Conspiracy: Irish Political Trials

by Myles Dungan

'Conspiracy' focuses on the clashes, plots and perjuries that characterized seven notorious trials in Irish legal and political history between 1803 and 1916. Each trial shows how the legal system was contaminated by a political agenda and how that political agenda unwittingly incited great moments of legal drama such as the disintegration of the forger, Richard Pigott, under the cross examination of Sir Charles Russell at the Parnell Commission. It delves into the high-profile trials of Robert Emmet, Daniel O’Connell, and the turbulent court martials after the Easter Rising. 

357 pages, Paperback

First published September 20, 2009

About the author

Dr. Myles Dungan (PhD Trinity College, Dublin, 2012) is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster and is also Programme Director of the annual Hinterland Festival in Kells, Co. Meath. He currently presents the weekly RTE Radio 1 programme The History Show, writes a weekly column (‘Fake Histories’) for the RTE Radio 1 Drivetime programme, and has worked as presenter of various RTE radio and TV programmes for the last thirty years (Five Seven Live, Rattlebag, Prime Time). He is an Adjunct Lecturer in the UCD School of History and is the recipient of two Fulbright Awards. He has taught Irish history in UCD, Trinity College and the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than a dozen books on Irish and American history (including Irish Voices from the Great War, How the Irish Won the West and Mr. Parnell’s Rottweiler). In 1985 he co-founded the Dublin Film Festival with film critic Michael Dwyer. He is now masquerading as a novelist