Download or read book How the Irish Saved Civilization written by Thomas Cahill and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2010-04-28 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A book in the best tradition of popular history—the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. • The perfect St. Patrick's Day gift! Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent history of civilization. Not only did he bring Christianity to Ireland, he instilled a sense of literacy and learning that would create the conditions that allowed Ireland to become "the isle of saints and scholars"—and thus preserve Western culture while Europe was being overrun by barbarians. In this entertaining and compelling narrative, Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization -- copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were forever lost—they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. As Cahill delightfully illustrates, so much of the liveliness we associate with medieval culture has its roots in Ireland. When the seeds of culture were replanted on the European continent, it was from Ireland that they were germinated. In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, How The Irish Saved Civilization reconstructs an era that few know about but which is central to understanding our past and our cultural heritage. But it conveys its knowledge with a winking wit that aptly captures the sensibility of the unsung Irish who relaunched civilization.
Download or read book Ireland and the Irish written by Karl S. Bottigheimer and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: -- Choice
Download or read book Life in Ireland written by Conor W. O'Brien and published by Merrion Press. This book was released on 2021-04-22 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of life in Ireland – a story half a billion years in the making. With its castles, crannogs and passage tombs, Ireland is a land where history looms large, but the saga of life on this island dates back millions of years before the first people set foot here. In Life in Ireland, Conor O’Brien guides the reader on a journey around the island to explore the history of natural life here, from the Jurassic Coast of Antrim to the great Ice Age bone-beds of Cork. Along the way, we’ll meet some of the astonishing creatures to have called Ireland home through the ages: shelled monsters; huge marine lizards; armoured dinosaurs; giant deer; mighty mammoths. Vital strands in the story of life on Earth have left their mark here, including some of the first creatures to crawl onto land or take to the wing. This epic journey will take us from the first fossils to the present day, to see how our wildlife has adapted to the human age and explore what the future might hold for life in Ireland.
Download or read book Inside the Room written by Eamon Gilmore and published by Merrion Press. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: March 2011: Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore have just formed a coalition government between Fine Gael and Labour. Ireland’s banks are broken, unemployment is heading for half a million, the public finances are in deficit, international lenders rate Ireland as ‘junk’ and the country is in an IMF bailout. As Tánaiste in the new Coalition, Eamon Gilmore was at the heart of every major economic decision taken during his term, and as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade was primarily responsible for restoring Ireland’s international reputation and trade connections. In his extraordinary political memoir of these dramatic and turbulent times, Eamon Gilmore writes frankly about the political price the Labour Party has paid for some of their choices, reflects on the circumstances that led to his own resignation and assesses the prospects for Ireland’s continued recovery, including the risks which could yet blow Ireland’s economy off course.
Download or read book Ireland s Master Storyteller written by Éamon Kelly and published by Mercier Press Ltd. This book was released on 1998 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wonderful collection of some of the best stories by this master writer.
Download or read book Malachy McCourt s History of Ireland written by Malachy McCourt and published by Running Press. This book was released on 2004-09-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the successful tradition of Thomas Cahill's modern-day classic, How the Irish Saved Civilization, here is an authoritative and completely engaging one-volume account of Irish history by County Limerick native, gifted storyteller, and bestselling author Malachy McCourt. Its pages are populated with figures from myth, legend, ancient history, and current events, from Cu Chulainn and Brian Boru to Oliver Cromwell, James Joyce, Lady Gregory, Gerry Adams, and Sinead O'Connor—some beloved, some controversial, but all with an undeniable influence on the course of Irish history and in turn, the history of the modern world. McCourt proves an irresistible guide on this vivid tour through the colorful and turbulent history of the Emerald Isle, from the Celtic settlements, through Viking and British occupations, modern troubles and struggle for independence. He also offers fresh insights on the country's cultural contributions to folklore, literature, art, music, and cuisine.
