Isteach
by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Three Great European Poets
by Paul Durcan

We had readings from Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Harry Clifton & Paula Meehan and a lovely wine reception after.

Some images of the night below. Thanks to all poets and attendees for a really memorable night of poetry:




 

 

 





....

UCD Press had two great events in Dublin and Belfast for our latest title

Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Suffragette and Sinn Feiner:
Her Memoirs and Political Writings
by Dr Margaret Ward

Hanna's Dublin launch took place on the 4th Oct. 2017 at the RIA, Dawson St, Dublin 2. Thanks to our wonderful panel of speakers: Martina Devlin, Catriona Crowe, Ivana Bacik and author Margaret Ward. And a special thanks to all attendees for making it a magical night #votesforwomen #votail100

Images of the Dublin event here:





   

      







.

On 12th Oct. 2017 we travelled north and launched Hanna again in the lovely No Alibis Bookshop, Botanic Ave, Belfast. Professor Monica McWilliams gave a wonderful speech, and again we would like to sincerely thank all attendees for making it a night to remember

Some images below:

       




......

UCD Press was delighted to collaborate with Irish Academic Press and Glucksman Ireland House, NYU, last year on Ireland’s Allies and Modern Ireland and Revolution. Below is an article from Books Ireland (March/April 2017) about the collaboration.





......

Delighted to be present for the New York launch of Ireland's Allies at Glucksman Ireland House, NYU, New York
1st December 2016

Some pictures of the event below:

 
Glucksman House Ireland, NYU

 
Ireland's Allies editor Miriam Nyhan Grey with contributors.

Cormac O'Malley, Glucksman House and Conor Graham, IAP.
 

 


Packed house of supports and guests, Glucksman House Ireland
1 December 2016

 

  

......

Women Writing
War, edited by Tina O’Toole, Gillian McIntosh and Muireann O’Cinnéide, was launched by Professor Patricia Coughlan on Friday 25 November 2016 in Plassey House, University of Limerick. Professor Coughlan gave an inspiring speech and an enjoyable afternoon was had by all. Below are some photographs of the event.


Tina O'Toole, Gillian McIntosh, Muireann O'Cinnéide and Patricia Coughlan


The editors and publishers of Women Writing War with Maeve and Órla McKeown, the grand-daughters of Annie Cooney, who appears on the cover


Patricia Coughlan officially launching the book


The majestic Plassey House, where the launch was held

..........
Michael Davitt after the Land League
, by Carla King, was launched by Dr Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington on Wednesday 23 November 2016 in DCU St Patrick’s Campus, Drumcondra. The event was organised in conjunction with Professor Daire Keogh, Deputy President DCU. Many thanks to all who attended, especially members of the Davitt family. Below are some photographs of the launch.


Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington with Grainne Davitt, grand-daughter of Michael Davitt


Carla King speaking at the launch       Daire Keogh introducing the speakers


Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington speaking about Davitt and
her grand-father, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington


..........

Ireland’s Allies: America and the 1916 Easter Rising
, edited by Miriam Nyhan Grey, was launched by Professor J. J. Lee on Monday 14 November 2016 in the Royal Irish Academy, Dawson Street. At the event, Irish Academic Press’s Modern Ireland and Revolution: Ernie O’Malley in Context, edited by Cormac K. H. O’Malley, was also launched. Both books originated at Glucksman Ireland House NYU and UCD Press was delighted to collaborate with IAP at the launch event. Below are some photographs of the memorable evening.


Cormac K. H. O'Malley and Miriam Nyhan Grey




Guests enjoying the launch


Miriam Nyhan Grey and family


Cormac K. H. O'Malley, Miriam Nyhan Grey and J. J. Lee


Maura Anand and Miriam Nyhan Grey

..........

Wonderful Sunday Times review of Mike Gibney's new bestseller:

Ever Seen a Fat Fox? Human Obesity Explored


'This is a thoughtful book from one of the most provocative and knowledgeable voices in Irish food science. Those who are tired of simplistic arguments by unqualified commentators and celebrities, and who want to really engage with the fascinating science of nutrition, will be well rewarded.'



Sunday Times Culture Magazine
Sunday 3 July 2016

..........

Imaginary Bonnets with Real Bees in Them
, by Paula Meehan – the third volume of UCD Press’s The Poet’s Chair series – was launched by Eavan Boland on Wednesday 15 June 2016 in the Royal Irish Academy, Dawson Street. Paula and Eavan were joined by poets Harry Clifton and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin for an evening of poetry and celebration and UCD Press would like to thank everyone involved in the event. Below are some photographs of the memorable evening (courtesy of Clodagh Kilcoyne)






 


 
 



..........

Vivien Igoe’s The Real People of Joyce’s Ulysses: A Biographical Guide was launched in the James Joyce Centre, Dublin 1 on Thursday 9 June 2016 as part of the Bloomsday Festival 2016. UCD Press would like to thank Professor Declan Kiberd for officially launching the book and Mark Traynor of the James Joyce Centre for hosting the event. Below are some photographs of the memorable evening (courtesy of Fran Veale). The book also received considerable coverage in the Irish Times after the event and you can read an extract they published here and a review here

 


 

 


 
 


..........
Discussion and Launch night for Professor Mike Gibney's new book Ever Seen a Fat Fox? Human Obesity Explored

Thank you to Mike Gibney, Professor Donal O'Shea and Catherine Cleary of the Irish Times

RIA Dawson St., 24 May 2016


  

 

 

 

 

 

   



You can order a copy of Ever Seen a Fat Fox? at this link
..........
UCD Press was delighted to be involved with the theatre event Signatories, which was commissioned by UCD, produced by Verdant and directed by Patrick Mason. The play consisted of eight monologues, from eight of Ireland’s finest writers, in response to the seven executed signatories of the Proclamation and Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell. The play was staged in Kilmainham Gaol (22–24 April 2016), the Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire (26–27 April 2016), the Civic Theatre, Tallaght (3–4 May 2016) and the National Concert Hall (5 May 2016). UCD Press published the book Signatories to coincide with the play and below are some pictures of its memorable run.


The atmospheric Kilmainham Gaol on opening night


Barbara Brennan portraying Elizabeth O’Farrell on opening night


The full cast of Signatories prepare to take a bow


Lisa Dwyer Hogg takes on the story of James Connolly


Peter Gaynor playing Padraig Pearse


The UCD Press travelling bookshop selling Signatories



Some of the writers of
Signatories: Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Rachel Fehily,
Thomas Kilroy, Emma Donoghue, Marina Carr and Hugo Hamilton



Some of the writers of Signatories, Thomas Kilroy, Frank McGuinness, Rachel Fehily,
Marina Carr, Joseph O'Connor and Hugo Hamilton, with director Patrick Mason

..........

UCD Press was delighted to attend the Larkin anniversary lecture on 28/01/16 in Liberty Hall. The lecture was presented by Emmet O’Connor on his new book Big Jim Larkin: Hero or Wrecker? and was organised by the 1913 Committee. There was a huge turnout to hear O’Connor speak on the night.


SIPTU’s Jack O’Connor introducing Emmet O’Connor to the eager crowd


Emmet O'Connor giving the Larkin anniversary lecture


Emmet O'Connor greeting Jim Larkin's granddaughter Stella McConnon at the event

..........

UCD Press hosted a wine reception in Newman House as part of a Norbert Elias conference: Social Character and Historical Processes (07/01/16). The reception was held in honour of UCD Press’s founders, Barbara and Stephen Mennell, to thank them for their years of service in the Press and to congratulate them on the completion of UCD Press’s The Collected Works of Norbert Elias.


Barbara and Stephen Mennell with the 18 volumes of The Collected Works of Norbert Elias


Stephen Mennell speaking at the reception


Tony Fahy of UCD Press thanking the Mennells for their years of service in the Press


The crowd enjoying the reception
..........

UCD Press along with Emmet O’Connor and his family were delighted to be invited to Áras an Uachtaráin by President Higgins to present him with a copy of O’Connor’s Big Jim Larkin: Hero or Wrecker? We were treated to tea with the President and Mrs Higgins, followed by a tour of the Áras. A memorable afternoon was had by all. (06/01/16)


The festive entrance to the Áras


Emmet O’Connor presenting his book to President and Mrs Higgins


The O'Connor family with President and Mrs Higgins


Emmet O'Connor with President Higgins and UCD Press's Damien Lynam


..........

UCD Press would like to thank everyone who attended the launch of Big Jim Larkin: Hero of Wrecker? by Emmet O’Connor. The book was officially launched by Jack O’Connor, General President of SIPTU, on Tuesday 15 December 2015 in Liberty Hall. Below are some photographs of the memorable occasion.
(Images courtesy of Frank Connolly)


Copies of the book available for sale on the night


Jack O'Connor with Emmet O'Connor in Liberty Hall


Jack O'Connor officially launching the book


Emmet O'Connor explaining the importance of James Larkin


Emmet O'Connor signing books for guests

..........


