As Ann Andrews notes in this welcome addition to the growing work on Irish media history, many historians have focused their attention on the political machinations of the nineteenth century to the exclusion or bare mention of the unappreciated but integral role of the press and political journalism. Where the press is mentioned it tends to be in passing or quoted without the context of the newspaper’s heritage or editorial outlook being thoroughly examined. But, as Andrews ably demonstrates, the press and political journalism played a central role in the rise of nationalism, Irish identity, and in the making and breaking of political careers and movements. This text puts the press back where it should be, at the centre of any discussion about politics – how political personages and parties were nothing without a press behind them, how politics was communicated to the masses and, as Andrews points out, gave followers something to affiliate to. It also highlights the perennial disputes that erupt between politicians and journalists over press coverage of particular movements or polities. In so doing, the book adds to our understanding not just of the politics of the time, but also the role of journalism and the press in that, often fraught, political process.

This detailed and thorough monograph fills a gap in the literature as there is a severe lack of any coherent overview of the Irish press in the period in question. Much of the work that has been done to date is fragmented and the strength of this book is that, by taking a concentrated long view, it provides a comprehensive overview of the nationalist press and its central role in Irish political life over the period in question. The fact that it is based on much original research on the newspapers themselves is also a unique selling point – as many people appreciate, it is extremely time consuming to plough through such material.

In terms of content the focus is on aspects of the newspapers that had an ideological impact on the development of nationalism and identity and the four chapters do this in a very coherent and very readable fashion. The chapters are broken up in terms of substantive topics and events that form the narrative of nineteenth-century Irish history and each is effectively self-contained which makes it not just readable but valuable as a reference resource to dip into to check the heritage, lifecycle, or contribution of a particular newspaper. All the main participants of mid-nineteenth century Irish history are there and the interplay between politics and the press, and the intrigue that was played out within that relationship, will be of keen interest to scholars of Irish history generally and press history in particular.

Chapter one gives a detailed account of the origins of The Nation and its importance to O’Connell’s Repeal Movement. This symbiotic relationship – wherein politicians need the press and the press needs a politician or at least politics to report on – is examined here. The life of the paper – its raison d’être, the context in which it appeared, its reportage, its features – its whole identity – is outlined, as is the mutually-dependent relationship of the Repeal Movement and the Repeal Press. Chapter two examines the disintegration of the relationship between O’Connell and The Nation. The intrigue is fascinating, as is the manoeuvring that took place between politicians and journalists and the role of religion in the split is vividly illuminated. Chapter three looks at the vagaries of the nationalist press and its personalities in the ten years between 1849 and 1859 and again stresses the importance of the press for any political movement. With its emphasis on The Irishman and the role of the press in the tenant right movement it examines the machinations at the heart of the relationship between press and politics. Chapter four continues this examination by looking in detail at the Irish People and the Fenian movement, while a concluding chapter brings everything together in a cogent manner by summarising exactly how and why the newspapers examined influenced the development of Irish nationalism later in the century and beyond.