"Rafter's 'Irish Journalism Before Independence'... is in a sense a map of a territory that remains only partly explored; and, like all such maps, it provides us with tantalising glimpses of why this might be so, and what remains to be done to fill in more of the outlines.""As an agenda-setting volume, 'Irish Journalism Before Independence' is timely...""Overall, the volume is an important, and useful, contribution to a burgeoning historiography of journalism.""each chapter is well researched and written, drawing our attention to a wide variety of individuals and incidences which history may well have forgotten if it weren’t for the work of the contributors....Students of history, media studies and journalism will find this book a useful resource in their studies, showing them the importance, albeit historical, of print media in the development of an independent Irish state."(Patricia Neville, University College Cork, Irish Journal of Sociology, 2014)