About this item
Highlights
- Through sources ranging from ancient forsundun (praise songs) and the hero kings to newspaper accounts, public decrees, and even graffiti, this book offers vivid portraits of major events and everyday life in Ireland through the centuries-beginning with Golamh, the legendary leader of the band of Iberian Celts who settled the island more than three thousand years ago, and concluding with gripping accounts by those on both sides of the bloody civil conflict in Northern Ireland.
- About the Author: PETER BERRESFORD ELLIS, from an old Cork family, took his degrees in Celtic Studies and was recently acclaimed as "the pre-eminent Celtic Scholar now writing" (Times Educational Supplement).
- 312 Pages
- History, Europe
Description
Book Synopsis
Through sources ranging from ancient forsundun (praise songs) and the hero kings to newspaper accounts, public decrees, and even graffiti, this book offers vivid portraits of major events and everyday life in Ireland through the centuries-beginning with Golamh, the legendary leader of the band of Iberian Celts who settled the island more than three thousand years ago, and concluding with gripping accounts by those on both sides of the bloody civil conflict in Northern Ireland.From the Back Cover
Ollamh Fodhla, fierce in valour,Marked out the Scholar's Rampart,
The first mighty king with grace
Who convened the Festival of Tara.
Fifty years, it was tuneful fame,
Was he in the High Kingship over Ireland
So that from him, with fortunate freedom,
Ulaidh [Ulster] received its name.
He died a natural death within his capital.
-Lebor Gabala Erenn (Book of Invasions)
"I have often said, and written, it is Famine which must consume them (the Irish); our swords and other endeavours work not that speedy effect which is expected, for their overthrow."
-Lord Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy, November 22, 1601
Written to Lord Burghley, chief adviser to Queen Elizabeth I
"In O'Connell Street large groups of people were gathered together. From the flagstaff pole on top of the General Post Office, the GPO, floated a new flag, a tricolour one of green, white and orange, the colours running out from the mast. 'What's it all about?' I asked a man who stood near me, a scowl on his face. 'Those boyhoes, [sic] the Volunteers, have seized the Post Office. They want nothing less than a Republic, ' he laughed scornfully. 'They've killed some Lancers; but they'll soon run away when the soldiers come.' "
-Ernie O'Malley
On Another Man's Wound, London, 1936
Review Quotes
* "This splendid book is an antidote to the antinationalist revisionism..." (Irish Democrat, Oct/Nov 2004)
"Unsurprisingly there is an awful lot of gunpowder, rapiers, pikes, musket balls and more recent technologies of killing..." (Belfast Telegraph, 8 May 2004)
"... a goldmine of information... As a starting point for students and the general reader, this book can't be criticised." (The Herald (Glasgow), 1 May 2004)
About the Author
PETER BERRESFORD ELLIS, from an old Cork family, took his degrees in Celtic Studies and was recently acclaimed as "the pre-eminent Celtic Scholar now writing" (Times Educational Supplement). As well as his popular books on the ancient Celts, he is the author of many notable Irish histories, including History of the Irish Working Class; Hell or Connaught!: The Cromwellian Colonization of Ireland 1652--1660; The Boyne Water: The Battle of the Boyne, 1690; A Dictionary of Irish Mythology; and Erin's Blood Royal. Under his own name he was the author of a bestselling novel The Rising of the Moon, about the Irish Republican Brotherhood's 1866 attempt to invade Canada. Under the pseudonym of Peter Tremayne, he is best known for his internationally bestselling Sister Fidelma mystery series set in seventh- century Ireland. He lives in London.