Irish History

In 1926 Éamon de Valera founded Fianna Fáil, the most powerful political party in Ireland for much of the past century. His early life was a story of stark rearing and thwarted ambitions that led to him to gamble his wife and chil…

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 that meeting were Padraig Pearse, Tomas MacDonagh, Joseph Plunkett and S…

Since earliest times, humanity has adapted and harnessed natural resources to produce what is needed for daily life, developing production and manufacturing processes of varying complexity to meet different circumstances. A number…

An Irish Food Story looks at history, culture and identity in Ireland through 100 foods. From farmhouse cheese to Findus Crispy Pancakes and everything in between, Jp McMahon shows that we truly are what we eat. It’s a story about…

From the author's extensive collection given to Trinity College in 1996, 105 caricatures, political and social, have been selected that poke fun at the Irish during London's golden age of caricature. Some of them lampoon (or, occa…

In A Lethal Legacy, Fin Dwyer charts 200 years of Irish history, opening up our past as never before, by observing the grand societal changes of our times through the intimate lens of eighteen murders and the lives and communities…

What lies beneath? The Great Irish Famine is a story that has been told for several generations and is the single most pivotal experience in modern Irish history.  Now, acclaimed Irish illustrator David Rooney, through the evocati…

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 the island…

The gripping true crime story of Ireland’s most infamous unsolved murder – the sectarian massacre of six Catholic civilians in 1922.  At 1.20 a.m. on 24 March 1922, five men, four dressed in British police uniforms, broke into the…

In Anarchy and Authority, readers follow contemporaneous accounts of Irish men and women who ventured into the Russian empire during the two long centuries of Romanov rule. Human connections, political intrigues, cultural cross-po…

When actor, playwright and comedian Seamus O’Rourke first published Standing in Gaps in 2020 it found a wide audience amongst readers in rural Ireland. With a distinct talent for seeing the absurd in the ordinary, mundane lives of…

The Great Famine in Ireland is still a current and emotive subject which draws readers from all spheres. This book tells a story not merely unique to Cork, but of interest to the national population. Famine in Cork City explores t…

Reading the Maps is a textbook companion to the Irish Historic Towns Atlas, the successful series which documents and assesses the evolution of Irish towns. To date, over 27 published atlases, three bound volumes and ten ancillary…

Martin Doyle, Books Editor of The Irish Times, offers a personal, intimate history of the Troubles seen through the microcosm of a single rural parish, his own, part of both the Linen Triangle – heartland of the North’s defining i…

This new volume in the award-winning Atlas Series presents fresh perspectives on, and a nuanced understanding of, the history of the Irish Civil War (1922–3). The centenary of the Civil War has prompted wide-ranging research into …

Skulls, heads, hands, height, legs, sex organs, blood, brains, stomachs, ears and corpses – discover Irish history through the prism of the body. From the brutal beheading of the 25-year-old, red-headed Clonycavan Man some 2,000 y…

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 about abortion, the status of women …

In June 1940, the fall of France prompted General Charles de Gaulle to make an impassioned rallying call to his fellow citizens to fight back against the Germans. His famous radio speech, broadcast from the BBC in London, was late…

If the past is another country – what happens when we revisit it, one day a year?Carlo Gébler has done just that. Here is the story of Ireland – from the tail end of the Troubles to the Good Friday agreement, to the glory days of …

Country houses may be triumphs of architecture, fine and decorative art, and landscape design, but they are also about the history and transmission of ideas. In varying degrees their occupants thought, conversed, read, and respond…

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 his…

In 1981, the Stardust nightclub in Dublin was a beacon for the city's nightlife - until it became a nightmare. On that fateful Valentine's Day the dance floor became a scene of horror, as flames engulfed the venue, claiming the li…

This highly anticipated sequel charts the contributions of Irish doctors in the Second World War, a conflict that demonstrated to the world that the pace of military warfare had changed forever. Advancements in medical care during…

Dublin is the only city in the world to produce three Nobel Prize winners for literature. An indication that something remarkable was taking place, not only in the capital but in the whole country, came in the extraordinary conflu…

Pictorial map illustrating almost 200 medieval coats of arms of Ireland's principal families.A map of Ireland showing the locations of the lands occupied by each family between the 14th and 17th centuries, following the Norman inv…

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 War of Independence…

Synge’s topographical essays appear here in their original newspaper and periodical publication form, taken from the Manchester Guardian, The Gael and The Shanachie, complete with illustrations, mostly by Jack B. Yeats. A substant…

In January 1972, a peaceful civil rights march in Northern Ireland ended in bloodshed. Troops from Britain's 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment opened fire on marchers, leaving 13 dead and 15 wounded. Seven of those killed were teen…

Based on extensive archival research, this fascinating monograph rescues from obscurity the lives of over a thousand Fenians. Fenianism railed against the depopulation of a post-Famine Ireland, asserting the rights of ordinary peo…