UCD Press would like to thank everyone who attended the launch of Years of Turbulence, edited by Diarmaid Ferriter and Susannah Riordan. The book was in honour of Michael Laffan and was officially launched by Tom Dunne, of UCC, on Thursday 3 December 2015 in Newman House. Despite the wet and windy weather there was a fantastic turnout and a great evening was had by all. Below are some photographs of the memorable occasion.
(Images courtesy of Michael Kennedy)


Susannah Riordan, Michael Laffan, Diarmaid Ferriter and Tom Dunne posing with the book


The packed Physics Theatre in Newman House where the launch took place


Tom Dunne officially launching the book


Tony Fahy and Michael Laffan enjoying Tom Dunne's entertaining speech


Tom Dunne and Michael Laffan sharing a joke


Susannah Riordan, Marie Coleman, Michael Laffan and Conor Mulvagh
enjoying the evening


Michael Laffan with honoured guest Liam Cosgrave


Michael Laffan thanking the editors and contributors of Years of Turbulence


Catriona Crowe in conversation with Michael Laffan


Ivar McGrath with the youngest guest of the evening


A great night was had by all

..........

UCD Press would like to thank everyone who attended the launch of Harry Clifton's Ireland and Its Elsewheres, which took place on Saturday 14 November 2015 as part of a Dublin Book Festival event in Smock Alley Theatre. Harry Clifton, Paula Meehan and Michael Longley were in conversation with Arminta Wallace of The Irish Times, followed by a reception where Arminta officially launched Harry's book. You can listen to a podcast of the event here and below are some photographs


Arminta Wallace in conversation with Harry Clifton, Paula Meehan and Michael Longley


Harry Clifton and Paula Meehen


Paula Meehan and Michael Longley


Harry Clifton with Ireland and Its Elsewheres


Guests listen to Harry Clifton in the beautiful surroundings of Smock Alley


Arminta Wallace officially launching the book


Edna Longley, Michael O'Loughlin, and Noelle Moran of UCD Press at the launch


Guests enjoying the event


Harry Clifton ready to sign books for guests

..........


The Poet's Chair
at the
Dublin Book Festival 2015


Harry Clifton's new book IRELAND AND ITS ELSEWHERES will be launched as part of a Dublin Book Festival event (€5/€3 concession) where Arminta Wallace of the Irish Times will be in conversation with Harry Clifton, Paula Meehan (current Chair of Poetry) and Michael Longley on

Saturday 14 November 2015,
2.15–3.30 pm
Boys’ School, Smock Alley Theatre,
Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Light refreshments will be provided at a reception following
the event. Please see www.dublinbookfestival.com for more
information and to purchase tickets

ALL WELCOME




..........

Irish Examiner review of One Wide Expanse

Saturday, August 29, 2015
Review: Thomas McCarthy

MICHAEL LONGLEY is one of the most popular Irish poets of the modern era.



Michael Longley,

UCD Press and The Ireland Chair of Poetry
Launch of Poet's Chair series
RIA, 11 June 2015

Opinionated yet calm, cushioned within the Ulster establishment yet as liberal as any dissident, he has drawn thousands of readers to his poetry of fearsome integrity.

He endured Belfast during the Troubles, accepting his lot in the sure knowledge that Ulster was home and Ulster was the only homeland his young family understood.
We who live so far south have no idea what he endured during those years; it was an era when young middle-class Ulster couples answered the doorbell together, so that they might die together if the caller was a gunman.

If Belfast writers seem to have an uncanny moral strength, a strength that seems to give them a career advantage, it’s just that they’ve twice survived a Blitz: first it was the Luftwaffe and then it was the terrorists. An Emergency or a Bank Crisis is no match for that blue rinse of Ulster endurance.

One Wide Expanse is an inspired title, combining as it does the memory of Keats’ great sonnet
‘Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold ...’

Unlike poor Keats, Longley knows his Greek; his Chapman being the great WB Stanford of TCD. Stanford, it must be said, is one of the few Irish Classical scholars to rescue the memory of Francis Sylvester Mahony/Father Prout from our contemporary Cork sea of ignorance.
In Stanford’s Ireland and the Classical Tradition Mahony’s Reliques of
Father Prout is particularly honoured. 


Such was the intellectual depth of the man who deepened Longley’s encounter with Homer, an encounter that had begun at Belfast Institute where he already owned a well-thumbed copy of Stanford’s Odyssey.
“I have been haunted by Homer for 50 years,” says Longley in a terrific lecture printed here, one of the three lectures that were part of his duty as Ireland Professor of Poetry.

This book contains all three lectures, with accompanying bibliography and notes on texts.
These books from the Ireland Chair of Poetry will, over time, constitute a prodigious handbook of poetic craft. Longley is particularly unsentimental and searching, showing us here, for example, how the template laid down by Homer created an aesthetic through which he could handle the Troubles imaginatively.

Poetry in conflict is always problematic; the secret is to hold the rhetoric back, to be more like Yeats and less like Pearse, to be more like Auden and less like John Cornford, to be more like Lowell and less like Fr Berrigan.


While patriots and activists may be passionately sincere, poetry needs more than that — passive suffering is never enough.
In Longley’s case, The Shankill Butchers of Martin Dillon’s book become transfigured as Homer’s Odyssean crew slaughtering the suitors in Book XXII of The Odyssey; and Book XXIV where Hermes accompanies the ghosts of the slaughtered into the Underworld.

This poem astonished its first readers. In the August of the IRA ceasefire in 1994, Longley was reading that part of the Odyssey where King Priam visits the tent of Achilles to recover the body of his slaughtered son Hector: ‘I get down on my knees and do what must be done/And kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son’. No further comment is necessary, as they say. But this is Michael Longley’s immense subtle power.


The same power is recorded in the other lectures here. What may have begun as a very fine idea to record the voices of these distinguished poet-Professors has now developed into a UCD master-class on the craft of poetry.


................

'In this first volume of The Poet’s Chair, the distinguished Irish poet Michael Longley – whose poetry has transcended political and cultural boundaries throughout his career – reflects on what has influenced his craft.

One Wide Expanse gives readers a rare insight into the creative process of one of Ireland’s leading contemporary poets who was Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2007 to 2010.'

Read the article here



Donegal Democrat
September 2015

................

UCD Press would like to thank everyone who attended the launch of Michael Longley’s One Wide Expanse, which took place on Thursday 11 June 2015 in the Royal Irish Academy. The book is the first volume in UCD Press’s ‘The Poet’s Chair’ series in collaboration with the Ireland Chair of Poetry. Fintan O’Toole was guest speaker at the event and the last three Ireland Professors of Poetry, Michael Longley, Harry Clifton and Paula Meehan, all spoke on the night. A memorable time was had by all and below are some photographs

(photo credit: Dylan Madden)



Harry Clifton, Michael Longley and Paula Meehan before the event


Harry Clifton, Paula Meehan, Fintan O'Toole and Michael Longley getting ready to speak at the event


Marie Heaney with her copy of One Wide Expanse


Harry Clifton enjoying the event


Fintan O'Toole and Michael Longley sharing a joke on stage


Michael Longley signing his new book for guests


UCD Press with former Irish President Mary Robinson


Paula Meehan talking with guests on the night


Former Irish President Mary Robinson with Michael Longley and Marie Heaney

................
UCD Press would like to thank everyone who came to the launch of Ireland's Harp, by Mary Louise O'Donnell, on Monday 29 June 2015 in the Royal Irish Academy. The book was officially launched by Professor Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin of the University of Limerick. Below are some photographs of the event.


Guests assembling in the stunning RIA for the launch


Leslie Daly of UCD Press with author Mary Louise O'Donnell


Professor Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin officially launhcing Ireland's Harp


Guests enjoying the memorable evening


Mary Louise O'Donnell taking some time to sign her new book for guests

................

A great night was had by all on Bloomsday 2015 at the Characters in Conversations event organised by the UCD Alumni office. The event featured seven contributors from our recently published Voices on Joyce who discussed James Joyce from a variety of perspectives. Below are some photos of the memorable and lively evening.


Voices on Joyce's Jospeh Brady, Adrian Hardiman, Conal Hooper, Gerardine Meaney, Christopher Murray, Cormac Ó Gráda and Harry White discussing Joyce


Helena and Angie Harvey, Declan Sweeney, Nadine Shinkwin and Ann Marie Harvey enjoying the event


Eileen and Tom O Keefe getting into the spirit of Bloomsday


Voices on Joyce contributor Joseph Brady discussing Joycean Dublin



The seven
Voices on Joyce contributors who took part in the event

................

Great review of Young Ireland and the Writing of Irish History, by James Quinn, in The Irish Times (20/06/15). Read the full review here


................

UCD Press requests the pleasure of your company at a reception to celebrate the publication of

Ireland's Harp: The Shaping of Irish Identity c. 1770–1880

by Mary Louise O'Donnell



................

