Publication: Historical Studies XXIX. Tomás Finn and Kieran Hoare, Boarders and Boundaries: Historical Perspectives (Oxfordshire, 2025).

We are delighted to announce that Historical Studies XXIX based on the proceedings of the 33rd Irish Conference of Historians has been published.

For full details and to purchase, please follow this link: https://www.routledge.com/Borders-and-Boundaries-Historical-Perspectives/Finn-Hoare/p/book/9781032691862?srsltid=AfmBOoodfZz8HNuZnZ9Yxj6Y4ug4Q2q73noaLA-OKbkGKhd4lCE8_2De

Abstract:

This book examines the making and remaking of borders and boundaries primarily relating to Ireland.

Borders and Boundaries features selected papers from the 33rd Irish Conference of Historians held by the University of Galway in May 2021 on the theme of ‘Borders and Boundaries’. It covers the medieval to the contemporary, allowing a long view to be taken of the north-west border of Ireland, the borders of the early modern state, the impact of the partition of Ireland and social boundaries in the late twentieth century. It aims to stimulate debate and highlight how borders can be written out of history while remaining essential to comprehending the making and remaking of our worlds.

This volume will be of value for those interested in border studies, Irish history and modern history.

Table of Contents:

1               Introduction: The Making and Re-making of Borders

            Tomás Finn and Kieran Hoare

2          Limerick c. AD 1200: A frontier city in Europe’s Wild West                  

            Catherine Swift

3          Historical Boundaries and Historic Borders: The Case of Cairpre Dromma Clíabh                              

            Seán Ó Hoireabhárd

4          Urban Oligarchies and Border Society in later medieval Ireland                            

                Kieran Hoare

5              ‘Tudor England’s French Frontier: The Laws of Guînes (1529) and the Defence of the Calais Pale’

                  Neil Murphy

6          Conquest or recovery: enlarging the English Pale in early Tudor Ireland            

            Steven Ellis

7          The Final Tudor Frontier: the north-west of Ireland in the late sixteenth century    

             Christopher Maginn

8          Early Modern Border Management and New Historiographical Approaches

               Raingard Esser

9          Building Narratives: Ireland and the Borders of Architectural History    

                Leslie Herman

10           Protestant Demographic Dynamics in early Twentieth Century Ireland, 1901–26

                Barry Keane

11           The Day-to-Day Effects of Partition                                                                               

                Cormac Moore

12           Within an Imaginary Border: The ‘Protestant Free State’ in Independent Ireland

              Ian d’Alton

13        Fault Lines of Trade Union Disunity, 1922–1939

            Gerard Hanley

14        ‘A peripatetic university for catholic social activists’: John Hayes and the international origins of Muintir na Tire’s ‘Rural Weeks’

Barry Sheppard

15           Beyond the pale? Representations of the Teddy boy subculture  in Irish theatre, 19551965

Ciara Molloy

16        Politics and the praxis of power: the political establishment  and the talented young in post-world war II Ireland

Tomas Finn

17        ‘To Hell or to Connaught’: Margaret Thatcher, Northern Ireland and the Prospect of Repartition, 1979–1990

                Stephen Kelly