Historic Hibernia

Historic Hibernia is an independent publisher of popular Irish history.

Alan Cleary and Katherine Colthurst are working tour guides, both born and raised in Co. Kildare, who have spent years showing visitors around Ireland’s castles, graveyards and ruins and telling them what actually happened there. They have given talks throughout the country, and now they write history under the Historic Hibernia label.

Alan’s subject is the FitzGeralds of Kildare, and above all the 1534 rebellion of Silken Thomas and the siege of Maynooth Castle that broke it. He is also a maritime historian with a long-standing pull towards the great sea disasters, the Titanic chief among them.

Katherine studied for her master’s in history at Maynooth University. Her specialist interest is the history of medicine, notably, what people relied on before there were doctors. This became the foundation for her upcoming book Before the Doctor Came.

Between them they aim to write a history that stands up to scrutiny and still reads like a story worth your evening. So far they have written Ireland’s Uncrowned Kings, on the FitzGeralds and Maynooth Castle, and Alan’s Thomas Andrews.