Great coverage of our new Voices on Joyce last weekend in The Irish Times (13/06/15) with a stunning review by Terence Brown and an extract from Declan Kiberd’s essay, Ulysses and Us’



................

UCD Press would like to thank everyone who came to the launch of Voices on Joyce, edited by Anne Fogarty and Fran O’Rourke, last Tuesday 9 June 2015 in Newman house. The book was officially launched by Professor Luke Gibbons of NUI Maynooth who gave a very thoughtful and insightful speech, and beautiful music was provided by Fran O’Rourke and John Feeley. Below are some photographs of the memorable evening


The editors of Voices on Joyce, Anne Fogarty and Fran O'Rourke,
enjoying the sun before the launch


British Ambassador to Ireland Dominick Chilcott with Anne Fogarty,
Fran O'Rourke and Noelle Moarn of UCD Press



Barry McGovern, Leslie Daly, and Voices on Joyce contributor Michael Laffan


Martina Devlin, Fran O'Rourke and John Feeley


Professor Luke Gibbons, who launched the book, enjoying the evening with guests



The Physics Theatre in Newman House was full for the launch
................


UCD Press requests the pleasure of your company at a reception to celebrate the publication of

 The Poet's Chair: Writings from the Ireland Chair of Poetry
One Wide Expanse


by Michael Longley



................

UCD Press requests the pleasure of your company at a reception to celebrate the publication of

Voices on Joyce

ed. by Anne Fogarty & Fran O'Rourke



................

Follow the link below for a fascinating interview with Professor Stephen Mennell about Norbert Elias and his work on The Collected Works of Norbert Elias

Interview with Professor Stephen Mennell


................

A great evening was had by all at the launch of Young Ireland and the Writing of Irish History, 29 April 2015. Many thanks to all who attended and here are some snaps from the night


Ciaran Brady of TCD with the author, James Quinn


Guests enjoying themselves in the stunning RIA, which housed the launch


Leslie Daly of UCD Press welcoming guests to the launch


Ciaran Brady officially launching the book


Author James Quinn talking about the Young Irelanders and his book


James Quinn signing his new book for guests

................
UCD Press requests the pleasure of your company at a reception to celebrate the publication of

Young Ireland and the Writing of Irish History

by James Quinn




ALL WELCOME
................


UCD Press recently visited Áras an Uachtaráin to present President Higgins with Irish Homes and Irish Hearts (20/04/15)

UCD Press, along with several sisters of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, were delighted to be invited to Áras an Uachtaráin by President Higgins to present him with a copy of Irish Homes and Irish Hearts by Fanny Taylor, edited by Mary McAuliffe. We were treated to tea with the President where he discussed the importance of Fanny Taylor’s educational, philanthropic and medical work in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland. After tea, we were lucky enough to receive a tour of the Áras.

             
                    President Higgins being presented with the book

             
             Sisters of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God with the President

             
                     The sumptuous setting for the afternoon tea

             
         Being treated to a tour of the Áras

................

Some snaps of our recent US launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music In Ireland (24/02/15)


The American Irish Historical Society, 5th Avenue, New York, which housed the launch


Colm Tóibín officially launching the book in America


Consul General, Barbara Jones, praising EMIR
on the night


EMIR's
general editors, Barra Boydell and Harry White, with UCD Press's Noelle Moran and Chris Cahill of the AIHS


Greg Harrington entertaining guests at the event


EMIR proudly displayed on the night


................


Colm Tóibín is launching The Encyclopaedia of Music In Ireland in America. The historic American Irish Historical Society, 5th Avenue, New York, is hosting this landmark event.



................


A warm review of Maintaining a Place: Conditions of Metaphor in Modern American Literature

from

Kit Fryatt, Mater Dei Institute of Education, January 2015:

‘Maintaining a Place does an excellent job in suggesting why Callan's teaching, mentorship and scholarship is so important to academics and writers in Ireland and beyond: it reflects his wide interests, questioning approach and personal sincerity. Thoughtfully arranged and attractively produced, it can also, unlike many volumes of the Festschrift type, be confidently recommended to general readers with an interest in American literature.’

read the full review here:




................


ALL INVITED TO A FESTIVE CELEBRATION AT 27 SOUTH WILLIAM STREET





................


A great evening was had by all at the launch of Maintaining a Place, 14 November 2014. Here are some snaps of the event for those who couldn't make it



The man of the night, Ron Callan, with his wife Breda


Nicholas Daly officially launching the book

 
One of the book's editors, Fionnuala Dillane,
praises the work of Ron Callan


The stunning Royal Irish Academy, which housed the event


The launch was enjoyed by people of all ages

................

UCD Press requests the pleasure of your company
at a reception to celebrate
the publication of

The Last Cavalier




................

Advance copies of Maintaining a Place have just arrived, no better time to extend an invitation to the book's launch


................

Great coverage of Frank Aiken's War and The Last Cavalier in The Irish Catholic this month




................

The Encyclopaedia of Muisc in Ireland
editors, Harry White and Barra Boydell, have been awarded the Harrison Medal by the Society of Musicology in Ireland



................

Nice review of A Labour History of Ireland 1824–2000 in Labour History this month


................


Great coverage for two of our 2014 titles in the Irish Times this October:

John Berryman's Public Vision

John Berryman’s Public Vision allows the poet to be seen in a radically new way that also challenges the confessional label that has stuck to him, and some of his contemporaries, for too long.’

Ireland's Czar

‘This substantial and authoritative book argues that the “bifurcated government” of Ireland from Westminster and Dublin Castle allowed all the odium of coercion to fall on Spencer.’




................

Our new book about Frank Aiken gets a great review in the Evening Echo:

Frank Aiken's War

‘[Frank Aiken’s] role in the revolutionary period is subject to close examination by Matthew Lewis in a book that shows its academic origins in the detail presented, but which succeeds in fleshing out the life of an individual who was formative in the birth and development of the state.’




................

A wonderful review of our Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (EMIR)
in CHOICE September 2014
(Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries):

 
‘… it is the ideal starting place for anyone seeking to learn more about Irish music topics. As a guide to the unique universe of Irish music scholarship, it will remain indispensable for years to come.’



More than 22,000 academic librarians, faculty, and key decision makers rely on the reviews in Choice magazine and Choice Reviews Online for collection development and scholarly research. Choice reaches almost every undergraduate college and university library in the United States. 


..............................

UCD Press requests the pleasure of your company
at a reception to celebrate
the publication of

Nation/Nazione
Irish Nationalism and the Italian Risorgimento

The James Hardiman Research Building,
Room GO11
NUI Galway
Galway

at 5pm on Tuesday 14th October.

It will be launched by

H. E. Mr. Giovanni Adorni Braccesi, the Italian Ambassador to Ireland

RSVP
anne.oconnor@nuigalway.ie 



Announcement on NUIG website

http://www.nuigalway.ie/mooreinstitute/home/events/115/ 


..................


UCD Press requests the pleasure of your company 
at a reception to celebrate 
the publication of

John Berryman's Public Vision




 ................................ 


The ACIS/CAIS (American & Canadian Conference for 
Irish Studies) Joint Conference 

Latitudes: Irish Studies in an international context 
which was held in UCD in June 2014
 
UCD Press was proud to be a part of the publishers' section to showcase academic and trade publishing at its best.

Here is a picture of our table with some of our latest 
publications on show:



A wonderful showcase of Irish Studies international research. Thank you to the organisers and coordinators of the events. 

 ................

Photos from the launch event of Aspects of Irish Aristocratic Life at NUIM Library, 
Thursday 8 May (courtesy of Alan Monahan NUIM Library). 

      

Professor Marian Lyons with Hon. Desmond Guinness

  

Professor Terence Dooley, co-editor of Aspects of Irish Aristocratic Life



A lovely turn out with many attending from the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses Conference on the Big House and WWI

   

Professor Dooley and the Hon. Desmond Guinness

  

  

Professor Raymond Gillespie, Helen O’Connor and other guests

   






A video of the event link here:

www.youtube.com/watch

Also a very big thank you to Mary Ann Lyons, NUIM, for a 
wonderful speech at the launch in Maynooth:

I am delighted to have been asked to launch this beautifully produced illustrated collection of 19 essays by both established and emerging scholars, which draws together much of the most recent research on the FitzGerald family who for almost 800 years were Ireland’s leading noble family.

 We are very much in the debt of Terence Dooley and his co-editors, Patrick Cosgrove and Karol Mullaney-Dignam, for their organisation of the highly successful conference at Carton House in September 2010 – from which this volume originated – and for their painstaking work in bringing the collection to fruition.

Reflecting the history of the family, the volume falls into two parts, the first dealing with the family’s gradual ascent as Earls of Kildare to being Ireland’s leading magnates, based at Maynooth Castle, down to the 1530s; the second focussed on their recovery and prosperity as dukes and duchesses of Leinster, with their seat at Carton.

