The three books reviewed below all relate to events and people of County Westmeath and are listed in the chronological order of the era they deal with rather than their years of publication. The arrival of the Anglo-Normans saw a wave of new religious foundations established in Ireland. Tristernagh was one of these. It survived until 1536 when it was dissolved as part of the general dissolution. O'Keeffe outlines the history of the visible remains there today and the tragic story of what happened to them in the past. The first two chapters outline the history of the priory and the family who founded it. From the beginning we see that the priory cannot be viewed simply as a religious institution but must also be seen as an integral part of the colonial settlement of the region. O'Keeffe discusses the extensive earthen remains of Kilbixy ‘borough’ which he describes as ‘one of the most extensive and best preserved systems of earthworks of any deserted medieval settlement in Ireland’. Through the priory register we are provided with an outline of the properties of the priory and details of those from whom the donations came.

In the final chapter O'Keeffe outlines how Angelo Mario Bigari and Gabriel Beranger visited Tristernagh in 1779 and produced two drawings of the then surviving priory church. Beranger also produced a plan of the church. These are of much importance as four years later Sir Pigott William Piers demolished the structures so recently sketched. Using these drawings, map evidence, and comparisons with other priories, O'Keeffe reconstructs the dimensions and architectural details of the original priory. He points out how the priory visually represented the new political order that had arrived in Ireland, as clearly as any motte and bailey castle. Finally it should be said that the book includes a fine collection (twenty-six in all) of well-presented maps, plans and photographs the quality of which the author is to be commended for. This is a very worthwhile contribution to our understanding of the role of the religious institutions in the colonial settlement of Ireland in the late medieval era.

In 2011 Queen Elizabeth II was presented with a facsimile of a sixteenth-century primer or guide to the Irish language. The original was presented to Elizabeth I by Christopher Nugent, who, along with his family and the primer, are the subjects of Casey's book. The Nugents of Delvin traced their origins in Ireland to a grant by Hugh de Lacy to Gilbert de Nugent in the twelfth century. As such they formed part of the Anglo-Norman families of the outer Pale. Like most of these families they had developed a complex set of identities. Casey outlines these identities in Christopher's own family who, despite serving as royal officials, also patronised Gaelic poetry and literature.

Christopher's own life exemplified this also. In religious affiliation, he and the bulk of his family, was Catholic while also the beneficiaries of large quantities of former monastic property. A ward of the lord deputy, Thomas Radcliff, he was educated at Cambridge and was there in 1564 when Elizabeth visited the college. It is likely to have been then or shortly afterwards that he produced his primer. Returning to Delvin in County Westmeath the following year, his life there involved him in periods of active military service for the government interspersed with periods of imprisonment for suspected disloyalty. He ended his days in Dublin Castle.

The remaining chapters of the book deal with the government's attitude towards the Irish language and culture, the medieval Irish grammatical tradition, and the medieval and Renaissance pedagogical contexts of the primer. It concludes with the first ever analysis of the contents of the primer itself. The book provides an insight into the primer and the complex cultural influences that it drew upon. Equally it provides a window into the complex cultural identities of the man that produced it and the family that he came from.

The story of the Parnellite split in Westmeath concerned the long running dispute between the editor of the Westmeath Examiner and the then Catholic bishop of Meath, Thomas Nulty. John Hayden, the editor in question, was the Roscommon-born founder and editor of the Examiner. The conflict between the two men pre-dated the Parnellite split. In 1886 they had clashed over the issue of how a water supply scheme for Mullingar was to be organised, but the clash reached a crescendo with the split. Hayden supported Parnell's continued leadership while Bishop Nulty vehemently opposed it. Hayden used his newspaper to put forward his views while the bishop used pastoral letters.

The first test of public opinion in Westmeath came in the election of 1892 when the Parnellite candidate in South Westmeath polled 30 per cent of the votes but his colleague in North Westmeath received only eleven per cent. Outwardly then Bishop Nulty had emerged as the clear victor. The dispute dragged on, Bishop Nulty going so far as to say that any man who read the newspaper was guilty of sin and likened Parnellism to paganism. Bishop Nulty died in 1898, outwardly triumphant. John Hayden went on to succeed his brother as M.P. for South Roscommon, a seat he retained until the Sinn Féin landslide of 1918. He also remained editor of his newspaper until his death in 1954 having been editor for seventy-two years.

The conflict between the two men was never just personal, though undoubtedly there must have been a considerable element of this involved. Nolan rightly points out that this was also a clash between those, led by Hayden, who represented the emerging Catholic middle class, and a bishop who wished to retain the traditional clerical control of nationalist political affairs. Equally, however, the limits of clerical influence, even in the nineteenth century, have to be acknowledged with 30 per cent of the electorate of South Westmeath, most undoubtedly Catholic, willing to defy their bishop and vote for the Parnellite candidate. Evidently while clerical influence was strong it was not as all-persuasive as it is sometimes believed to have been. Nolan provides a very interesting insight into a different Westmeath in a different Ireland.