CHANGE, frequently misnamed progress, can be heartless. It can rip urban communities apart; it can decimate rural populations; it can be, to paraphrase Euripides, more than the heart can bear.

Nowhere, arguably, does a change bring deeper pangs than in the dissolution of a community such as that once based on the Blaskets or, at the other end of the country, that sited on the Shankill Road in Belfast.

That there are still nostalgic pangs about the evolution of this mainly Protestant and loyalist community may be deduced from the fact that Paul Hamilton's proudly compiled record of memories, old photographs and ballads about the Shankill has now run into its fourth issue. First published in 1979, it was reprinted in 1980 and 1982; its latest issue should sell just as quickly - especially among those whose roots were and are in the Shankill.

The name covered not only the Shankill Road itself but about 200 acres of small houses crammed tight along its side streets and dominated by the factories, foundries and mills where the residents worked. It was a "tough, hard working" and tightly knit community which had its origins in the growth of industrial Belfast at the end of the 19th century.

It was probably their shared economic circumstances as much as their Protestant and loyalist faith that bound the Shankill people together - that, and their suspicion of "Taigs".

Hamilton relates one local piece of mythology arising from such suspicions: Belfast was blitzed by German bombers in 1941, and "many Shankill people will swear to this day that Catholics on the Falls guided in the German bombers with torches shone from skylights and there were dark hints about the pact between the Vatican and the Third Reich that the Falls should remain unscathed!" The fact that no bombs fell on the Falls area did much to reinforce the myth.

Although the old Shankill, with its "wee palaces" (workers' houses), its factories and family run shops, has largely disappeared, the loyalties that distinguished its inhabitants still pertain. The celebration of The Twelfth is nowhere more colourful or enthusiastic than on the Shankill. Where others might adduce a "culture" in all of this, Paul Hamilton eschews such conclusions and wisely sticks to recording the recent history of this old Irish district.

Georgian Limerick, on the other hand, celebrates much that is still extant. Limerick's Georgian heritage, in fine buildings and squares, is considerable and the restored John's Square is one of the city's main architectural attractions.

But this large format, lavishly illustrated book is not just about Georgian houses and heritage. It gives a flavour, in many fine essays, extracts, press reports and engravings, of life in Limerick in the Georgian period. The subjects dealt with range from grave inscriptions "highlighting little known features of Georgian society" through a newspaper account of "finding a man, still alive, covered with maggots" to Quaint Cures and Curious Remedies.

The editors, themselves eminent authorities on history and Georgiana, have enrolled a team of local experts and writers, aided by a group of young people from the Limerick Georgian History Project as researchers, and have produced a most attractive book which should appeal to all Limerick people.

Noting that it was published as a result of a FAS Training Project and funded by the local community, the Employment Levy and EU structural funds, I would commend it to other similar groups in cities and towns throughout Ireland as an example of what local history is all about and what can be done to popularise it.