D. A. Binchy stated that ‘the idea of a town, with a corporate personality distinct from that of the ruler, was quite foreign to the Gaelic mind until the Scandinavians set up their “cities” in Dublin, Limerick, Waterford and elsewhere’. Numerous scholars have disagreed with Binchy’s assessment and have claimed instead that Irish monasteries were evolving, whether before Viking settlement in Ireland or somehow as a response to that presence, into what have been variously called ‘protourban’ sites, ‘pre-urban nuclei’, ‘centres of … industrial activity and local trade’, or simply ‘monastic towns’. The term ‘monastic town’ has been in use for many years, and is now part of the standard vocabulary in discussions of early medieval Ireland. From scholarly works to popular publications for tourist consumption, the Irish monastic town has been a known and accepted entity. Armagh, Downpatrick, Kildare and Clonmacnoise are the most commonly cited examples, and Charles Doherty has argued that these monasteries were beginning to function as urban centres by the ninth century. Many scholars would agree that by the tenth and eleventh centuries, possibly in response to Scandinavian urban settlement in Ireland, certain Irish monasteries were urban centres themselves. Brian Graham has raised a number of objections to the concept of the monastic town in Ireland, but his work has remained unacknowledged; others have recently called for a critical reassessment of the theory, but none has as yet been forthcoming.

Thomas Bartlett, in his Ph.D. thesis of 1979 and subsequent articles, highlighted deficiencies in the accepted interpretation of the administration of Lord Townshend. Bartlett challenged the widely held view that the constant residency of the Irish lord lieutenant was imposed by order of the British government. He argued that the decision was taken by Townshend himself and that it was unconnected with the meeting of George Grenville’s cabinet in February 1765, when it was determined that constant residency should be imposed at the earliest possible opportunity. Moreover, Bartlett rejected the existence of a linear approach to policy-making by the British government. He contended that constant residency was the result of opportunism and not evolution of policy.

The significance of the alteration to the lord lieutenant’s period of residence lay in the challenge it posed to the undertaker system. Constant residency promised centralisation of British authority and the erosion of the power wielded by the Irish magnates. The undertaker system was sustained by the effective distribution of patronage to a select few members of the higher echelons of the Irish gentry — men who transformed this patronage along with their own status and power at borough level into control over blocs of M.P.s in the Irish House of Commons. These blocs were transferred to the support of the lord lieutenant in order to facilitate the passing of government legislation. J. L. McCracken argued that this system emerged as the most suitable method of controlling parliament after the Wood’s Halfpence crisis of the early 1720s. However, subsequent research by David Hayton refuted this claim, arguing that a recognisable form of the undertaker system existed in Ireland before this episode.

For two weeks in late July and early August 1882 newspapers in Ireland and London carried accounts of discontent among members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (R.I.C.), which policed the whole of Ireland except Dublin. The Irish land war of 1879–82 was ending, and the R.I.C. had burnished their reputation for stolid loyalty among British officialdom and the Irish public at large. Problems among Ireland’s police may have been disquieting, particularly at Dublin Castle and in landowner circles, but in the news accounts and other papers that survive there were few expressions of surprise that, at the end of three years of often intense duty during the land war, the men of the R.I.C. were tired, restive and eager to draw attention to their concerns. By mid-1882 the morale and financial resources of individual members of the R.I.C. were drained. The problem of unreimbursed expenses incurred on land war duty, a special problem for married men with families, impinged on policemen’s living standards. Fatigue, frustration and, in individual cases, actual hardship compelled members of the R.I.C. at stations throughout the country to adopt the unusual expedient of public agitation. The excitement among the Irish police during the summer of 1882 resulted in remedial legislation and changes in working conditions that proved to be a defining point in the development of the R.I.C. as a career for young men in Ireland, rather than a stopover on the way to emigration.

