‘Labour and Dáil Éireann, 1922-32’, in Paul Daly, Ronan O’Brien & Paul Rouse (eds), Making the Difference? The Irish Labour Party, 1912-2012 (Cork: Collins Press, 2012).
Reviewed:
- Irish Times: ‘the contributions provide a historical perspective as well as a timely opportunity to assess the present state and future prospects of the Labour Party’ (here).
- Politico.ie: On my chapter — ‘Meehan charts how public confidence in Labour built up steadily, eventually seeing it become the official opposition’. On the book in general — ‘a suitably stellar cast of contributors has been assembled to provide essays that carefully analyse key aspects of the Labour story … the book will be of great interest to students, historians and anyone with a passion for Irish politics’ (here).
- Labour in Northern Ireland: ‘This is a useful collection of essays on the history of the Irish Labour Party’ (here).
‘“The Prose of Logic and of Scorn”: Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin, 1906-1914’, in Kevin Rafter (ed.), Irish Journalism Before Independence: More a Disease than a Profession (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011).
Reviewed:
- Irish Times: On my chapter — ‘Ciara Meehan examines in detail how Arthur Griffith placed his prodigious energies at the service of the Sinn Fein movement, but such was his professional standing that he headed a list of the best known journalists in the city’. On the book in general — ‘It is remarkable that so little attention has been paid to the press as an institution and this valuable collection of essays on Irish journalism makes a major contribution to redressing that deficit’. (here)
- Political Studies Review: ‘the volume is an important, and useful, contribution to a burgeoning historiography of journalism’ (here).
- Journalism Studies: On my chapter — ‘an excellent pair of essays here on Arthur Griffith (by Felix M. Larkin and Ciara Meehan) make it clear how a figure such as Griffith, a political theorist in his own right, used his journalism as part of the political process at a key moment in modern Irish history’. On the book in general — ‘As an agenda-setting volume, Irish Journalism Before Independence is timely’ (here).
- LSE Blog: On my chapter — ‘Ciara Meehan considers Griffith as ‘most effective in his editorial chair’ whose writings shaped a generation of young separatists while he often filled the roles of editor, columnist and typesetter. Griffith’s journalism reflected public opinions but also shaped them and Meehan notes that while the events of Easter 1916 came as a surprise to many in both England and Ireland, the readers of Sinn Féin (amongst other publications) would have been somewhat familiar with the rumblings of discontent’. On the book in general: ‘Consistently engaging and informative, this text remains true to the journalism that lies at its core and is truly a volume of stories for academics, students but perhaps most of all for those who have caught the journalistic bug’ (here).
‘Michael Sweetman and the Just Society’, in Barbara Sweetman FitzGerald (ed.), The Widest Circle: Remembering Michael Sweetman (Dublin: A&A Farmar, 2011).
Reviewed:
- Irish Times: On my chapter — ‘The historian Ciara Meehan quotes [Tom] O’Higgins himself as describing Sweetman as “liberal in outlook, with a burning zeal for social justice and an intellectual capacity to indicate achievable reforms” and she shows how he articulated his concern for a fairer society when he unsuccessfully contested the 1969 general and Seanad elections’. On the book in general — ‘This is far from being a sad book; it is, rather, a fitting tribute to a multitalented man’ (here).
- Irish Independent: ‘This book is a wonderful tribute to his memory’ (here).
Dr Ciara Meehan 