Terence Dooley opens with an exposition of the history of the FitzGeralds in Ireland that creates the essential interpretative framework for what follows, outlining the vicissitudes of the family, their demise in the mid-1530s and their recovery at their new set of Carton in the mid-eighteenth century.

Tracing the evolution of the manor of Maynooth down to the mid-eighteenth century, Raymond Gillespie urges his readers to re-imagine the form of Carton landscape before it became the Carton of today.

My own piece on the family’s political ascendancy from 1470 to their dramatic fall in 1534 is complemented by Carol O’Connor’s pioneering study of Mabel Browne, Countess of Kildare in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century which takes us beyond the simple narrative of the family’s history to look at broader issues of gender, power and social networks that shaped the political relationship between Ireland and England.

 

Next Colm Lennon presents a fascinating study of how in the era of their ascendancy, the FitzGeralds fashioned an historical narrative and public image that self-consciously celebrated their glorious past as part of their strategy to retain their power in Irish political life.

 One of the main strengths of this collection is its richness and diversity both in terms of the subjects covered and in the approaches taken by the contributors. This is perhaps most evident in the second part of the book which deals with the FitzGeralds at Carton.

William Laffan and Brendan Rooney’s essay exploring the second duke of Leinster’s commission of six views of Carton demesne by Thomas Roberts during the 1770s is complemented by Alison FitzGerald’s essay on the material culture of Carton, in which, in addition to discussing pieces of art, Alison introduces us to a range of fascinating objects and curiosities such as freedom boxes that adorned the Leinster’s home in the late nineteenth century.

Karol Mullaney-Dignam’s ground-breaking essay on music at Carton in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries does much to enhance our understanding of rural sociability for the Irish landed élite in this period, offering a wealth of evocative and colourful images of evenings of dancing, music and high society fashion in the drawing room of Carton.

These multifaceted contributions, combined with Terence Dooley’s essay on the lives of servants employed at the house, increase the scholarly reach of this volume and help to ensure that this is a more balanced history of the house and family than might otherwise be the case.

Essays by historical geographer Arnold Horner on the development of Maynooth, the interaction between the big house and the village, and the fashioning of Carton landscape, also represent a particularly valuable contribution to scholarship.

No volume on the history of Carton and the FitzGeralds would be complete without an essay on Lord Edward FitzGerald and his involvement in the 1798 Rebellion. Liam Chambers provides a nuanced and deftly contextualised study of the tensions that Edward experienced between the FitzGerald family’s politics on the one hand, and his personal revolutionary convictions on the other. Chambers shows that Lord Edward was neither the pawn of malevolent radicals nor the innocent victim of circumstances, and in the process, gives us much to contemplate in terms of our assumptions about this romanticised figure in Irish history.

Elizabeth Heggs’s essay on Whig politics and the third duke of Leinster and Tom Nelson’s contribution on Lord Frederick Fitzgerald’s involvement in local politics in County Kildare during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries shed valuable light on the family’s participation in public life in what were to be the twilight years of the dynasty.

Terence Dooley’s essay – the second last in the volume – details with great sensitivity and poignancy the succession of tragedies that befell the FitzGerald family from the early 1890s, including the death of the fifth duke from typhus aged just 42, followed by the death of his beautiful wife, Hermione, less than two years later, at the age of 31, the subsequent deaths of their two eldest sons, and the sequence of events which gave rise to the money-lender extraordinaire, Henry Mallaby-Deeley’s ownership of Carton from 1922 until his death in 1937.

Christopher Ridgway completes the volume with a lively reflection on the transformation of Carton house and demesne in more recent decades.

It is worth noting that many of the essays featured in this volume address issues of significance to the broader social and economic history of Ireland: Cormac Begadon’s contribution on the establishment of St Patrick’s College, and Ciarán Reilly’s and Patrick Cosgrove’s essays exploring aspects of land tenure and reform, are particularly strong in this regard.

This volume is enriched by the inclusion of a beautifully crafted foreword by the Honorable Desmond Guinness, a great friend to the Centre for the Study of Historical Irish Houses and Estates over many years. 

His piece in which he shares the very personal story of his connection with Carton in the late 1950s, recounting how in his early married life, two of his children, Patrick and Marina, were born there, his story about the butler’s excitement at the visit of Gerald FitzGerald and his wife to lunch, and his recollection of founding the Irish Georgian Society there in 1958 lends a note of nostalgia, of affection and at times, poignancy, to the collection.

Desmond Guinness’s recollection of family life in Carton reminds us that this was, first and foremost, the home to generations of FitzGerald children

To conclude. This book has needed to be written for a long time. As the title indicates, the project is appropriately ambitious in its brief, setting out to cover the best part of a millennium but making no claim to do so comprehensively. Rather, very sensibly, the editors thought it more appropriate to put together a volume in which the essays add to existing scholarship on the aristocracy in general in Ireland, and also provide the general reader with a narrative account of the FitzGerald’s long and illustrious history. They have done so in the hope that this collection will stimulate further research into the world of the aristocracy in Ireland: undoubtedly it will do so for years to come.

I therefore conclude by thanking the editors, and Noelle Moran and the staff at UCD Press for giving us such a fine publication which I am pleased to warmly recommend to you.

 ................

Some positive reviews of recent UCD Press titles:

Nation/Nazione in The Irish Catholic, January 2014

'This book will interest everyone concerned not only with the creation of modern Italy, but to the interactions over the course of the 19th Century of the emerging states of the European Community with interactions and interrelations that were both conflicting and fruitful.'

Terence O’Neill  in The Dublin Review of Books, 16 December 2013

'We are indebted to Marc Mulholland in this cogent and well-written reassessment for a glimpse of what “might have been”'

War of Words: Culture and the Mass Media in the Making of the Cold War in Europe
in Choice, February 2014

‘This collection belongs in any good collection of Cold War history. Summing up: Highly Recommended.’

Parnell Reconsidered in
The Dublin Review of Books, December 2013

'For Parnellites and who is not a Parnellite today? this is a highly recommended collection of essays by some of the leading historians of today's Ireland'

The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland in
The Irish Times, 23 November
2013


'The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland is practical in its structure but also poetic in its generosity. As such it has transformed the labyrinth of the knowledge of music in Ireland into a readable map spanning the territory. It has had a new go at the business and, in so doing, given us all cause to celebrate.'

The Queen of the Hearth in The
Irish Catholic, January 2014

'in an extensive introduction the editor, Dr Philip O’Leary, provides a valuable account in English of the author of the manuscript, Fr Patrick Dinneen, the distinguished lexicographer. This will be of interest to generations of students who came to know Pádraig Ó Duinnín through his Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla but never acquired any further information about him.'



Some very positive reviews of UCD Press titles in the Irish Economic and Social History Vol. XL 2013. 

Note the full reviews can be read at this link: 

Irish Economic and Social History Vol. XL 2013


A look at the importance of Festschrifts for Irish historians on p 86 includes Ireland's Polemical Past: Views of Irish History in Honour of R.V. Comerford and People, Politics and Power: Essays on Irish History 1660-1850 in Honour of James I. McGuire

On p 148 The Irish Lord Lieutenancy c.1541-1922 gets a very positive review.

‘Gray and Purdue’s accomplishment in bringing the very diverse and varied constitutional role of the Lord Lieutenant, in the long run, under historical analysis for the very first time. The broad scope of this book, on the political, social, and religious aspects of the Lord Lieutenancy will make this work an essential piece of reading for many different types of historians studying Ireland in the future.’

On p 191 Emmet O’Connor’s A Labour History of Ireland 1824-2000 also receives a very positive analysis:

‘A Labour History of Ireland, in short, is a stunning achievement. In both breadth of
research and depth of analysis, this volume is unrivalled in Irish labour history.
To deploy a cliché, this is essential reading for the specialist and the general
reader alike.’

And finally on p 196 O’Malley’s Military Aviation in Ireland, 1921-45 is praised for the originality of approach: 

‘The vast majority of aviation literature from the interwar period is filled with stories of daring heroic pilots and their epic flights, technological advances, the decline of military air power in the post-war period and its incredible growth on the pathway to the Second World War. Aircraft became critical battlefield tools that laid waste to military and civilian targets. As one reads through the pages of this book you will encounter none of these tales. Therein lies the importance of O’Malley’s work.

It is a well-researched book on a topic that seems to have limited documentary evidence. … He breaks new ground in aviation history by avoiding a triumphant story.’ 


................ 


Some more Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland media

Sunday with Gay Byrne (from 1 hour 30 minutes) 17 November 2013


RTE Radio Arena Interview Monday 14 October 2013


Barra Boydell on Talking History (from 26 minutess) Sunday 13 October 2013


..............

Here is a copy of President Michael D. Higgins's speech from the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland at The Freemasons’ Hall, Friday 4 October

Presidents remarks at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland

..............