Download or read book Ireland s Immortals written by Mark Williams and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping history of Ireland's native gods, from Iron Age cult and medieval saga to the Celtic Revival and contemporary fiction Ireland’s Immortals tells the story of one of the world’s great mythologies. The first account of the gods of Irish myth to take in the whole sweep of Irish literature in both the nation’s languages, the book describes how Ireland’s pagan divinities were transformed into literary characters in the medieval Christian era—and how they were recast again during the Celtic Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A lively narrative of supernatural beings and their fascinating and sometimes bizarre stories, Mark Williams’s comprehensive history traces how these gods—known as the Túatha Dé Danann—have shifted shape across the centuries. We meet the Morrígan, crow goddess of battle; the fire goddess Brigit, who moonlights as a Christian saint; the fairies who inspired J.R.R. Tolkien’s elves; and many others. Ireland’s Immortals illuminates why these mythical beings have loomed so large in the world’s imagination for so long.
Download or read book Ireland Says Yes written by Gráinne Healy and published by Merrion Press. This book was released on 2015-11-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At 7.20pm on 23rd May 2015, in the courtyard of Dublin Castle, Ireland truly became a nation of equals. Ireland Says Yes is the fast-paced narrative account of all the drama, excitement and highs and lows of the last 100 days of the extraordinary campaign for a Yes vote in the 2015 Marriage Equality Referendum. Those who led the Yes Equality campaign tell the inside story of how the referendum was won, and how Ireland’s two principal gay and lesbian rights organisations put together the most effective and successful civic society campaign ever launched in Irish politics. As well as a drama-packed chronological account of how the Yes campaign was executed, the book explores how social media mobilised a new generation of voters to the polls and how political parties, student unions and youth groups co-ordinated their efforts to deliver one of the most historic referendum results in Irish political history.
Download or read book Suffer the Little Children written by Mary Raftery and published by Burns & Oates. This book was released on 2002-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Up until the late sixties in Ireland, thousands of young children were sent to what were called industrial schools, financed by the Department of Education, and operated by various religious orders of the Catholic Church. Popular belief held that these schools were orphanages or detention centers, when in reality most of the children ended up at the schools because their parents were too poor to care for them. Mary Raftery's award-winning three-part TV series on the industrial schools, States of Fear, shocked Ireland when broadcast on RTE in 1999, prompting an unprecedented response in Ireland-hundreds of people phoned RTE, spoke on radio stations and wrote to newspapers to share their own memories of their local industrial schools. Pages of newsprint were devoted to the issues raised by the series, and on the 11th of May, the airdate of the final segment of the trilogy, the Taoiseach issued an historic apology on behalf of the state to the victims of child abuse within the system. Now, together with Dr. Eoin O'Sullivan, Raftery delves even further into this horrifying chapter of Irish life, revealing for the first time new information from official Department of Education files not accessible during the making of the documentaries. It contains much new material, including startling research showing a level of awareness of child sexual abuse going back over sixty years, particularly within the Christian Brothers. The dissection of these official records, detailing sexual abuse, starvation, physical abuse, and neglect, together with extensive testimony from those who grew up in industrial schools convey both the extraordinary levels of cruelty and suffering experienced by these children, and their tremendous courage and resilience in surviving the often savage
Download or read book Ireland written by Joseph Coohill and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-08-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first prehistoric inhabitants of the island to the Windsor Framework for Northern Ireland, this uniquely concise account of Ireland and its people reveals how modern Irish society is the product of a rich, multivalent history. Combining factual information with a critical approach, Coohill covers all the key events, including the Great Famine, Home Rule, the Good Friday Agreement and Brexit. Newly revised and updated, this highly accessible and balanced account will continue to provide a valuable resource to all those wishing to acquaint themselves further with the complex history of Ireland and Irish people.
Download or read book Coolmore Stud written by Alan Conway and published by Mercier Press Ltd. This book was released on 2017-02-17 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nestled in a quiet part of County Tipperary, Coolmore Stud casts as long a shadow as any sporting entity over the history of Irish sport. Founded by the legendary horse trainer Vincent O'Brien, and now managed by John Magnier, Coolmore Stud has grown from a small breeding farm into a global behemoth, renowned the world over for the quality of the horses it produces. Alan Conway tells the story of how Coolmore Stud and its training operation at Ballydoyle have come to dominate the world of horse breeding and racing. Using the stories of the people involved, including the legendary Syndicate of Magnier, O'Brien and Robert Sangster, and of the famous horses it has produced, such as the legendary Sadler's Wells, his sons Galileo and Montjeu, and the mighty Danehill, this book charts the rise of one of Ireland's greatest sporting success stories.