Historical study of the Irish Civil War of 1922–3 has hitherto concentrated overwhelmingly on internal matters — the actual internecine struggle on the ground for ideological and political control. While the value of this approach is obvious, it has inevitably failed to focus on the continuing role of the British armed services; furthermore, an exclusive concern with land-army affairs, whether Irish or British, must result in a distorted picture. It is thus particularly unfortunate that the activities of the Royal Navy during the revolutionary period have been largely neglected. Here it is hoped to demonstrate that the Royal Navy, beyond its expected role of gun-running prevention, did have an influence on the early course of the Civil War, an influence that was, in part, determined by the wider protection of imperial interests once British troops had withdrawn from the localities in May 1922.

The fragmentation of southern Irish politics and society, in the wake of the treaty settlement of December 1921, came as a genuine surprise to the Admiralty. At the time, it had taken the promise of peace at face value, making it known that, pending negotiations on certain properties and signal stations, it had little future interest in Ireland provided the three southern ‘treaty ports’ (Cóbh/Queenstown, Berehaven and Lough Swilly) were safeguarded and visiting rights upheld. In such circumstances, there was seen to be no need for the standard Irish Patrol of three destroyers, naval forces being ‘ultimately’ reduced to just two fishery protection vessels. Nor, as future area command was to pass to C.-in-C. Plymouth, was there technical need or political advisability in the retention of the two flag officer commands at Buncrana (C.-in-C. Western Approaches) and Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire).

National symbols have long been the subject of political controversy in Ireland and remain so today. Although arguments about symbols are now more common in Northern Ireland than in the Irish Republic, the early years of the Irish Free State saw vigorous discussions about the appropriateness of the new state’s symbols. One such debate broke out in 1929, following a dispute between the Free State government and Trinity College, Dublin, over which anthem should be played for the Governor-General. At the time this dispute was described by one political commentator as ‘one of those political storms in a tea-cup in which we delight’, and now, from a distance of almost seventy years, it is perhaps even harder to understand how such passions were roused over a seemingly minor incident. Even teacup storms can provide valuable insights, however, if historians can learn to read the tea-leaves.

One way of studying national anthems is to analyse their texts and compare them with those of other nations in order to obtain ‘an unique view into the polity, its self-conception or self-image, and ultimately, its deepest political aspirations, experiences, goals, and values’. Such an approach, however, takes an ahistorical and essentialist view of the nation or state and loses sight of political divisions within the nation. National anthems must be seen in their historical context: the circumstances of their creation and adoption must be examined, as must the ways in which the meanings attached to them change over time. They often emerge out of political conflict and can become the focus of conflict once again as new political forces come to the fore. Despite the claims of governments and nationalist ideologues, the selection of a national anthem is not a simple expression of ‘national will’.

Late in 1868 the Dublin doctor, author and nationalist George Sigerson (c. 1836–1925) published, under the title Modern Ireland, a collection of widely quoted articles he had written for the Daily Chronicle during the previous year. Among the bewildering flood of Irish commentary on British rule, his was notable for its clear exposition and its moderate tone. From the perspective of the Liberal Party, on the verge of being returned to office, Sigerson’s observations were valuable in representing the views of a moderate, middle-class Irish element which might co-operate in implementing a liberal policy acceptable to all parties in both England and Ireland. His credentials as a nationalist were impeccable, yet he had not been seduced by the Fenian inclination towards violence. The book prompted modest praise from critics and enjoyed a reasonable success in the book trade, going through several printings and two editions.

One man who read the first edition was John Wodehouse, first earl of Kimberley (1826–1902), the immediate past viceroy of Ireland, who annotated profusely as he read. His notes are unusual in that they are extensive (52 of 393 pages were annotated), spread throughout the text, and generally lengthy (averaging twenty words per annotated page). A few involve the kinds of ethnically disparaging remarks to which he was prone. However, the majority deal with substantive issues with which Kimberley as viceroy had had to deal (Fenianism and land improvement) or would be dealing later that year as part of Gladstone’s first government (disestablishment and land reform).