Professors Harry White and Barra Boydell talk to RTE's Alan Corr about The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland

www.youtube.com/watch

................

Listen to Harry White discussing The Encyclopaedia of
Music in Ireland 

on Today with Sean O'Rourke,

Monday 7 Oct.

soundcloud.com/ucd-research

.................

President Michael D. Higgins

successfully launched The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland

at The Freemasons’ Hall, Friday 4 October

UCD PRESS

would like to thank everyone who attended.

Some pictures of the event below:



President Michael D. Higgins with editors Barra Boydell, ex Professor in the Department of Music at NUI Maynooth and Harry White, Professor of Music at UCD launched The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland at The Grand Lodge Room, Freemasons' Hall in Molesworth St, Dublin, 4 Oct.



Professor Gerard Gillen, Claire Bean Uí Mhadagain and Breandán Ó Madagáin at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland



Síle Denvir, Daithí Kearney and Gwen Moore at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland



Robert Yeo, Siobhan Kilkelly and Yo Tomita at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland.



Dr Tim Collins and Theresa McIntyre, both from NUI Galway at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland



Mairead Hurley, DIT, David Mooney, DIT and Una Hunt, DKIT at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland



Dr Adele Commins, Head of Music, DKIT, Dorothy Conaghan, UCD and Dr Triona O'Hanlon, DIT at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland



Roy Johnston, Institute of Physics in Ireland, editor Barra Boydell, ex Professor in the Department of Music at NUI Maynooth and Meabh Ní Fhuarthain, NUI Galway at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland



Martin Loftus, Margaret Daly-Denton,TCD and Anthony Harvey, RIA at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland



Dr Susan O'Regan, CIT Cork School, John Moulden and Dr Nuala McAllister, University of Ulster at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland



Felix Larkin, Dr Meabh Ní Fhuarthain, NUI Galway, Prof Fintan Vallely, UCD and Maeve Gebruers, ITMA at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland



Editor Harry White with his wife Xiao Mei at the launch of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland


....................



A first look at our advance copy of The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland

      


          
....................



UCD PRESS

would like to thank everyone who attended the launch of

PARNELL RECONSIDERED

by DONAL MCCARTNEY AND PAURIC TRAVERS

Woodenbridge Avoca Hotel
Thursday, 15 August 2013

Some pictures of the evening below:

Guest Speaker, Ombudsman to the press, John Horgan alongside Felix Larkin, chair of the Parnell Summer School
Guest Speaker: John J. Horgan, Press Ombudsman alongside author Felix Larkin



Guests at the launch of Parnell Reconsidered


General Editor Donal McCartney with guests at the launch



General Editor Pauric Travers with guest speaker John J. Horgan

......................

A very favourable review of Mike Gibney's Something to Chew On
from the Wall Street Journal
16 July, 2013:

Something to Chew On Wall Street Journal July 16 2013.pdf

......................

In February 2013 Mike Gibney delivered a talk on nutrition
discussing some of the main themes of his ground-breaking book Something to Chew On as part of the 'Authors at Google' series.
See the video link below:

Mike Gibney: Authors at Google
February 21st 2013

......................

Soon to be launched:
The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland (EMIR)


Launch date: September 2013


Download the announcement flyer


See the video link below of RTE Six One News 
announcement of EMIR
on 3 July, 2013

RTE SIX One News announcement of the EMIR publication on Wed 3rd July 2013


......................

The 2013-14 UCD Press Catalogue is now available for download.


This catalogue includes new and forthcoming titles that are not yet on the site. Feel free to browse and/or download from this link:

Download UCD Press Catalogue 2013-14

We are happy to send the latest catalogue to anyone interested in receiving a copy or copies by post. Please email me your full postal address and I will pop one in the post to you immediately.

UCD Press ucdpress@ucd.ie

......................


UCD PRESS

would like to thank everyone who attended the launch of

Something to Chew On
Challenging Controversies in Food and Health


by MIKE GIBNEY
Director of the Institute of Food and Health at University College Dublin 

Newman House, 86 St Stephen's Green, D2
Tuesday, 19 June 2012 

some pictures of the evening courtesy of Sinead Gibney: 

  
Professor Mike Gibney and Des Bishop who kindly launched the book



The book is available here www.ucdpress.ie/display.asp


   ----------------------------------------------  

Scholarcast

just launched by UCD Press

Scholarcast allows you to listen to and view interviews, talks and lectures by UCD Press authors. Just click on the 'scholarcast' button at the top of the homepage. Also you can simply click on the book or author you are interested in and hit 'play'.

click here to listen to the latest interviews and talks
by UCD Press authors

----------------------------------------------

UCD PRESS 

would like to thank everyone who attended the launch of

ROSAMOND JACOB
Third Person Singular

by LEEANN LANE 



Newman House, 86 St Stephen's Green, D2
Monday, 13 December 2010

some pictures of the evening courtesy of Derek Speirs:

     
Guests at the launch of Rosamond Jacob        Catriona Crowe, Dr William Murphy 
                                                      and author Leann Lane

  
Catriona Crowe and author Leeann Lane


Dr Mary McAuliffe, Dr Moynagh Sullivan
& guests, 13 Dec. 2010, Newman House


Professor Tom Dunne with Leeann Lane


Here is a copy of Catriona Crowe's speech from the launch:

I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-
Almost, at times, the Fool.

The Love-song of J Alfred Prufrock, TS Eliot’s first great poem, contains these lines, where the narrator proclaims his place in the world as ancillary, mildly useful, slightly pompous, slightly stupid, virtuous, timid; in all, an ordinary life with no pretensions to greatness, but saved in some measure by the narrator’s self-conscious and accurate version of himself.

Leeann Lane's superb biography of Rosamond Jacob presents us with a female life more ordinary than those we have encountered to date for the crucial years leading up to and away from the foundation of the Irish state. As of now, it is fairly inconceivable that a male life of this kind would be considered worthy of extensive biographical study. I suggest that this is an area where women's history is ahead of the game.

Rosamond Jacob was born into a Quaker family in Waterford in 1888, moved to Dublin in 1919, and died there, killed while crossing the road, in 1960. She didn't marry, had no children, was not gay. She had an unsatisfactory affair in her forties which meant a great deal to her. She never owned a house, living in rented accommodation all her life. She was involved in various ways in the cultural revival and the nationalist and feminist movements from early adulthood on, never in prominent positions.Her friends included Mrs.Pearse and Hannah Sheehy Skeffington, two of the most iconic women of the revolutionary period; she shared lodgings with Dorothy Macardle and Lucy Kingston, two interesting activists in the spheres of feminism and nationalism. She wrote three novels, two of which were published, a children’s book, a history of the United Irishmen, and a fictional biography of Matilda Tone, wife of Theobald.

So much for the bald facts. However, what makes Jacob extraordinary is the fact that she kept an almost daily diary from 1897, when she was 9 years old, to 1960, when she died. It comprises 170 "ordinary" volumes, and a final secret volume in which she is more frank about life events such as her affair with Frank Ryan. She also, usefully, sums up each year at the end of its entries. The diary has been used by a great many historians to illuminate various aspects of feminism and nationalism in the nascent independent Ireland, and as a crucial source for biographers of those she knew, like Sheehy Skeffington, Ryan and Macardle.

Now, for the first time, this extraordinary document is used to illuminate the personality who created it, tracking her life from late Victorian Waterford to the era of Sean Lemass. Leeann quotes Robert Fothergill on how diaries turn the substance of history inside out:
“ In the foreground is the individual consciousness, absolutely resisting the insistence of future historians that that it should experience itself as peripheral.” In the case of Jacob as described and analysed in this biography, the personal voice of the diarist matters as much as the major events she is describing, and her interior life becomes the main event.

And what a voice it is. Rosamond Jacob is a mixture of scorn and uncertainty, radical opinions and unsatisfied longings, excluded outsider and acute observer, pacifist and supporter of violent revolution, her own worst enemy and a good friend to others. She comes at us from all kinds of angles, some of them very uncomfortable. Because we are privileged to know her innermost thoughts, we understand how isolated and lonely she sometimes felt, as well as sharing in her moments of triumph or satisfaction. We can observe her trajectory from a sheltered Quaker childhood to the loss of her faith, her deeply instinctive feminism, and her admiration for and commitment to the nationalist cause, as well as her misgivings about some of its methods. Leeann uses her fiction as well as her diary to demonstrate her intellectual, political and emotional development, giving us a wonderfully rounded picture of a woman who lived through and participated in momentous events, but who never felt herself to be at the centre of any of them.

