A new history of Ireland

The completion in 1967 of thirty years of Irish Historical Studies has been the occasion for a stocktaking (still in progress) of the achievement of those years in Irish historiography. They are coming to be seen as an era of remarkable advances in specialist research, in professional technique, in historical organisation, and in the publication of special studies, source materials, bibliographies and aids to research. Though this research has been unevenly spread, it has produced an impressive body of new knowledge on many periods and topics. The conditions for scholarly work on Irish history have thus been transformed; and there is a world of difference between the prospects for Irish historiography in 1938 and now.