Now available in paperback! 2009 is the 200th anniversary of the Commission for the Bogs of Ireland. The Commission was arguably the first attempt by the government of the United Kingdom after the Union to address the infrastructural deficit of Ireland. The Commission brought to Ireland Alexander Nimmo, friend of Thomas Telford and, until then, rector of Inverness Academy. Nimmo spent the rest of his life in his adopted country. His influence on it was profound, not only in the civil engineering structures he left behind, but in his seminal role in the emergence of the Irish Ordnance Survey, the Office of Public Works, the Hydrographic Survey of Ireland, and the Fisheries Commission. This is the first book to tell the life story of this unique and important character and his role in events in early nineteenth century Ireland. It gives new insights into events and persons of the time never previously covered, and it questions some long-held beliefs regarding these events and the pre-famine period. Based on four years of research in archives and libraries all over Ireland and Britain, author Wilkins reveals for the first time the motivation and full range of Alexander Nimmo's activities in Ireland and Britain. [Subject: Biography, Irish Studies, History, Civil Engineering]

This fully illustrated book explores the history of the fishery piers and harbours of Galway and north Clare. A testament to these structures as feats of engineering, it is also a riveting account of the human aspect that shadowed their construction; a beautiful rendering of the maritime activities that gave life to the Wild Atlantic Way – kelp-making, fishing, turf distribution, and sea-borne trade. Humble Works for Humble People nurtures the retelling of human stories surrounding the piers, giving voice to the unacknowledged legacy of the lives that were their making. The Office of Public Works, the Congested Districts Board, foreign financial support, humanitarian efforts, controversies and conflict – these are all features of the piers and harbours’ development and preservation. Humble Works for Humble People is a vital contribution to the maritime history of Galway, Clare and of Ireland in general; an overlooked but culturally rich facet of Irish history.

Did you know that the inventor of the submarine was born along the west coast of Ireland, that ships from the Spanish Armada floundered off the Irish Atlantic seaboard and that guns for the 1916 Easter Rising were to be landed at Barna Strand in Co. Kerry but the ship, The Aud, was intercepted by the British Navy? Did you know that there was a plan to smuggle Marie Antoinette from France and away from Madame Guillotine to Dingle, that the Fasnet Rock off the south coast is known as the 'tear drop of Ireland' and that Maureen O'Hara's husband was a flying boat pilot who regularly flew into the flying boat station at Foynes? And did you know that Martello towers were built along the western seaboard during the Napoleonic Wars in case Napoleon tried to invade Great Britain via 'the back door'? This fact-packed little book is full of all sorts of information that will surprise even those who think they know the towns and villages along the Wild Atlantic Way.

This book examines the evolution of the contemporary crime victim’s procedural place within modern Western societies. Taking the history of the Irish crime victim as a case study, the work charts the place of victims within criminal justice over time. This evolves from the expansive latitude that they had during the eighteenth century, to their major relegation to witness and informer in the nineteenth, and back to a more contemporary recapturing of some of their previous centrality. The book also studies what this has meant for the position of suspects and offenders as well as the population more generally. Therefore, some analysis is devoted to examining its impact on an offender’s right to fair trial and social forms. It is held that the modern crime victim has transcended its position of marginality. This happened not only in law, but as the consequence of the victim’s new role as a key sociopolitical stakeholder. This work flags the importance of victim rights conferrals, and the social transformations that engendered such trends. In this way victim re-emergence is evidenced as being not just a legal change, but a consequence of several more recent sociocultural transformations in our societies. The book will be of interest to researchers, academics, and policy makers in criminal law, human rights law, criminology, and legal history.

Waterford harbour has centuries of tradition based on its extensive fishery and maritime trade. Steeped in history, customs and an enviable spirit, it was there that Andrew Doherty was born and raised amongst a treasure chest of stories spun by the fishermen, sailors and their families. As an adult he began to research these accounts and, to his surprise, found many were based on fact. In this book, Doherty will take you on a fascinating journey along the harbour, introduce you to some of its most important sites and people, the area's history, and some of its most fantastic tales. Dreaded press gangs who raided whole communities for crew, the search for buried gold and a ship seized by pirates, the horror of a German bombing of the rural idyll during the Second World War – on every page of this incredible account you will learn something of the maritime community of Waterford Harbour.

The Iveragh Peninsula, often referred to as the 'Ring of Kerry', is one of Ireland's most dramatic and beautiful landscapes. This cultural atlas provides the reader with a broad range of cultural perspectives on the peninsula and the human interactions with it from prehistoric times to the present day.