- Email: [email protected]
Sources for local studies
REVIEWS WILLIAMNOLAN, Sources for Local Studies
201
(Dublin: The author, no date of publication
given. Pp. 61. &l*SO) This publication introduces and discusses many important sources for the study of the historical geography of Ireland from 1600 to 1850. The practice of historical geography in Ireland has been held back not just by the relative lack of sources-a result of the destruction of the Surveyor General’s Office in 1711 and the Public Record Office in 1922-but also by a lack of appreciation of what does exist. Any publication of this nature is therefore welcome, particularly one so compact in form and inexpensive in price. After a useful chapter describing the administrative divisions of Ireland, forming the framework within which most of the sources were presented, Nolan catalogues the sources chronologically, describing and giving the background to those of importance and often discussing possible uses. The discussions are aimed mainly at those undertaking school projects for whom the author seems to regard his work as being principally destined. But it will assuredly find a wider readership particularly because its nearest equivalent predecessor, T. P. O’Neill’s Sources of Irish Local History (1958), is out of print. Although welcoming this publication for its concept and its refreshingly geographical approach one cannot be unaware of its shortcomings. Many seem to result from its peculiarly samizdat form: it is published by the author (and available from him at Carysfort College, Dublin) and while for only a modest price a professional presentation is not to be expected, one must regret the lack of editorial expertise from an author, editor and publisher who in his writing displays detailed and sympathetic knowledge of his subject. This is no place for a catalogue of misprints (although Arthur Young hardly travelled in Ireland from 1776 to 1770); but it is necessary to complain about the pamphlet’s poor, rather amateurish finish. Many of the maps are ruined by lettering running across boundaries in a most displeasing fashion; others by lettering which is diminutive or illegible, or both. And why is there a cover map of the Republic of Ireland’s modern planning regions on a book cataloguing sources for the whole island and ending at 1850 ? The headings are often misleading, which is irritating in a work that will be dipped into rather than read from cover to cover. Additionally, there are omissions: for example, Robert Thompson’s Meath is missing from a list of the Royal Dublin Society’s Statistical Surveys; Protestant parish registers are not mentioned; the 1841 census receives a place but not the unreliable 1831 census, nor, more surprisingly, that of 1821, described by K. H. Connell as a “landmark in Irish demographic history”; the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland is not mentioned in an appendix detailing admission procedures to the various record depositories. Proper editing would have made the book more satisfactory, but even as it stands it still has considerable value by providing a concise introductory guide to historical sources for Irish geographical studies. The Queen’s University of Belfast
STEPHENA. ROYLE
CHARLESPHYTHIAN-ADAMS,Desolation of a City: Coventry and the Urban Crisis of the
Late Middle Ages (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press for the Past and Present Society, 1979. Pp. xviii + 350. E16.50) Charles Phythian-Adams comments rightly that wider research is surprisingly lacking 011 the problems he has confronted in studying early sixteenth-century Coventry. Consequently, although he guesses that the fate of Coventry was not unique, he is unable to say confidently that other towns of the late Middle Ages in England showed the same pattern of decline. The problem has been much discussed of course, in very general terms, as for instance with regard to the question of the supposed stagnation of the late medieval economy as a whole; or in reference to the problem of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. One hopes that the author’s call for further investigation will encourage the
201
(Dublin: The author, no date of publication
given. Pp. 61. &l*SO) This publication introduces and discusses many important sources for the study of the historical geography of Ireland from 1600 to 1850. The practice of historical geography in Ireland has been held back not just by the relative lack of sources-a result of the destruction of the Surveyor General’s Office in 1711 and the Public Record Office in 1922-but also by a lack of appreciation of what does exist. Any publication of this nature is therefore welcome, particularly one so compact in form and inexpensive in price. After a useful chapter describing the administrative divisions of Ireland, forming the framework within which most of the sources were presented, Nolan catalogues the sources chronologically, describing and giving the background to those of importance and often discussing possible uses. The discussions are aimed mainly at those undertaking school projects for whom the author seems to regard his work as being principally destined. But it will assuredly find a wider readership particularly because its nearest equivalent predecessor, T. P. O’Neill’s Sources of Irish Local History (1958), is out of print. Although welcoming this publication for its concept and its refreshingly geographical approach one cannot be unaware of its shortcomings. Many seem to result from its peculiarly samizdat form: it is published by the author (and available from him at Carysfort College, Dublin) and while for only a modest price a professional presentation is not to be expected, one must regret the lack of editorial expertise from an author, editor and publisher who in his writing displays detailed and sympathetic knowledge of his subject. This is no place for a catalogue of misprints (although Arthur Young hardly travelled in Ireland from 1776 to 1770); but it is necessary to complain about the pamphlet’s poor, rather amateurish finish. Many of the maps are ruined by lettering running across boundaries in a most displeasing fashion; others by lettering which is diminutive or illegible, or both. And why is there a cover map of the Republic of Ireland’s modern planning regions on a book cataloguing sources for the whole island and ending at 1850 ? The headings are often misleading, which is irritating in a work that will be dipped into rather than read from cover to cover. Additionally, there are omissions: for example, Robert Thompson’s Meath is missing from a list of the Royal Dublin Society’s Statistical Surveys; Protestant parish registers are not mentioned; the 1841 census receives a place but not the unreliable 1831 census, nor, more surprisingly, that of 1821, described by K. H. Connell as a “landmark in Irish demographic history”; the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland is not mentioned in an appendix detailing admission procedures to the various record depositories. Proper editing would have made the book more satisfactory, but even as it stands it still has considerable value by providing a concise introductory guide to historical sources for Irish geographical studies. The Queen’s University of Belfast
STEPHENA. ROYLE
CHARLESPHYTHIAN-ADAMS,Desolation of a City: Coventry and the Urban Crisis of the
Late Middle Ages (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press for the Past and Present Society, 1979. Pp. xviii + 350. E16.50) Charles Phythian-Adams comments rightly that wider research is surprisingly lacking 011 the problems he has confronted in studying early sixteenth-century Coventry. Consequently, although he guesses that the fate of Coventry was not unique, he is unable to say confidently that other towns of the late Middle Ages in England showed the same pattern of decline. The problem has been much discussed of course, in very general terms, as for instance with regard to the question of the supposed stagnation of the late medieval economy as a whole; or in reference to the problem of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. One hopes that the author’s call for further investigation will encourage the