Diving into Dublin’s past ...

Title: Dublin The Making of a Capital City

HOW TO tell the story of a city over a millennium and a half? Like eating an elephant, in not-so-small, but definitely digestible, amounts. In writing Dublin, the Making of a Capital City, TCD Modern History Professor David Dickson sets about his own elephantine task with some relish, on a subject to which he has enormous overview, and equal appetite.

His is a majestic span: the first millennium up to 1600 is despatched in a prologue simply called ‘Dublin Town and the First Thousand Years’. A newspaper sub-editor today wouldn’t quibble with the pithy headings on his subsequent 12 chapters, spanning 1600-2000, such as ‘Injured Lady,’ ‘Apocalypse Deferred,’ ‘Eruption’ (Eruption covers momentous events of 1913-1919) and ‘Whose Dublin?’