Discover Waterford. By Eamon McEneany (The O'Brien Press; £9.99)
Dubliners may be surprised to learn, from this succinct guide to Waterford, that theirs is not the oldest centre of continuous urban settlement in Ireland. That honour, according to Eamonn McEneaney, Waterford's city historian, falls to the port which he lovingly describes in this new volume in the O'Brien City Guide Series. The same Dubliners might ask about Haliday's claim in his Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin (1881) that the Ostmen's kingdom of Dublin was founded in 852 by Auluf the White, who built his "longphort" at Clondalkin, and that no record of any Scandinavian king in Waterford occurs until 903.
According to McEneaney, a Viking "longphort" was established at Waterford in 853. What's another year, anyway, in what is an informative and interesting record of the development of Waterford from Viking times through medieval and Norman settlements, to the economic success of the 18th and 19th centuries and the identification of the city with its famous hand-cut crystal.
In two sections, the guide tells Waterford's story in the first part and then provides a guide to the city's many fine buildings, with appropriate illustrations (some in colour) to accompany the well-written text. Another query: did King James II take ship at Waterford or Duncannon after his defeat at the Boyne?
Graiguenamanagh - A Town and Its People. By John Joyce (Graigue Publications; £16.15 in hardback; £11.95 in paperback)
This is a revised and expanded edition of a popular history which was first published in 1993 and which enjoyed considerable acclaim. Since then the author, the authority on the town and its people, has gathered much additional information which he has woven into a compelling narrative. The story of Graigue, dealt with in four sections (pre-1200 before the famed Duiske Abbey was founded), 1200-1540 (which contained the monastic epoch), 1540-1700 (the Butler era) and 1700-1950 (the Agar/Clifden period, which followed the confiscation of the Butler lands), is a lively one. The parish generated national distinction as the place where the Tithe War started in 1831, where the Barrow Navigation Scheme had its origins in 1759 and where General Thomas Coney, the Wexford insurrectionary leader, retired to live after Emmet's rising in 1803.
Ennis in Old Picture Postcards. By Sean Spellissy (European Library; no price given)
Any work from the pen of Sean Spellissy or associated with him merits a second glance. The author of several highly regarded histories of Clare, Limerick and Galway, he supplies in this handy little collection of old postcards and photographs a potted history of Ennis through its people, buildings and events over a period of 40 years up to 1953. The evolving story of the town is portrayed in photographs of excellent clarity and the author's commentary is informative even if brief. A neat collection which will be treasured by all Ennis folk.
Mapping Ireland - From Kingdoms to Counties. By Sean Connors. (Mercier Press; £9.99).
Atlas of Irish Place-Names. By Patrick J.O'Connor. (Oireacht na Mumhan Books, Newcastle West; no price given).
Maps constitute man's puny efforts to delineate the geophysical features of his habitat, whether it be global, regional or local. Maps are, of course, children of their times, reflecting the geographical knowledge of their periods and also the cartographic technology of their times. Most Irish mappers rely on Sir William Petty's Down Survey, which led to the first atlas of Ireland. It is on a later edition of this map, or perhaps the 1685 Hiberniae Delineatio, that Sean Connors appears to base his project, but he has done justice neither to that 1710 edition nor to the purpose of his book in this publication.
Legibility is an essential of any map, but this is glaringly deficient in the colour reproductions of the 32 counties illustrating the progression of the "shiring" of the Irish counties. They are too small in scale, and lost without the context of adjacent neighbours. There is a competent summary of the evolution of the different counties and listings of barony and common family names. But since when did Wexford possess a barony of Ida? Surely this belongs to Co Kilkenny? This book may interest the tourist, but not the scholar.
Patrick J.O'Connor's erudite publication, on the other hand, is an example of dedicated research and masterly handling of material. In his "paper landscape" he investigates and explains the origins and incidence of thousands of Irish place-names, providing the provenance of prefixes, suffixes and middle elements, from "Abbey" and "Ard" through "Lios" and "Min" to "Tulach" and "Ville" and all the other nomenclature in between. There are 72 representational maps which convey the diversity and dispersal of so many Irish place-names.
Ireland's townland names, probably without parallel in any part of the world, carry in a most decisive way the basis of the identity of the modern nation. This marvellous work bears testimony to this rich heritage and, as the author says in his introduction, attests "to the namers of places securely under the sod or gone to the land of God". This is a book to be studied and cherished by people in every part of Ireland. Their heritage is here, in all 183 scholarly pages.