Like all good biographies, this one contextualises its subject, giving us the background to Quaker Waterford, Irish Parliamentary Party Waterford, and the development of the Gaelic League, Sinn Fein and suffrage groups in the city. Jacob was involved in the last three, but never assumed a leadership role, preferring to restrict herself to fairly menial tasks like leafleting and organising meetings. Her keen eye, however, took in everything; she remarks on the violent tendencies of the Irish Party supporters in Waterford, the stronghold of John Redmond, and the petty squabbles which regularly erupted in the various groups to which she belonged. Her family circumstances were comfortable but constraining; well into her twenties, she obeyed her mother’s rules with regard to where she went. Also, she did not get on well with her sister-in-law, Dorothea, married to her brother Tom, to whom she was close. Her family regarded her with a mixture of alarm and exasperation, fearing that her outspoken radical opinions would prevent her getting married.

She was Anglophobic from an early age, remarking on the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, which occurred on the same night as the demise of the household cat, Pansy, that
“we would all much rather go into mourning for her than for that hideous old woman.”
(She was a cat lover, and in one of her novels she names the two featured cats Silken Thomas and Mick, after Michael Collins.)

In 1909, she commented on a Quaker meeting in Waterford which included a lecture on notable English Quakers: “ Edith Bell said how noble they were and what a pity there were no Irish Friends fit to be classed with these English worthies, whereupon I was constrained to mention that these English worthies were mostly American, and one of them French; and on that everyone – even the Newtown boys – tittered as if I had said something absurd. I wish I could go somewhere where I wasn’t known and believed beforehand to be mad, so that my remarks might for a time at least be taken on their own merits and not discounted at once as the necessarily absurd talk of a lunatic.”

Here we see her dissatisfaction with the way both her views and her personality are perceived in public gatherings, and her outspokenness counterbalanced with extreme self-consciousness. She had an instinctive feminism quite at odds with prevailing views in Waterford, and was not shy of expressing it, despite the kind of reception she got, not least from her family. In many ways she was way ahead of her time in her dismay at the lack of female involvement in the Gaelic League and her objections to lack of female representation at the upper echelons of Sinn Fein.

She also disliked Catholicism, something which created problems for her later as the new independent state solidified into a largely Catholic polity. In 1921, the diary records her distaste at “the religious orgies that go on outside Mountjoy during executions”. Much of her distaste was aesthetic; she found the bathetic aspects of martyrdom, mourning and commemoration too much for her. But in fairness, she had renounced her Quaker faith early on, and thus placed herself in the small category of people without a religious faith in a highly-charged atmosphere of religiosity among the revolutionary organisations. When two of her nephews made mixed marriages in the 1940s, she was not pleased. She regarded the Ne Temere decree with horror, and considered the Catholic church to be anti-progressive and anti-woman.

Her perception of the 1916 Rising was initially at second-hand, but she visited Dublin shortly after it ended and vividly describes the smoking ruins of O’Connell St. Her move to Dublin allowed her to involve herself more closely in the 1918 election and in Cumann na mBan, again in lesser roles, but she enjoyed the camaraderie of working with others for a cause, and while sceptical of what she saw as the predominant enjoyment of violent conflict, was not immune from such excitement herself. She describes hearing from Maighread Trench about Cumann na mBan members praying outside Mountjoy on the morning of Kevin Barry’s execution, and “by her way of telling it and by her expression, it was clear to me that she at least had got some enjoyment out of it. Min Ryan came in and told me all about McSwiney’s funeral in Cork, and it was plainer still that she had enjoyed that. Hanna and I agreed that such things are a kind of emotional orgy. I know I am capable of such enjoyment myself and it is revolting to think of.” Such candour on these subjects is highly unusual, then and now.

Her commitment to feminism never wavered, and she remained involved in key feminist organisations all her life. The diary records her constant sense of affront at inequality, and she judged politicians on their commitment to female emancipation. She describes a meeting with Arthur Griffith in 1922, when a deputation from various women’s organisations attempted to get him to extend the franchise to women over 21 before the Treaty election: “Griffith started by saying the Dail had no power to alter the franchise, and it would take 8 months to make a new register, and after a good deal of discussion ended by defying us to do our worst, and saying we, or nearly all of us, were really not out for votes but out to wreck the Treaty. He looked worried and was quite cross. He started every sentence with “To be perfectly frank” – which always heralds something nasty.” Jacob was on to spinspeak long before “going forward” or “we are where we are”.

In the case of De Valera, she had something of a crush on him in the twenties, describing him as “delicious” in 1926, probably the only time that adjective was applied to him, and believing that he might support female emancipation in power, but by 1937 he had become “a man who badly needs to be taught a lesson, if only there were enough women with the guts to do it.” She admired people like Peadar O’Donnell and George Gilmore because of their proclaimed commitment to women’s rights, but found the maternalistic and child-centred concerns of the Irish Housewives’ Association and the Irish Women’s Citizens and Local Government Association difficult to relate to as a childless single woman, although she fully endorsed their more general feminist demands.

Her affair with Frank Ryan, poster boy of left-wing republicanism in the late twenties and early thirties, was an extremely important event in her life. She was ahead of her time in her sexual frankness, her complete lack of guilt at a non-marital sexual relationship, and her unconcealed admiration for good-looking men, whom she frequently describes in the diary. Ryan turned out to be a bit of a sleeveen, willing enough to show up at her flat at midnight for sex, but sloping off afterwards full of Catholic guilt. He also regularly ignored her at social gatherings, a humiliating experience which she was prepared to endure for the pleasure of his intermittent visits. Her descriptions of his morose silences in the mornings make you want to slap him. Incidentally, we learn that he didn’t like sardines or cheese, but loved cake. The time she spent with him may have prevented her from forming a more secure permanent relationship; we’ll never know. Like everyone, she wanted to be loved, and she drew a short straw due to her attraction to Ryan, and his inability to commit to her in any meaningful way. At least he didn’t marry anyone else.

During the affair, she sought help through psychoanalysis, albeit by correspondence with a therapist in London, who unfortunately died just as things were starting to work. She realised that the loss of her father when she was 19 had affected her gravely, as he was a bulwark of support to her, and she had, perhaps, been frozen in a kind of adolescence since that event. Again, we have a woman ahead of her time, reading Freud, trying to find out why she is attracted to a man who can do her no permanent good, and willing to accept fairly serious judgments on her personality and development.

The book takes us through the ferment of cultural, revolutionary and feminist activity occurring in Ireland in the two decades leading up to independence, and then through the tangled webs of intertwined left-wing and women’s organisations in the twenties and thirties, when the state was solidifying under the two main civil war parties, and there was not much room for anyone else. Jacob expanded her political and feminist interests during this period, joining the Friends of Soviet Russia, and representing the Irish branch on a trip to the Soviet Union in 1931, where she was impressed by the Soviet commitment to equal rights for women. She became involved in the International Alliance of Women, which gave her a chance to be active in the international peace movement and express her natural pacifism.

She was not a successful novelist; Callaghan, her first novel, published in 1920, received quite favourable reviews, but was a commercial failure. The Troubled House, her second, while finished in the 1920s, was not published until 1938. Third Person Singular, the novel which provides the subtitle of this biography, has not been published. It is to be hoped that it will be in the near future. I have not read the novels, but Leeann quotes effectively and liberally from them, and some of the writing, and the way in which Jacob uses her characters to express complex emotional and political feelings, is really striking. Here is Maggie Cullen, wife and mother of three sons, in The Troubled House, which is set in the period 1916-21: “It came to my mind what a queer thing it was that my life should spend itself thus, almost entirely in love and care and fear and thought and anxiety over three men and a boy. Was I nothing but a being relative to them, without real existence of my own? Each one of them led his own life, had his centre in his own soul, as a human creature should, but I had no purpose or driving force in myself, nothing that was independent of them. It seemed absurd, futile, unworthy.” The Feminine Mystique couldn’t have put it better.

Her final years were dogged by increasing ill-health – rheumatism, anaemia, shingles, neuralgia, sciatica – the whole dreary catalogue of what lies in store for us all. She seems to have borne these ailments uncomplainingly. She became involved in the anti-nuclear movement, attending meetings to protest against the hydrogen bomb, and joining a new anti-nuclear organisation established the year before she died. (Two women on Charleville Rd. to whom she distributed anti-nuclear leaflets told her “they wouldn’t live long and didn’t care what happened to the world”.) She remained involved in the Irish Housewives’ Association, which was enduring accusations of communism in the 1950s, and the Women’s Social and Political League, in decline at this stage. A passionate advocate of animal welfare, she was secretary of the Anti-Vivisection League in the ‘50s. She spent a lot of her time visiting the old and the sick, and in particular in looking after the welfare of widows and mothers of republicans who had fallen on hard times, like Liam Mellows’ mother, who drank a lot, and was, in Jacob’s inimitable phrase “as incontinent as blazes.”

Rosamond Jacob adopted a number of causes early in her life, at a time when there were plenty of causes available. She remained a feminist, a nationalist, an Irish language revivalist, an animal rights activist, a civil and humanitarian rights proponent, and an opponent of censorship, sectarianism and militarism all her life. She was in many ways a model citizen, taking her responsibilities to participate in and change her society very seriously. She tried very hard to understand herself and to figure out what her unconscious motivations and deepest feelings were. She engaged in an honest (on her side) sexual relationship in early middle age which could have caused her social ruin. The sadnesses in her life, the lack of a close partner or friend being the main one, she bore stoically, knowing she was not the only woman in this situation in twentieth century Ireland.

