Ireland Books

This handy little book is the perfect book for anyone planning to travel to the Irish Republic. The book is divided into 16 sections, the cover everything from the fundamentals of traveling in Ireland, through the myths and history of Ireland. The piece de resistance, though is definitely section 16 - Counties of Ireland. This section goes through each of the counties of Ireland - from Carlow to Wicklow - and provides a map, a list of important sites to see, and gives important mythological references to the county.

The one admitted flaw in this book is that it only covers the Irish Republic, and does not discuss Ulster. But, that said, this is a great book, one that is sure to please anyone who is going to the Emerald Isle to see the land of heroes and gods! I love this book and highly recommend it!

With my own Irish heritage, I have always been drawn to stories of Ireland, and wish to one day visit the Emerald Isle. This book is a wonderful guide to help me visit the historic places that interest me most, and will be invaluable in locating just the perfect inns or bed-and-breakfast establishments to make my time in Ireland the best it can be. I really appreciated the history and historical insights, they help to give one a comprehensive overview of the country and its people. This is ONE WONDERFUL BOOK, and anybody who loves Ireland will benefit by reading it. VERY INTERESTING.

This book has inspired me to take my next vacation in Ireland. The reading is easy along with interesting. The color coding of the historical eras and counties make it a great reference for the traveler as well. If you want to learn about Ireland, you have to read this book.

What a wonderful story. This combines history, romance and the future into a compelling story. I really enjoyed this book.

Band of Roses by Pat McDermott is an exciting, masterfully told tale that spans the globe and thousands of years. Skillfully drawn characters spring to life in the form of dashing Irish heroes and a very kick-butt princess who'll win your heart.

Modern day Princess Talty must wed a developmentally delayed King of England for the good of her country. When the wedding goes horribly awry, she picks up the tattered pieces of her life to fashion a new existence isolated from those she loves and depended on.

From the opening scenes, where you'll be squirming in your chair, to the ending chapters, where you'll be on the edge of your seat, you'll be assembling the odd bits of scattered puzzle pieces until the entire picture becomes clear and striking.

The heart of Band of Roses is a tender love story with a satisfying and feel good ending that makes the reader want to stand up and cheer. Kudos to Ms. McDermott for weaving a fanciful tale that seizes the imagination and takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster ride.

This is a fast-paced, action-packed love story set in today's Ireland, but with a twist. This author supposes that kings and queens still rule Ireland to this day. Murder and treason send Crown Princess Talty, the present King Brian's daughter, to strange worlds where she encounters Vikings, desert nomads and romance, and returns home at last with an amazing discovery.

You will not be able to put this book down! I hope she writes a sequel soon!

I love the Osprey series which gives me great basic info on a subject that either quenches the thirst for knowledge or allows me to do further research w/ more expensive/expansive readings. For under $20 you can't beat the info/pics/colour plates on any subject.

Since Dr. Forzyck (who wrote the very well-rounded Toulon: 1793) has covered the details, I'm content to report that The Battle of the Boyne is among Osprey's finest works. It's a gripping account of an interesting conflict that truly enlightened me on the Williamite (I didn't knew that word existed!) War in Ireland.

The maps are wonderful, the two 3-D maps especially (except that some of the action takes place on the book seam...fix that Osprey!!). However, the full-page illustrations number only two and they are not nearly up to Grahm Turner's high standards. To me, it seemed OBVIOUS to have a painting either of Dutch, Danish, or English troops crossing the Boyne, but Turner contented himself with drawing James II approaching the gates of Derry and the death of a Duke. Pah. Its always the bloody nobility and royalty which gets all the drawings!!

The true meat of Boyne: 1690 is its campaign and battle narratives. I truly hope McNally continues to publish with Osprey, being the budding, excellent writer that he is.

Mr. Mcnally, I'm eagerly awaiting Augrhim: 1691!!

There has been a tendency among some reviewers and various professional nay-sayers on the internet to belittle Osprey's Campaign series as superficial and hence, of little value. Amateur historian Michael McNally's Campaign #160, the Battle of the Boyne 1690, should serve as ample justification for the value of this long-running series, which since 1990 has covered dozens of campaigns, and battles that have received scant attention in the recent past. Where else for less than $20 can a reader purchase a volume that includes color maps, order of battle data, a bibliography, capsule biographies, etc on such a wide range of military history? While the quality of individual volumes has varied, the series has improved over time and many volumes do in fact provide more than just a rehash of other secondary sources. McNally's Battle of the Boyne, which offers a very detailed look into a battle that has otherwise often just been glossed over, signifies the value of this series.

