On 26 May 1315 a Scottish army commanded by Edward Bruce, recently created earl of Carrick, landed near Larne in County Antrim. From this date until his death at Faughart on 14 October 1318 there was a Scottish presence in Ireland. We are told that Edward was crowned king of Ireland near the scene of his eventual defeat soon after 1 May 1316; his supporters certainly regarded him as king, and he himself used the title. In reality, however, his control never extended beyond the lands of the earldom of Ulster, which he used as a base from which to launch destructive expeditions to other parts of the country. Yet at least until the retreat of the Bruces from Limerick in April 1317 a Scottish conquest of Ireland must have appeared to be within the bounds of possibility; it is hardly too much to say that during this brief period the future political shape of the British Isles depended on the outcome of an often obscure series of campaigns and alliances in Ireland.

At the time of the Norman invasion the Irish church under its primate, Gilla Mac Liag or Gelasius, had welcomed the advent of Henry II and accepted his claim to be an ecclesiastical reformer. As a result the invaders, while ensuring that English or French clerics controlled the church in the areas they themselves had colonised, did not interfere with the primacy of all Ireland at Armagh. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the coarbship of Patrick was held in turn by ten primates of native Irish stock, a German, an Italian and only one Anglo-Norman, Luke Netterville, freely elected in 1217.

Recently Mr Charles Webster has urged a less restrictive view of seventeenth-century scientific development, allotting a more important role to Samuel Hartlib and his circle. An examination of scientific activity in Ireland during the interregnum offers support for Dr Webster’s argument. This article will attempt to add to what is known of Hartlib, his friends and their interests by considering their activities in Ireland. Relating those activities to the gradual diffusion of experimental science in seventeenthcentury Ireland produces a picture rather different from that offered by Dr K. T. Hoppen in his study of the Dublin Philosophical Society’s origin.

Parnell remains an enigma to historians. As a protestant and a landowner, he would seem to have had every reason to oppose the home rule movement and certainly little incentive to take an active part in it. Nor does it appear that he had any clearly developed policies in mind to be followed in an autonomous Ireland. One simple explanation is that Parnell was driven by a strong dislike of England, and in particular of its upper class political leadership. Yet until the age of nineteen, when he went to Cambridge, Parnell had spent only relatively brief periods among the English—and these mainly at small private schools. He was briefly at school in Somerset at the age of six, and in Derbyshire when he was eight. At the age of fifteen he was sent to a private tutor and from there entered Magdalene College, Cambridge in October 1865. There he remained until May 1869 when he failed to return from rustication imposed after he had been successfully sued for asasult in a local court.