Best Irish History Books of 2003

The Encyclopedia of Ireland is the most comprehensive single-volume reference work ever published about Ireland. Meticulously detailed, it is a treasure store of information, education, entertainment, and enlightenment. Its range is astounding as it covers the entire spectrum of Irish achievement in all fields of human endeavour throughout recorded history.

The conventional subjects are all here: literature and language, history, geography, economics, sociology, the arts and music. But other subjects, often neglected in Irish reference books, are also given their due place, such as science, engineering, astronomy and sport.

With more than 5000 original articles written by 950 different contributors and over 700 illustrations, mainly in colour, The Encyclopedia of Ireland is unique. Unique in scope, in conception, in ambition, in execution, in the vast array of facts that it contains, in the distinction of its design, in its total commitment to quality - there is no book about Ireland remotely like it.

This book should be in every home within the country, and in every home throughout the world where Ireland is a 'place that matters'. It is the only reference book about Ireland anyone will every need!

Ireland entered the twentieth century savaged by poverty and memories of the famine but inspired by the Celtic Dawn, a remarkable cultural renaissance led by Yeats, Synge and Lady Gregory. Ireland left the twentieth century in the era of the Celtic Tiger, with unparalleled prosperity and a new, confident, outward-looking view of itself and the world - although this prosperity and self-confidence is now giving way to uncertainty.

In the intervening 100 years, Ireland has experienced more 'history' than almost any other country: beginning under the British crown, racked by revolution, the Anglo-Irish war, partition and civil conflict. Led by towering figures such as Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera, Ireland has suffered terrible hardships and disputes but nevertheless provided brilliant cultural and literary examples, and is now a country of importance in the wider international community, providing leadership in a variety of moral and developmental issues.

In this authoritative book, Ireland's leading popular historian tells the extraordinary story of how contemporary Ireland came into existence. Covering both South and North and dealing with social and cultural history as well as political, this book is destined to become the definitive single-volume account of the making of modern Ireland

The rhythmic turn of the spinning wheel, the jingle of harnessed horses, the ring of the blacksmith's hammer, the scything of summer hay, butter churning in the spotless farm kitchen … all once familiar sights and sounds in and around Irish homesteads. In this book, time appears to stand still as the reader meets the skilled practitioners of more than forty traditional Irish crafts, from woodworkers, thatchers, goldsmiths and potters to glassblowers of the world famous Waterford crystal, crios weavers from the Aran Islands, and the makers of items as varied as harps and quilts, sugan ropes and currachs, dry-stone walls and Irish lace. The author has travelled the length and breadth of the Ireland and its islands to assemble this unique record, documenting the crafts in their natural surroundings before they disappear completely. His superb colour photographs are accompanied by his wife Sally's evocative drawings and by texts from some of Ireland's finest historians and folklorists. A magnificent testament to the centuries-old heritage of a vibrant land, this book is a chronicle of time past, but also a celebration of an enduring culture and a source of inspiration for generations to come.

The River Boyne flows gently through the counties of Kildare and Meath, and borders Offaly and Louth, before flowing into the Irish Sea at Drogheda. Its valley's fertile soil has ensured that it has been inhabited continuously from the end of the Ice Age. It is one of the most historic regional areas, not just in Ireland, but in all of northwest Europe. This book traces the course of the river from source to sea, discussing its history, the landscape, the peoples who have left their imprint on the region since pre-historic times, the houses and monuments, the battle sites, and all other aspects that make the Boyne Valley such a rich source of interest.

The highlights of the book is of course the great trio of Stone-Age burial sites at Dowth, Knowth and Newgrange - all at least as old as the Egyptian pyramids, with the last-named being one of the wonders of Europe. But the author also deals with other matters: the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, so crucial for later Irish history; with writers like Mary Lavin, Francis Ledwidge and Lord Dunsany who lived and wrote about the region, as well as with the houses, churches and monastic settlements.

The book is richly illustrated with original landscape photographs by Tom Kelly - himself a resident of the valley - and with historic prints and watercolours.

Between 1916 and 1923, Ireland experienced rebellion and mass mobilization, guerrilla and civil war, partition and ethnic conflict, and the transfer of power from British to Irish governments. This book proposes a new history of this Irish revolution: one that encompasses the whole of the island as well as Britain, all of the violence and its consequences, and the entire period from the Easter Rising to the end of the Civil War. These events have never been numbered among the world's great revolutions, but in fact the Irish were global pioneers. Long before Mao or Tito, Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army were the first to use a popular political front top build a parallel underground state coupled with sophisticated guerrilla and international propaganda and fund-raising campaigns. Ireland's is also perhaps the best documented revolution in modern history, so that almost any question can be answered, from who joined the IRA to who ordered the assassination of Sir Henry Wilson. The intimacy and precision with which the author is able to reconstruct and analyse what happened make this book a key work for understanding both Irish and world history of the time.

