Irish History

During a Biblical seven years in the middle of the nineteenth century, fully a quarter of Ireland's citizens either perished from starvation or emigrated in what came to be known...

Encompassing stories of some of Ireland's best known characters as well as key moments in Ireland's past, this pocket history recalls the country's struggles through dark times, its successes, its...

The Number One BestsellerShortlisted for the Irish Book Awards 2021'A great achievement . . . Brilliant, engaging and essential' Colm Toibin'At once intimate and epic, this is a landmark book'...

In this gripping memoir, Eugene Reavey takes readers on a harrowing journey through the darkest chapter of his life during the Northern Ireland Troubles. Reavey relives the tragic night in...

A true story of murder and vengeance, a shattered community and a miscarriage of justice that echoes down the decadesOctober 1971. Nineteen-year-old Una Lynskey vanishes near her home in Co....

On 19 January 1947 Ireland was invaded by a "freakish" anticyclonic weather phenomenon that lasted for two months. The arctic siege brought freezing temperatures of -14 Degrees Centigrade (7 DegreesF),...

Just after Christmas in 1973, Thomas Niedermayer, manager of Grundig's Northern Ireland factory, was bundled into a car outside his home in West Belfast. He was never seen alive again...

Joseph Mary Plunkett (1887-1916) from Dublin was one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, the designer of the military plan and the youngest signatory of the Proclamation. A recognised...

A PEOPLE'S PORTRAIT OF A PERIOD OF MOMENTOUS CHANGE IN IRISH HISTORY.Independence Memories is a fascinating social history, from living and inherited memory, of the period surrounding Irish Independence and...

A Place Apart is a remarkable geographical and psychological travelogue that rises above history, politics, theology and economics. Created by a southern Irishwoman, cycling into the mayhem of Northern Ireland...

This book explores the Skelligs, Ireland's most dramatic and beautiful Atlantic islands, and focuses particularly on Skellig Michael, a famous UNESCO World Heritage Site. It considers why the construction of...

An accessible overview of Ireland's War of Independence, 1919-21. From the first shooting of RIC constables in Soloheadbeg, Co Tipperary, on 21 January 1919 to the truce in July 1921,...

Twenty years on from her critically acclaimed book, Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People, Susan McKay talks again to the people she 'uneasily' called 'her own', those from a Protestant background...

This book follows the course of the Irish Civil War in Kerry, July & August 1922. With notes on the brief period of confrontation when Free State troops were all...

The true story of one of the biggest bank heists in Irish and British history - and the questions that remain.On a Sunday evening in December 2004, two young men...

'...the most important book to be published in Ireland in the past 10 years.' Irish IndependentThe State's industrial schools were a 'Gulag' or prison system for children. The regimes were...

Ferriter covers such subjects as abortion, pregnancy, celibacy, contraception, censorship, infanticide, homosexuality, prostitution, marriage, popular culture, social life and the various hidden Irelands associated with sexual abuse - all in...

'I am truly grateful to Mary Elmes for the life I might not have had, had it not been for her brave actions to save us and many others. She...

From late 1994 to June 1997 Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left were a coalition government led by John Bruton, arguably the most left-wing government in the history of the...

This is a new edition of Emmet O'Connor's classic and pioneering work on Irish labour history, providing an introduction for the general reader and a synopsis for the specialist. The...

The Emergency in Colour brings wartime Ireland to life in dramatic colour.Through extensive research, the photos presented here have been painstakingly hand-colourised by photographer John O'Byrne, showing what life on...

Ireland is a strikingly different country now to the one it was in the mid-1990s. Dramatic economic, social and cultural changes, including the Celtic Tiger boom and increasingly secular debate...

This comprehensive directory lists historic locations in Dublin on a street-by-street basis, describing events during the tumultuous decade from the 1913 Dublin Lockout, through the 1916 Easter Rising and Irish...

As I shall embark in a business, within a few days, the event of which is uncertain, I take the opportunity of a vacant hour to throw on paper a...

Uncover the gripping narrative of Irish immigrants who transformed America in the aftermath of the Great Hunger. Tyler Anbinder's landmark work exposes the grit and resilience of the Famine Irish,...

Pioneering human rights campaigner, patriot, romantic, traitor, LGBTQ+ martyr: this is the story of Roger Casement, one of the 20th century's most complex and compelling figures.'Minutely researched, superbly written, genuinely...

'A truly page-turning, compulsive and also profoundly moving narrative. Superb.' JAMES HOLLAND'Gripping, urgent, superbly reported and brilliantly written' DAN JONES'A gripping and pacey book that reads like a thriller. I...

New edition of this bestselling and laugh out loud humour title.The almost incomprehensible wit and wonder of Irish slang words.Can you tell your bowsies from your gougers from your gurriers?...

Offering a unique insight into the habitual inebriate offender class in Ireland, this book examines the inebriate reformatory system in Ireland from its foundation in 1900 until its closure in...

Major John MacBride, who was Born in Westport, County Mayo in 1868, was a household name in Ireland when many of the leaders of the Easter Rising were still relatively...

On Saturday night 22 April 1916, a tense meeting in Dublin went on into the small hours to decide whether or not the Easter Rising would go ahead. Present at...

Maire Nic Shiubhlaigh was a founder actress of the Abbey Theatre and its first leading lady on its opening in 1904, when she played the title role in W. B....

The conflict in Northern Ireland was one of the most devastating in post-war Europe, claiming the lives of 3,500 people and injuring many more. This book is a riveting new...

18 November, 1741. George Frideric Handel, one of the world's greatest composers, arrives in Dublin - the second city of the Empire - to prepare his masterpiece, Messiah, for its...

From the dawn of history to the decline of the Celtic Tiger - how Ireland has been shaped over the centuries.Ireland has been shaped by many things over the centuries:...