Former Taoiseach, John Bruton, has reviewed 'Living with History: Occasional Writings' in the current issue of The Irish Catholic:

"Felix Larkin’s book deserves to be widely read. It gives a very personal perspective, and offers insights that will help all residents of this island, whatever their allegiance, shape a peaceful future, free of grievance and myth."

"This book covers many [...] topics, the contrast between the ideologies that inspired the 1798 and 1848 rebellions, the successes and failures of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and the varying attitudes of the Catholic hierarchy to political violence. It also explores the appropriation of the religious feast of Easter by the faction of the IRB that launched the Rising, including through the use of religious imagery and notions of blood sacrifice in the Proclamation.

"As Mr Larkin sees it, the role of the historian is to debunk myths about the past.

"Felix Larkin’s work on newspapers has given him a unique window into contemporary Irish public opinion, over two centuries.

"This book also focuses on commemorations, and their official use in shaping popular opinions about what is supposed to have mattered in history. Popular opinions about history frequently involve mythologising certain events, and over simplifying the choices that were available to decision makers at the time.

"For example, Felix Larkin robustly challenges the popular view, endorsed in his recent book by the historian Diarmaid Ferriter, that the border was ‘imposed’ on Ireland, against its will, by the British in 1920. Mr Larkin points out that Redmond and Carson had accepted some form of partition in principle in 1914, and again in negotiations after the Easter Rising in late 1916. So also did the majority of TDs, who had been elected under a Sinn Féin banner, when they accepted the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 by a vote in the Dáil.

"On each occasion, the Irish leaders in question shrank from the prospect of a prolonged and bitter sectarian war – and even more deaths – that would have been necessary to impose a united Ireland on a resisting unionist population."