Irish History

Ireland's top crime journalist traces the flood of cocaine into Ireland and those behind its unprecedented growth. From the first smugglers and their adventures on the high seas to the modern-day Instagram-loving gangsters, COCAIN…

From Colm Tóibín, the formidable award-winning author of The Master and Brooklyn, an illuminating, intimate study of Irish culture, history, and literature told through the lives and work of three men - William Wilde, John Butler …

Using original interviews with key figures from the era, and extensive use of documentation from the UCD archives. Ranelagh unravels the true influence of the oath-bound society without which the 1916 Rising might have never taken…

Amidst the moments of seismic change in LGBTQ history in Ireland lie the stories of ordinary people, who did extraordinary things to change queer Ireland and Irish culture. Marking fifty years of the founding of an LGBTQ rights mo…

November 1983. Early morning in suburban south Dublin. Businessman Don Tidey is snatched from his car and the IRA has its latest kidnap victim.Weeks later he is tracked down to an isolated Leitrim wood, but in saving Tidey’s life …

This new historical atlas of Cork will explore the city from its origins to the present day. The emergence of Cork from a monastic settlement on a marshland site through to the thriving city we know today is explained in a thoroug…

Northern Ireland is one hundred years old. Northern Ireland does not exist. Both of these statements are true.It just depends on who you ask. How do you write about a place like this? THE STRANGERS' HOUSE asks this question of the…

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, defying hardship to redefine the …

In July 1927, at just thirty-five years old, