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Walk the line: Caelainn Hogan on motivation, perspectives and illuminating dark corners

The writer and journalist’s first book, Republic of Shame, explores the ongoing legacy of the religious-run institutions in Ireland and the treatment of the ‘fallen women’ who were incarcerated there

Lapidarium: Gem of a collection of stones and their interplay with humanity

Renowned art critic Hettie Judah’s guide to the rocks that have shaped us and, in turn, been shaped by us is both accessible and informative

Hereafter: A striking tapestry woven of research and speculation

Poet Vona Groarke revisits her emigrant great grandmother’s life, both real and imagined, in this genre-defying narrative

Out of the good books: from the Berkeley Library to the ‘X library’

Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union is demanding the college rename the Berkeley Library after it became known that the 18th-century philosopher George Berkeley was a slave owner. Is the timing right

Elaine Byrne: FF and FG’s veneration of Collins is also an attack against a shared enemy

The Taoiseach and Tánaiste’s joint oration on Sunday is the first time in history that the leaders of the Civil War parties have come together to acknowledge Michael Collins’ legacy but another factor in their united stand is the electoral threat posed by Sinn Féin

Diarmaid Ferriter: Serial myth-making gives each of us the Michael Collins we want

With the centenary of the revolutionary and politician’s death almost upon us, historian Diarmaid Ferriter argues that political convenience often trumps historical fact when it comes to his status in the Irish popular consciousness

Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921: Searing analysis of USSR’s birth not for faint-hearted

Antony Beevor’s latest doorstopper, about the Russian Revolution and the chaos that followed it, teems with tales of gory cruelty

Elaine Byrne: Béal na Bláth is an opportunity to recognise all heroes of our state

The Michael Collins centenary commemoration this August would be a good time for the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to celebrate the unacknowledged who helped to build this diverse republic

Wanted: your ancestors who may have committed historic crimes

Family historians are using a newly-digitised list of ‘proclamations’ from between 1821 and 1860 to seek out namesakes who might have been involved in criminal activity

Ernie O’Malley: The definitive portrait of an often forgotten Irish political figure

Part militant nationalist and part bohemian intellectual, Ernie O’Malley led a remarkable life and played a significant role in Ireland’s struggle for independence

Kitson’s Irish War: The brigadier behind Britain’s dirty war in the North

In a new history of the early days of the Troubles, barrister David Burke paints a picture of the man in charge of the British army’s operations as cold, solitary and utterly ruthless

We Don’t Know Ourselves: O’Toole combines personal with political on a journey to the heart of Irish identity

The events are familiar and the villains predictable, but Fintan O’Toole’s personal account of life in Ireland over the last six decades is a scintillating read

Independence Memories: Entertaining, if unfocused, tales from ‘everyday people’ of life in the Irish Free State

Journalist Valerie Cox has put together 22 interviews with people about what it was like to live through the early days of the Irish Free State, a time that not everybody looks back at with nostalgia

Vindicating Dublin: When Ireland’s first taoiseach put Dublin Corporation on trial

A new book looks at WT Cosgrave’s successful attempt to neuter the authority after it criticised his administration

Tunnel 29: Getting around the most infamous fortification in the world

Helena Merriman’s new book is the true story of how a group of Wast Germans dug their way under the Berlin Wall in 1962

King Richard: A deeply flawed president tripped up by his own paranoia

Richard Nixon veers between Shakespearean tragic hero and pantomime villain in historian Michael Dobbs’s detailed reconstruction of the Watergate scandal

Through the Looking Glasses: An enlightening history of how we came to see the world more clearly

It has taken centuries for glasses (from their primitive origins to today’s fashion statements) to be appreciated for the improvement they bring to our lives, as Travis Elborough relates in this entertaining study

Andrew Lynch: A revealing account from behind the scenes of the Anglo-Irish Agreement

Margaret Thatcher’s senior diplomat David Goodall took meticulous notes of his encounters with Garrett FitzGerald and others during the fraught negotiations leading up to the 1985 accord between Britain and Ireland

The Irish Assassins: Retelling of Phoenix Park murders a compelling blend of political history and true crime

Journalist Julie Kavanagh’s account of the murders of two members of the British authority in Ireland in 1882 has the plot and intrigue of a sweeping 19th-century novel

Ballymacandy: Fascinating history of a Kerry ambush and what went unspoken

Owen O’Shea’s meticulously researched history of an IRA ambush during the War of Independence where five men died reveals the complexity of the operation and the similar histories of the men on either side