Download the Mungret College Annual 1968 - Mungret College Past ...

• ..
A view of Limerick near Tliomond Bridge
NORTH MUNSTER STUDIES: ESSAYS IN COMMEMORATION OF
MONSIGNOR MICHAEL MOLONEY. Edited by ETIENNE RYNNE.
THOMOND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, LIMERICK, 1967. pp. 533
St. Mary's Cathedral, LIMERICK
The 800th Anniversary of the founding of the Cathedral is being ceebrat.gj tills year.
i.
91
It is fitting that the late Monsignor
Moloney, who had such a wide and profound
understanding of Irish history, should
he commemorated by a volume which covers
a wide area of knowledge in a scholarly
manner. In all, thirty-seven distinguished
contributors deal with as many subjects -
ranging from archaeology through history
to folklore.
To comment on thirty-seven contributions
would be impossible in a short review.
The reviewer can only draw the reader's
attention to a few of those essays which he
himself found particularly interesting.
Among these may be listed " Brian Boruma,
King of Ireland '' - a twenty-page contribution
by Fr. John Ryan, written with a
characteristically light touch which cannot
conceal the authors unique grasp of early
medieval Irish history; " The Plundering
and Burning of Churches in Ireland, 7th to
16th Century " by Dr. A. T. Lucas - a
very well documented account of church
burnings deliberately perpetrated century
after century by Irish, by Norse, both pagan
and Christian, by Anglo-Normans and by
English or by combinations of Irish and
Norse and Irish and Norman; the clue to
the burnings and Plundering of churches
and monastic buildings lying, in Dr. Lucas'
view, in the custom of sanctuary: " The
Siege of Limerick, 1690 " by Dr. Simms;
and " Irish Soldiers of the '45 " by Dr.
Hayes-McCoy. Finally, there is an essay
by Dr. Robert Cussen which will have a
wide appeal for the general reader, and
8
9