Since the background to the Boyne Campaign was rather complex, McNally provides a 7-page introduction, followed by 18 pages on the events leading up to the battle. The section on opposing commanders provides excellent capsule biographies of the key leaders and readers should enjoy the information and color uniform plates in the opposing armies section. Indeed, McNally does an excellent job outlining the strengths and weaknesses of both sides and shows that competent writers who know how to synthesize can pack a lot of data into a small package. A section on opposing plans also provides insight into the Williamite and Jacobite strategies. The strength of this volume also lies in its excellent graphic quality, with excellent maps and color plates. The five 2-D maps include the military situation in Ireland, January - June 1689; the siege of Derry; the military situation in Ireland, July - December 1689; the Battle of the Boyne; the Boyne campaign and its aftermath, June-July 1690. The two 3-D BEV maps are the Williamite attack and the Jacobite collapse at the Battle of the Boyne. The two color battle scenes are King James before the dates of Kerry; the death of the Duke of Schomberg. In addition, the author provides an excellent order of battle, a detailed campaign chronology and a lengthy bibliography.

The author's narrative of the actual Battle of the Boyne consists of 24 pages. Like most Americans who read European history, my knowledge of the Battle was fairly superficial and tended to encompass the Williamite view that the battle was a foregone conclusion (remember, victors write the history). However, McNally demonstrates that the Jacobite position, while desperate, was far from doomed and the battle was a hard-fought engagement that could have gone either way. Indeed, McNally's narrative is marked by an even-handed approach that provides perspectives from both sides. While some readers may complain that the military analysis herein is minimal (for example, the role of Williamite artillery in the battle), the author succeeds in detailing the Williamite envelopment, the confused Jacobite response and the climax of the battle. My only disappointment with this volume was the omission of any attempt to assess the total casualties suffered by each side in the battle - which makes it hard for the reader to assess how "decisive" a win this really was for the Williamites, since of course, the war in Ireland lasted for another year. While I understand that exact data was probably unavailable, I would have appreciated an educated guess by the author. By the time that I finished, the author had succeeded in changing my impression of the campaign and redefining my views on this phase of Anglo-Irish history - not bad for a volume just shy of 100 pages.

In Becoming Criminal, with remarkable ingenuity, Reynolds develops and demonstrates an original, purposeful, and conscientious critical approach, what he calls "transversal theory," that is simultaneously poststructuralist, performance-oriented, humanist, and materialist (the book teems with evidence from early modern texts of all genres: plays, pamphlets, poems, state documents, and personal letters). In effect, Reynolds' work is at the cutting edge of the next generation of literary-critical-performance studies, and thus Becoming Criminal may be as important to the next twenty years of early modern studies as Stephen Greenblatt's Renaissance Self-Fashioning has been to the last twenty. But Reynolds's "transversal poetics," I predict, will not just replace the new historicism as the dominant critical paradigm; it will continue to be a major influence well beyond the next two decades, especially given that its methodology is subsuming (manifesting and expanding on much of what the new historicism had to offer), processual (self-aware and open-ended), and necessitates evolution in response to both the changing environments through which the transversal critic travels and the various subject matters she/he pursues. As Reynolds' transversal slogan emphasizes, "Become what you aren't."

I never thought that a book about criminal culture in early modern England would help me to change my own life. I bought the book because I am a historian, but ended up reading the book as a self-help book. Reynolds develops a theory of identity formation and social history that he calls "transversal theory." While reading the book, I came to realize that everything he talks about, except the crimnal stuff, relates to me and my life. Having minority status on a number of levels, and therefore constantly scrambling for agancy and affirmation, I immediately took to Reynolds' ideas. He supplies not only a methodology for academic reasearch, but also for negotiating one's life within their social worlds. By showing me how I came to be subjectified, and how sociopolitical conductors work to constrain me, and by demonstrating how I can become what I'm not as a means by which to become what I am such that the worlds around me comes to respect and celebrate my differences; and, most importantly, by providing me with both the theory and method by which to become whatever I want, Reynolds has inspired me in ways I never imagined possible. In many ways, this is a manifesto for improvemnt through alternative thought and social performance. For me, Reynolds is like an Emerson for everyone today looking to be more self-reliant and to grow in unexpected, creative, and life-inspiring ways. The book is also a fine work of social history, about the relationships among crimnals, space, language, and theater in the time of Shakespeare.