Her great gift to us, the diary in which she confided regularly over a period of 63 years, has now been used to its fullest capacity by Leeann Lane to give us an interior study, beautifully contextualised, of an interesting and brave woman who was well aware of her imperfections, but who never wavered in her conviction that the world could change, that women could be equal to men, and that she could vividly describe these changes and the messy processes involved in their achievement. She would love the idea that we are celebrating her life tonight in Newman House, finally centre-stage.

Catriona Crowe
December 2010

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Suburban Affiliations: Social Relations in the Greater Dublin Area

by

Mary P. Corcoran, Jane Gray & Michel Peillon 




was launched by

UCD PRESS

at the Royal Irish Academy
19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2

on 28 September 2010

Thank you to the guest speaker 
Mr David McWilliams and to all who 
attended to make the night a success.

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The European Culture Wars in Ireland
The Callan Schools Affair, 1868–81

by 
Colin Barr 

was successfully launched in
the Workhouse, Callan, Co Kilkenny on Wed., 25th August
and
Newman House on Thurs., 26th August 2010

thank you to all who attended on each occasion




* * * 

A nice mention in the Irish Times, Thurs., 26th August

here
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MILITARY AVIATION IN IRELAND
1921–45 
by
Michael C. O’Malley



was successfully launched
at the Royal Irish Academy
Dublin 2


on Tuesday 27 July 2010 

Some pictures of the evening below:

   
The author signing copies of his book.       Professor Leslie Daly launches the book.

  
Guest Speaker Mr Alan Dukes and the author, Michael O'Malley

   

   
Guests at the launch of Military Aviation in Ireland at the Royal Irish Academy
27 July 2010

* * *

thank you to all who attended on the night!

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UCD PRESS 

had a very successful launch of 

Shakespeare and the Irish Writer



in Newman House 

86 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2

on Tuesday 4 May 2010

Some pictures of the evening below:

    
Alan Stanford, Dr Stephen O'Neill and Professor Leslie Daly at the launch of Shakespeare and the Irish Writer at Newman House


  

Dr Moynagh Sullivan, Professor Stephen Mennell and many guests at Newman House 4 May 2010


  

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UCD PRESS

successfully launched


Outside the Glow

Protestants and Irishness in Independent Ireland 




by

Heather Crawford

in Newman House
86 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2



on Monday 8 March 2010

Thank you to everyone who attended.

Here is a link to Professor R. V. Comerford and author
Heather Crawford speaking at the book launch,
available on the IQDA webpage:

http://www.iqda.ie/content/outside-glow-protestants-and-irishness-independent-ireland 

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Latest review of The Year That Never Was
in Contemporary British History
Jan 2010

‘This book does rather more than the title suggests. Although it becomes more detailed as its chronological analysis of the period proceeds, it actually provides a study of Anglo-American relations throughout the Conservative government of 1970–1974, led by Edward Heath. … To anyone interested in the Heath government, twentieth century British foreign policy or Anglo-American relations, this book should be an essential reading, a significant contribution to the debate surrounding British policy towards the United States at a key turning point in post-war history. Aside from the masterly grasp of detail, its intelligent analysis of events and personalities and its balanced judgements on how they interconnected, it is – especially for a book that has grown out of a doctoral dissertation – remarkably lucid in style. The author even makes ‘what one clerk said to another’ sound interesting. The publishers, too, deserve praise for producing the book so handsomely.’

John W. Young
University of Nottingham



click on image above for more details

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Some great book ideas for 2010 from UCD Press.

The Irish Sweep: A History of the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake, 1930-87 by Marie Coleman

Using original archive material The Irish Sweep constructs the first detailed and comprehensive history of an iconic institution.

'Hugely impressive ... always engaging, often fascinating, original, fluidly written and very well researched.' Diarmaid Ferriter 



Gaelic Games, Nationalism and the Irish Diaspora in the United States by Paul Darby


Uncovers the origins and development of Gaelic sport and explores the political, economic and social impact that the GAA has had on Irish communities in America. 



Parnell to Pearse: Some Recollections and Reflections
by John J. Horgan


A little-known classic is based on John J. Horgan's involvement as an activist and observer in the turbulent period that witnessed the extinction of the Irish Party. With an introduction by his grandson, Professor John Horgan. 



10% discount on all orders direct from the website or from the Campus Bookshop. Order from the website or email/call our office.

E: ucdpress@ucd.ie
Ph: 00 353 4779813/12

We are happy to post overseas.

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The Irish Sweep A History of the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake, 1930-87

by Marie Coleman

was launched by UCD Press
on
Wed, 2nd December 2009

at
Newman House, 86 St Stephen's Green D2


Professor Diarmaid Ferriter launched the book and gave
a very warm and informative speech

Thank you to all who attended on the night!

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UCD Press Reception with President Dr Hugh Brady
President’s Committee Room. Monday, 28th Sept. 2009

“Quietly and without fuss in a few years and with the very minimum of staff, UCD has got itself a press to be proud of.”
Books Ireland
 

A reception was held with President Dr Hugh Brady, staff of UCD Press and members of the Management and Editorial Committees of the Press in the President's Committee Room on Monday 28 September 2009.

President Brady expressed his admiration and support of UCD Press and a number of new titles were presented to him at the reception to show our appreciation of his and the University's continued support of the Press.

some pictures of the evening:

    

            

         
UCD Press has now been in existence for 14 years under the management of the Executive Editor, Barbara Mennell, and has a list of 174 titles. UCD Press published 21 titles in this academic year in a wide range of areas from Sociology to History to Literary Studies.

UCD Press publishes a diversity of academic titles reflective of excellence in contemporary scholarship, both national and international. The Press always had an interest in publishing textbooks for the Irish university market. We have done particularly well with social policy and sociology. Our bestseller of all time is Aidan Moran’s little book on Managing Your Own Learning in University (selling over 12,000 copies) and we also have a successful book on How to Write.

Some of our most successful titles have been written by former UCD staff and students, such as Ireland’s Great Famine by Cormac Ó Gráda and a book about Edward Heath, Nixon and Kissinger, The Year That Never Was by Catherine Hynes.

The Irish Sweep: A History of the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake, 1930-87 by Marie Coleman and Gaelic Games, Nationalism and the Irish Diaspora in the United States by Paul Darby will be released just in time for Christmas.

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Summer/Autumn '09 Launch Events

Parnell to Pearse
Some Recollections and Reflections
by John J. Horgan

was successfully launched in the Boardroom, Port of Cork Company, Custom House Street, Cork

Monday, 14th September 2009, at 7.30pm


GUEST SPEAKER: Professor Joe Lee, Ireland House, New York University


 

 
"this little-known account of the demise of the Irish Parliamentary Party first appeared in 1949 … [The author] himself was a party activist and the book’s strength as a study of this crucial transitional period in Irish history is that Horgan writes as an insider who was not just an observer but a participant in some of the events he describes … The biological introduction by his grandson sheds light on an intelligent and principled man who in many ways was a maverick in the independent state and ahead of his times on many key issues."

Books Ireland
September 2009

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Thank you to all who attended the launch of

Words of the Dead Chief: Being Extracts from the Public Speeches and Other Pronouncements of Charles Stewart Parnell from the Beginning to the Close of His Memorable Life
 

at Avondale House, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow on 10 August 2009. Martin Mansergh, TD, Minister of State at the Departments of Finance made a lovely speech.



Original title republished after 117 years out of print

Words of the Dead Chief was originally complied by Jennie Wyse-Power (1858–1941) was a political activist in the Land League campaign and later in Cumann na mBan of which she was first President.

Editors: Donal McCartney is Professor Emeritus of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin and President of the Parnell Society. Pauric Travers is President of St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. 

"This edition is useful for a number of reasons, not least in giving us an insight into Parnell through his own words but also for throwing light on contemporary views on the split as it contains both Wyse-Power’s original preface and the introduction by Parnell’s sister, Anna. Anyone interested in Parnell and the development of the nationalist movement would do well to read the man in his own words … when so much of what we know of the man is based on the opinion of others."

Books Ireland
September 2009

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The launch of

The Big House in the North of Ireland
Land, Power and Social Elites 1878--1960
by Olwen Purdue

took place on 18 June, 2009 
at 
The Bookshop at Queen's University, Belfast


some pictures of the evening below

   

The Big House in the North of Ireland launched by
Peter Gray, Professor of Modern Irish History
at Queen’s, Belfast

   

The author Olwen Purdue thanking everyone involved in the book.



Friends, family and colleagues from Queen's
University at the Big House in the North of Ireland launch



click on cover above for further details on this title

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The successful launch of

The Year That Never Was
Heath, the Nixon Administration and the Year of Europe 
was held on 3 June 2009
at
Newman House

A big thank you to all who came along on the night.