On 1 July 1690, some 23,000 soldiers of the deposed King James II peered anxiously through the morning mist towards the River Boyne below them. These Jacobites were mostly Irish Catholics reinforced with grumbling Frenchmen sent by the Sun King, Louis XIV. But William of Orange's much larger army of English, Dutch, Huguenots, Scots and Germans was already stirring. Beset by plots in Britain and reverses on land and sea, William needed to crush the Jacobite army on the spot. Why, then, after he sent part of his army to cross the river upstream, didn't William trap and annihilate the Jacobites? Does the fact that James fled the battlefield, and Ireland, make the Boyne consequential and decisive? His flight was in sharp contrast to the carefully crafted image of William as a fearless and inspirational warrior-king. The Battle of the Boyne was and remains politically potent. The largest battle in Irish history, it concluded the English war of Succession, the Irish and French-backed James II being defeated by William III securing a Protestant monarchy in England. This book is the full account of this fascinating event in Irish history.

For over twenty years, the previous edition of this book has been the standard reference book on modern Irish history. This new edition has been completely re-written and revised and remains the only such work completely devoted to the modern period and is destined to become the standard reference book for the next twenty years.

Every article from the first edition has been revisited and revised. New articles have been added, including all the material pertaining to the last two decades. Peripheral articles have been dropped or consolidated, although the authors have been careful not to lose those quirky, offbeat entries that were such a feature of the first edition. As before, the book comprises about two thousand headwords on subjects as diverse as emigration, governments of Ireland, home rule, loyalism, agrarian violence, and secret societies, plus hundreds of concise and informative biographical articles.

This book tells the story of the Irish revolutionary period 1900-1923, from the perspective of female activists. The focus of the book is on the period when vast numbers of Irish women were politicised and sent to jail for their beliefs, with a special emphasis on their imprisonment in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising, and during the War of Independence and the Civil War. The seventy-three biographies included provided information on what the lives of these courageous women were like before and after they took part in the pivotal historical events that helped shape the Ireland of today.

The author, an historian and curator, uncovered in her research that the women who were politically active in this period were not confined to a particular social grouping, but represented a cross-section of Irish life. They were shop assistants, doctors, housewives, laundry workers, artists, teachers and even mere schoolchildren. They were married women, mothers, single and widowed women. A number were titled women. Some had not even been born in Ireland, and not all were Catholic: there were Protestants, Quakers, Jews and atheists. The vast majority became involved because of familial links to the nationalist movement, and their commitment to the cause and sacrifices they made were in no way inferior to the male members of their households. They were willing to give their lives for their ideal, and while imprisoned, endured the full rigours of hunger strike and separation from family and friends for their beliefs. This book reasserts their rightful place in Irish history.

When the first edition of this book appeared in 1972, it was acclaimed as a revolutionary breakthrough in the study of late medieval Ireland and of the autonomous lordships into which it was divided. Since then it has been repeatedly and extensively cited as an authority, but has long been out of print. This edition of a pioneering and brilliant survey work is extensively revised and enlarged in light of research by the author, and other scholars, carried out during the intervening period. New information on late Irish law and lordships has been added, and the glossary and bibliography extended. This book is an indispensable adjunct to anyone interested in medieval Irish and European history.

With the 'sea in his blood', Michael Kirby has spent nearly a century in a deep bond with the people, animals and landscapes of the south Iveragh Peninsula in Kerry. And throughout his remarkable life, he has lovingly recorded all that he has seen, on land and on the ocean wave. Here are stories of spectral ships, enchanted seals and seabirds 'speaking in perfect Irish'; shipwrecks, smugglers and sword-wielding coastguards; and characters like Seamus Fada (an 'expert on astronomy and cures for smelly feet') and beachcomber Jamesie Stock ('like a cormorant on a rock, not even a bottle floated ashore but Jamesie's watchful eye floated beside it'). Spanning nine decades of local lore, Kirby tells the history of Ballinskelligs Cable Station; explains the deadly workings of second world war mines; recalls his hard times on the railroads of Depression-era America; and recounts, his and his father's dramatic struggle with a man-eating shark. This volume of memoirs fuses traditional storytelling with the keen observations of a first-class naturalist to create a lyrical vision of a world and a way of life now almost lost.