Becoming Criminal: Transversal Performance and Cultural Dissidence in Early Modern England is revolutionary for many reasons and will contribute invaluably to research in the humanities. The big word of the last twenty years has been "interdisciplinarity," and, in my opinion, it has not produced the kinds of studies it implies. While there have been theoretical and methodological cross-fertilization within the humanities, arts, social sciences, and natural sciences, the borders between these fields are rarely self-consciously traversed. Such traversing of borders is among the many things that distinguishes Reynolds' transversal approach -- a theoretical framework he initiated in his 1997 Theatre Journal article, "The Devil's House, `or worse': Transversal Power and Antitheatrical Discourse in Early Modern England," that is now taught in all theatre theory and performance theory courses. The fact that Becoming Criminal is truly cross-disciplinary and theoretically-driven in both scope and methodology, and thus important to scholarship in a number of fields (literary criticism, history, sociology, linguistics, semiotics, cultural studies, performance studies, and critical theory) greatly distinguishes it from other books on the representation of rogues, vagabonds, and gypsies in early modern English literature. This book has been hugely helpful to me, someone who is currently writing a book on the dramatic and literary representation of highwaymen in the long 18th century. (Look for it in 2006!)

I was delighted to read Walter Ellis's book and have since passed it on to several friends. All agree that it is beautifully written and shows Ellis as a master of his craft, both as storyteller and narrator. I just wish more people had the opportunity to share it as it is a book which will touch the heart regardless of whether or not you have lived or visited Ulster during that period. It is refreshing also to read the Protestant view of the troubles seen, as it were, at first hand. Interesting also, as a female, to view the world through his eyes. I laughed and I cried for these are times which will never be seen again. I, for one, would love to read the sequel.

Elaine Somers

A terrific book. I agree with Mr Moore. It can be read on many levels: as a description of childhood and the challenges of the teenage years and early adulthood; as a treatise on friendship; as a rites of passage, without the glibness of Hollywood, and as an examination of The Troubles. I recommend it wholeheartedly. My only criticism is of Amazon, who do not appear to have not priced it. I had to order the book direct from the publishers in Scotland. This is a pity as it deserves to be available easily to readers in the States.

This is a terrific book. Deftly written, it is funny, moving, provocative and informative. It describes the author's upbringing in Belfast as the city descended into the violence known as 'The Troubles.' Although outsiders saw this essentially as sectarian, of Catholics against Protestants, Ellis describes a more complex situation, where Protestants could also oppose the division of Ireland and the allegiance of the north to the Crown. His friend Ronnie Bunting, a Protestant like Ellis, symbolised this complexity. Bunting joined a fanatical Republican group and became a ruthless terrorist, responsible for many deaths, including the murder of one Mrs Thatcher's favourite supporters. Ellis's relationship with Bunting dominates the book. Ellis struggled through childhood and his teenage years to break free of Bunting, which he knew he had to do. Only as a young adult embarking on what became a successful career as a journalist did he succeed. By now Bunting was doomed. He was later shot in his home in Belfast by masked men, whom Ellis believes were probably British special forces. This is a book about growing up, family, friendship, ambition and Ireland. I recommend it without reservation.

One of the best books on this murky period. The author's format is to put a microscope on a pivotal event in each country that was an important player in the development of European politics and policies which paved the way to WW2. These re-shaped Europe's will and ability to resist Hitler in the 5 short years from 1933-38. I like that he uses these to develop the shades of complexity of the situation, not to package everything up in a neat, simple explanation.

Examples:
FRANCE. 1933. In the Stavisky Affair and the "twilight of the third republic" yet another emanation of anti-semitism leads to several changes of government and a precarious balance between strong leftists and rightists who bring their grievances into bloody or threatened conflicts in the streets.

AUSTRIA. 1934. Socialists and fascists struggled for control of the ruins of the Hapsburg empire center. Fascists conduct a terror campaign eerily similar to Hamas or Hezbollah, and a bloody civil war followed.

ENGLAND. 1936. The Jarrow crusade shows how the country's democratic institutions and ideas of how to address grievances operate in stark contrast to the rise of strong men and civil war on the continent.