Download or read book Ireland s Forgotten Past A History of the Overlooked and Disremembered written by Turtle Bunbury and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume delves into Ireland’s forgotten history bringing to light some of the most colorful characters and intriguing episodes of the country’s long history. Ireland is approximately the size of the state of Indiana, yet this small country boasts an extensive, rich, and fascinating history. Ireland’s Forgotten Past is an alternative history that covers 13,000 years in 36 stories that are often left out of history books. Among the characters in these absorbing accounts are a pair of ill- fated prehistoric chieftains, a psychopathic Viking, a gallant Norman knight, a dazzling English traitor, an ingenious tailor, an outstanding war-horse, a brothel queen, an insanely prolific sculptor, and a randy prince. This volume offers a succinct account of the Stone Age and Bronze Age, as well as insights into the Bell-Beakers, the Romans, and the Knights Templar. Historian Turtle Bunbury writes a gently off-beat take on monumental events like the Wars of the Roses, the Tudor Conquest and the Battle of the Boyne, as well as the Home Rule campaign and the Great War. Ireland’s Forgotten Past adds color to the existing histories of the country by focusing on the unique characters and intriguing events. This volume will delight anyone interested in the rich untold history of Ireland.
Download or read book The Irish Game written by Matthew Hart and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2004-05-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Meticulously researched, clearly written, completely engrossing . . . the work of a talented author." --"Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel"
Download or read book Ireland s Story written by Charles Johnston and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Banished Babies written by Mike Milotte and published by New Island Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of a baby traffic organized by nuns, sanctioned by an archbishop, administered by civil servants and approved by politicians - all of whose main concern was secrecy. Mike Milotte's damning expose of Church-State collusion in banishing thousands of vulnerable 'illegitimate' children from Ireland in the 1950s and 60s
Download or read book Say Nothing written by Patrick Radden Keefe and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SOON TO BE AN FX LIMITED SERIES STREAMING ON HULU • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. "Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review "Reads like a novel ... Keefe is ... a master of narrative nonfiction. . .An incredible story."—Rolling Stone A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, and more! Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.
Download or read book We Don t Know Ourselves A Personal History of Modern Ireland written by Fintan O'Toole and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 788 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES • 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR NATIONAL BESTSELLER The Atlantic: 10 Best Books of 2022 Best Books of the Year: Washington Post, New Yorker, Salon, Foreign Affairs, New Statesman, Chicago Public Library, Vroman's “[L]ike reading a great tragicomic Irish novel.” —James Wood, The New Yorker “Masterful . . . astonishing.” —Cullen Murphy, The Atlantic "A landmark history . . . Leavened by the brilliance of O'Toole's insights and wit.” —Claire Messud, Harper’s Winner • 2021 An Post Irish Book Award — Nonfiction Book of the Year • from the judges: “The most remarkable Irish nonfiction book I’ve read in the last 10 years”; “[A] book for the ages.” A celebrated Irish writer’s magisterial, brilliantly insightful chronicle of the wrenching transformations that dragged his homeland into the modern world. Fintan O’Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government—in despair, because all the young people were leaving—opened the country to foreign investment and popular culture. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity. In We Don’t Know Ourselves, O’Toole, one of the Anglophone world’s most consummate stylists, weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary “backwater” to an almost totally open society—perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. Born to a working-class family in the Dublin suburbs, O’Toole served as an altar boy and attended a Christian Brothers school, much as his forebears did. He was enthralled by American Westerns suddenly appearing on Irish television, which were not that far from his own experience, given that Ireland’s main export was beef and it was still not unknown for herds of cattle to clatter down Dublin’s streets. Yet the Westerns were a sign of what was to come. O’Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish, women in particular. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism. In O’Toole’s telling, America became a lodestar, from John F. Kennedy’s 1963 visit, when the soon-to-be martyred American president was welcomed as a native son, to the emergence of the Irish technology sector in the late 1990s, driven by American corporations, which set Ireland on the path toward particular disaster during the 2008 financial crisis. A remarkably compassionate yet exacting observer, O’Toole in coruscating prose captures the peculiar Irish habit of “deliberate unknowing,” which allowed myths of national greatness to persist even as the foundations were crumbling. Forty years in the making, We Don’t Know Ourselves is a landmark work, a memoir and a national history that ultimately reveals how the two modes are entwined for all of us.