Some pictures of the evening below:

    
                 Crowds at Newman House            Professor Aldous, Professor Mennell &  
                                                                                          author Catherine Hynes                              
                                                                                  


    
               Professor Mennell &         Professor Richard Aldous 
author Catherine Hynes               Guest Speaker



Newman House, 3 June 2009


 
Drawing on recently declassified documents from both the British and American National Archives, Hynes examines how the Year of Europe became a pivotal year in British foreign policy – for all the wrong reasons. Set against the turbulent world climate of the early 1970s, it provides a vivid insight into the bizarre diplomatic modus operandi of the Nixon–Kissinger White House. It also offers a fresh interpretation of the difficulties faced by British Prime Minister Edward Heath as he sought to rebuff Kissinger’s overtures and reorientate Britain’s foreign policy towards Europe. 



CATHERINE HYNES is a graduate of University College Dublin. Her research interests include twentieth-century British history and the history of international relations, particularly Anglo-American relations.

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UCD PRESS HAS A NEW CATALOGUE FOR 2009/10


Feel free to browse or download it here
If you would like a copy of our catalogue just email your address to ucdpress@ucd.ie and we will drop one in the post today. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
Some favourable comments on UCD Press titles:

The Collected Works of Norbert Elias

"The enterprise of publishing the collected works of Norbert Elias under the editorship of Richard Kilminster and Stephen Mennell by University College Dublin Press is an extremely important contribution to the contemporary intellectual and academic scene. Norbert Elias was one of the most original minds in the human and social sciences in the 20th century – his work covers not only a very broad range of sociological topics starting with his classical The Civilising Process and later The Court Society, but also many topics ranging from sociology of knowledge to sociology of sport and analysis of historical processes; the broad philosophical problems, such as the idea of the place of the progress of symbolic dimensions in social life. This is really a monumental enterprise, very worthwhile and very constructive, presenting a great challenge to the contemporary intellectual and academic scene – and UCD Press should be congratulated in undertaking this enterprise."
– S. N. Eisenstadt 
Jerusalem, 24 July 2008 

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Launch of

The Historical Association of Ireland Life and Times New Series


on Thursday 15 January 2009 at Trinity College was a great success.

Thank you to everyone who attended the launch. Thanks also to the General Editor Ciaran Brady, to our authors and our guest speaker Gerry Adams.

Some pictures of the night below:

                 
     Author James Quinn                  Author Peter Costello                       Peter Costello reads from 
                                                              and General Editor                             his book Denis Guiney 
                    Ciaran Brady                              
        
     Crowds at the Life & Times New Series Launch                Guest Speaker
                                                                                                          Gerry Adams

          
A great turn out for the Life & Times New Series Launch 
Trinity College, 15 January 2009


NEW TITLES INCLUDE:
Denis Guiney by Peter Costello & John Mitchel by James Quinn

This series was conceived over a decade ago to place the lives of leading figures in Irish history against the background of new research on the problems and conditions of their times and modern assessments of their historical significance. A new series in association with UCD Press offers a wider range of titles with a new format and fuller scholarly apparatus. Titles in the old series, along with new titles, will also be published by UCD Press in the future.

Forthcoming titles 2009/10:

Charles Stewart Parnell by Alan O’Day
Michael Davitt by Carla King
Isaac Butt by Alan O’Day
Sir Edward Carson by Alvin Jackson
James Connolly by J. L. Hyland

Keep an eye on our website for further titles in this series

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The Sea of Disappointment: Thomas Kinsella’s Pursuit of the Real


Andrew Fitzsimons 

       

Kinsella Launch

The distinguished Irish poet and UCD alumnus, Thomas Kinsella, celebrated his 80th birthday in May 2008. To mark the occasion, UCD Press has just published Andrew Fitzsimons’s study of Kinsella’s complete oeuvre, The Sea of Disappointment: Thomas Kinsella's Pursuit of the Real. The book was launched by Gerald Dawe in Newman House on 20 May 2008. We had a very successful launch with Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney and numerous UCD academics present including Professor Leslie Daly, Professor Stephen Mennell and Mr Brian Donnelly.

See some pictures of the night below: 
                    
                 
  Thomas Kinsella & Seamus            The author Andrew           The distinguished Irish poet and
Heaney at the launch at            Fitzsimons signing a copy     UCD alumnus Thomas
Newman House 20 May 08.          of Sea of Disappointment.     Kinsella talks to guests.
 
                                    
                  Winner of a Nobel Prize in Literature            Thomas Kinsella expressed great
                  Seamus Heaney mixes with other                   thanks to the author Andrew
                   guests at the launch 20 May 08.                    Fitzsimons for producing a book
                                                                                               of real merit.


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2008-9 UCD Press Reviews:


The Collected Works of Norbert Elias
 
"Too easily the editors and readers of Books Ireland take it as given that Irish publishers’ books are mostly about Ireland or by Irish writers. We wish it were not so because we think our publishers are of world class, and a shining exception and exemplar is this series of eighteen volumes of the life’s work in English – some of his work was written in German – of Elias (1897–1990) whose major theme was the theory of civilising processes … Norbert is very interesting on the subject as well as on the dynamics of sports, social (and especially male) bonding, violence and football hooliganism. These books are in the very best tradition of design, with acid-free paper, sewn bindings, cloth boards, coloured endpapers, spine labels and acetate jackets."

Books Ireland
Nov 08
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The National University of Ireland 1908–2008
Centenary Essays

  
  
9781904558842

“Few enterprises in the history of the 20th-century Ireland had such fair winds at their backs as the establishment of the National University of Ireland by the 1908 Irish Universities Act. A handsome centenary volume puts into context and recounts the history of the NUI. Dr Garret FitzGerald, its current chancellor, says it is ‘closely linked with and to an extent mirrors the evolution of the State in the 20th century’ … The range of subjects in this lavishly-illustrated book offers an overview of the NUI’s functions and responsibilities … For over a century, the NUI put before its colleges the primary goals of its founding mission, the importance of undergraduate teaching, the promotion of scholarship and research and the role of a national university in identity formation … Implicit in some of the essays and the profiles of four of its chancellors – Daire Keogh on archbishop William Walsh, the first chancellor; John Walsh on Eamon de Valera, the longest serving; Ronan Fanning on T. K. Whitaker, an experienced negotiator and Maurice Manning on Garret FitzGerald, passionate believer in the NUI ideal – is the conviction that the NUI has been a keystone in the formation of a national identity … For more than 100 years, men and women of great intellect and wisdom have applied themselves to the enterprise of establishing a university system that shaped and reflected back to Irish society its academic values. Will the NUI survive? This is a book that broadens our understanding of the connections between culture, economics and identity as we face the challenges of a new century.”

Margaret MacCurtain
Irish Times
30 October 2008 
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A Provisional Dictator
Marta Ramon

  

9781904558651
9781904558644 

"[The book] is balanced and thoughtful throughout, with evidence weighed judiciously and verdicts delivered carefully. Moreover, it is a masterpiece of clarity, particularly where the tangled web of American relationships is concerned. The author has scoured the archives and memoirs, and made good use of the fast-growing body of theses on Fenianism, but the details and analysis have been moulded into a seamless whole, often with real elegance. There are many nicely turned sentences and well-executed set pieces, and the story is kept moving forward at a good pace. Anyone with an interest in Irish history would enjoy reading it, and students in school or university will likely treasure it. UCD Press must also be congratulated for giving it the handsome treatment it deserves, from cover to paper and typeface.

James Stephens does emerge from this account as deserving of our interest and empathy. … Does he really deserve to be ‘almost universally disliked’? It is to Marta Ramon’s credit that one finishes her book thinking that this is a life worthy of further (including fictional) exploration."

Peter Hart – Canada Research Chair in Irish Studies
Memorial University of Newfoundland
History Ireland Nov/Dec 2008


"the book is beautifully presented by UCD Press, which has produced a pristine text, furnishing further evidence that it is Ireland’s finest academic publisher, producing books that adhere to the highest international standards."

Matthew Kelly, School of Humanities, University of Southampton
Irish Historical Studies Vol. XXXVI, No. 141
May 2008 
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A Passion for Joyce

ed Edward M. Burns

ISBN 978-1-904558-96-5 

   

"The letters between Glasheen and Kenner are animated by the persistent effort to understand Joyce’s language and references and the shared wish to advance an understanding of Joyce’s works. Above all … the letters are evidence of the ‘unmitigated excitement, fun, and wonder they experienced as they glimpsed at the greatness and order of Joyce’s achievement.'"

"Glasheen’s extended correspondence with Kenner between 1953 and 1984, supremely edited and copiously annotated by Edward M. Burns and handsomely produced by University College Dublin Press, gives an atmospheric insight into the pioneering exploration of the Wake."


Books Ireland
October 2008