SOVIET UNION. 1933-38. "The revolution eats its children" as endless purges emasculated the army and made the country vulnerable to invasion. Duplicitous Stalin publicly demonized Hitler while cunningly working behind the shadows to be his ally.

And on it goes with Spain, Italy and Czechoslovakia. By the 1938 Munich conference we've seen a continent exhausted and still suffering the economic and psychological effects of the horribly mismanaged WW1. Governments have changed hands and most stand on shaky footing. Alliances are shifting. Everyone is tired of war except Hitler who is chomping at the bit. Historians dispute the interpretation of the Munich appeasement. It's clear that, while it bought everyone more "breathing space" to repair military deficiences, that Germany "breathed deeper."

The speed of re-positioning alliances should be instructive for us all. Highly recommended reading.

A fantastic and well-written book about the events leading up to WWII. Excellent information for a mere 425 pages!

As a history major, I've read and seen my fair share of books used as texts. This one is a really good one required for my "Age of Dictators" course. It's easy to read and it's really, really interesting. Professor Large appears to be an excellent writer and historian. I am looking forward to reading more of his works.

I actually had to read this for an MA class in history and it's definitely a textbook of the Tudor and Stuart time period but it wasn't as dry as I had expected it to be, thanks to Mr. Cressy's amazing writing ability. But it is thoroughly researched and offers up very important conclusions about the social life of the Tudor/Stuart period and anyone who wants the recent and best literature on the subject should read this book.

I've just finished writing a series of books about life in Elizabethan England, and this book was invaluable to me in my research. It is full of interesting details about how people in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England approached and experienced the major transition points of the life cycle. I would have read and enjoyed Birth, Marriage, and Death even if I had not needed it as a reference, and I would heartily recommend it to any reader who wants to get a feel for this time period.

Most historical books of this sort are amazingly dry; this one is not. Mr. Cressy has done a huge amount of research, and the text is peppered with primary source quotations. I now have a real feel for what these experiences were like in Tudor & Stuart England. I plan to buy whatever other material Mr. Cressy has written--I found him an easy, extremely informative read.

Horrox has collected and translated dozens of first-hand accounts of the Black Death of 1348 - 1350. The first quarter of the book is comprised of narrative accounts of the arrival and devastation of the plague, from its arrival in Italy to its spread into Britain. The middle half shows the various responses (medical, religious and scientific) to the mortality, the final quarter of the book examining its reprocussions.

All of the accounts presented here are from eye-witnessess to the terrible virulence and mortality of the Black Death. Although the majority of the documents are from Britain, there is a tremendous amount of similarity among them - the fear, shock, sadness and sense of fatalism as the disease ravaged Europe and the panic and social and economic dislocation that resulted. As a historian, I was fascinated; lay readers will almost certainly be similarly riveted by these accounts and the eerily familiar tone of the voices.

From 1348 to 1350 Europe was devastated by an epidemic that left between one third and one half of the population dead. Using contemporary writings, this collection of sources traces the calamitous impact of the Black Death in Europe, with particular emphasis on its spread across England from 1348 to 1349. Rosemary Horrox surveys contemporary responses to the plague. The almost universal belief that the plague was an expression of divine anger at the sins of humankind did not preclude the attempts to explain the epidemic in scientific and medical terms or to look for human scapegoats. The sources which are included show some of the social and psychological impact of the plague, chronicle its effects on the late-medieval economy, and illustrate the fear that spread with the disease as well as the diverse ways that such terror influenced social behavior.

Part One focuses on narrative accounts of the plague in Continental Europe and in the British Isles. Part Two examines explanations and responses to the plague, including religious and scientific. Part Three deals with the extraordinary consequences of the plague, its impact and repercussions. Finally the text ends with excellent and up-to-date suggestions for further reading.

Dr. Horrox's text is the most extensive collection of relevant sources in translation and is an invaluable addition to the field. This book should be a part of the personal collection of every serious student of the Medieval period.

I agree with the excellent review already listed here, but I would like to add that the value of the book for a more casual reader (like myself) is having the opportunity to read the reactions to and observation of the plague by people who lived through this terrible period. The reality of their words heightened the reality of the period for me. It is true that some parts of the book were a bit too dense for me (some of the allusions went right over my head), but the rest of the book provides a wonderful insight into the minds and souls of real human beings who still have much to say to those of us living centuries later. Highly recommended--and not just for scholars.

