Dublin has many histories: for a thousand years a modest urban settlement on the quiet waters of the Irish Sea, for the last four hundred it has experienced great - and often astonishing - change. Once a fulcrum of English power in Ireland, it was also the location for the 1916 insurrection that began the rapid imperial retreat. That moment provided Joyce with the setting for the greatest modernist novel of the age, Ulysses, capping a cultural heritage which became an economic res...

From Norman invaders, religious wars—and the struggle for independence—the fascinating, turbulent history of a tortured nation and its gifted peopleWhen Shakespeare referred to England as a "jewel set in a silver sea," he could just as well have been speaking of Ireland. Not only has its luminous green landscape been the backdrop for bloody Catholic/Protestant conflict and a devastating famine, Ireland's great voices—like Joyce and Yeats—are now indelibly part of w...

This book provides in succinct, accessible form, a thematic rather than strictly chronological account of Irish history. It begins with a comprehensive historical portrait which presents the whole fabric of three thousand years of Irish life. For subsequent chapters the author has selected for development the significant threads of the historical web, the themes of invasion, rebellion, the Black North, and aspects of the culture, especially literary, that make the whole of Ireland the cult...

The background history of Ireland is vital to an understanding of its people and culture. <I>A Travellers History of Ireland</I> offers a chronological outline of the country up to the present day as well as an invaluable introduction to a land of poets, saints, illustrious soldiers and inspiring and persistent rebels. The book includes a comprehensive description of modern Ireland, both North and South, and of its two separate Catholic Nationalist and Protestant U...

In the century before the great famine of the late 1840s, the Irish people, and the poor especially, became increasingly dependent on the potato for their food. So when potato blight struck, causing the tubers to rot in the ground, they suffered a grievous loss. Thus began a catastrophe in which approximately one million people lost their lives and many more left Ireland for North America, changing the country forever. During and after this terrible human crisis, the Briti...

In this ground-breaking study, Professor Christine Kinealy incorporates recent scholarship in Irish studies to explore the key developments and -personalities that have shaped Ireland over 1500 years. In particular, she explores the role of successive waves of settlers, who came as traders, invaders, colonisers, religious refugees and, latterly, economic migrants. From the arrival of St Patrick in the fifth century, to the Good Friday Agreement in the twentieth century and...

This third edition of John O'Beirne Ranelagh's classic history of Ireland incorporates contemporary political and economic events as well as the latest archaeological and DNA discoveries. Comprehensively revised and updated throughout, it considers Irish history from the earliest times through the Celts, Cromwell, plantations, famine, Independence, the Omagh bomb, peace initiatives, and financial collapse. It profiles the key players in Irish history from Diarmuid MacMurrough to Gerry Adam...

Change is constant in human affairs and Ireland has seen its fair share over the centuries. If we are to understand Ireland's current challenges then we must grasp the complexity of its past. This concise and even-handed account describes the history of Ireland from early times. Based upon up-to-date research, the narrative covers all political, social and cultural issues of importance, right up to the autumn of 1995 with the visit of President Clinton and the end of the first year of peac...

The Great Fire of London was the greatest catastrophe of its kind in Western Europe. Although detailed fire precautions and fire-fighting arrangements were in place, the fire raged for four days and destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 churches and 44 of the City of London's great livery halls. The 'great fire' of 1666 closely followed by the 'great plague' of 1665; as the antiquary Anthony Wood wrote left London 'much impoverished, discontented, afflicted, cast downe'.In t...

The elusive search for stability is the subject of Professor D. George Boyce's Nineteenth-Century Ireland, the fifth in the New Gill History of Ireland series. Nineteenth-century Ireland began and ended in armed revolt. The bloody insurrections of 1798 were the proximate reasons for the passing of the Act of Union two years later. The 'long nineteenth century' lasted until 1922, by which the institutions of modern Ireland were in place against a background of the Great War, the Ulster rebe...

This book contains everything you need to pass the Life in the UK test - FIRST TIME! 1: All the official study material 2: Test questions and glossary at the end of each topic 3: Study techniques to help you learn quicker and easier

The Great Irish Famine of 1845–52 was the defining event in the history of modern Ireland. In proportional terms one of the most lethal famines in global history, the consequences were shocking: at least one million people died, and double that number fled the country within a decade. The Great Irish Famine surveys the history of this great tragedy through the testimonies of four key contemporaries, conveying the immediacy of the unfolding disaster as never before.