One of my two-year-old's top 5 picks--he sits through the whole thing, then says "Again!" I'm happy to acquiesce, since the story's spiritual beauty is multi-layered and just as soothing to my own soul.

This book is a wonderful combination of eloquent prose and beautiful art. Schroedel's interpretation of Saint Kevin is both inspring and well adapted for children. Our child loves it and loves identifying things in the pictures. Definitely an attention grabber for children, yet meaningful for adults too.

The Blackbird's Nest by Jenny Schroedel is a children's picturebook that brings to life the story of one of Ireland's most beloved saints. Set around the time of A.D. 618, it follows the experiences of a young man who loves animals and even seems to understand their secret language. But other children bring out the worst in Kevin, and he is prone to bullying. One day though, Kevin learns a tranforming lesson from a most unlikely teacher: a blackbird. Captivatingly illustrated by Doug Montross in full color and with strong overtones of realism and facial expression, The Blackbird's Nest is very highly recommended reading.

Covers all facets of Irish life interpreted in verse. Humorous or serious, from antiquity to present, this book will open the the entire spectrum of Irish life for you to enjoy.

This book was just wonderful. Being a Celt by blood, I was inspired by these wonderful works included in this collection. I hope that there will be more of this kind of compilations that will continue to come out.

This anthology, selected and introduced by John Montague, begins with ancient Irish poetry and takes the reader mid-way through the 20th century. We begin with "The First Invasion of Ireland," from The Book of Invasions, and move on to some of the beautiful chants and incantations of Amergin, the chief bard of the Milesians: "I am a stag: of seven tines/I am a flood: across a plain/ I am a wind: on a deep lake/I am a tear: the Sun lets fall. . ." These ancient selections provide some of the best pagan Celtic reading I've come across.

Montague then guides us through some writings of the early monastics, such as "Marban, A Hermit Speaks: Young of all things, /bring faith to me,/ guard my door:/ the rough, unloved/ wild dogs, tall deer,/ quiet does." These writings give one the sense of a people so intimately interwoven into natural patterns and rhythms that there is no feeling of separation from Nature.

All the early selections of course are translated from the Gaelic, and we do not get into the poems written in English until later. According to Montague's excellent introduction, most poets composed in their native tongue until the nineteenth century, at which point most began writing in English. "Irish literature in English is in the uneasy position that the larger part of its past lies in another language," writes Montague. Thus we read in Montague's own poem "A Grafted Tongue: (Dumb,/ Bloodied, the severed/ head now chokes to/ speak another tongue:--"

But even before the use of Gaelic was waning, Irish culture was being systematically crushed by the British occupiers. The war against Ireland's native culture began before Elizabethan times. Thus, in the later poets Montague finds "a racial sensibility striving to be reborn; is it strange that it comes through with a mournful sound, like a medium's wail?": "I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night;/ I went to the window to see the sight;/ All the Dead that ever I knew/ Going one by one and two by two. . ." (William Allingham (1824-1889).

Even in the later poets of Christianized Ireland, who write in English, the pagan past is never quite obscured. Patrick MacDonogh (1902-1961) writes in "Now the Holy Lamp of Love: "Cradling hands are all too small/And your hair is drenched with dew;/ Love though strong can build no wall/ From the hungry fox for you." And Denis Devlin (1908-1959) writes in "Ascension" of a visionary experience of blinding light. He begins with "Aengus, the god of Love, my shoulders brushed/With birds, you could say lark or thrush or thieves. . ./" but moves on to "For it was God's Son foreign to our moor:/ When I looked out the window, all was white,/And what's beloved in the heart was sure,. . ."

In so many of these poems there is beauty, grace, and felicity, juxtaposed with suffering and sometimes bitterness. Contemporary poet Paul Muldoon (born 1951) writes in "Dancers At the Moy" of horses who tore "at briars and whins,/ Ate the flesh of each other/Like people in famine. . .The local people gathered/Up the white skeletons./Horses buried for years/Under the foundations/Give their earthen floors/The ease of trampolines." Here, suffering and loss become the foundation for continued life.

A complex national character manifests through these poems. Reading them, we see the English language being borne into new poetic realms by a nation for whom English is "a grafted tongue." A wonderful book.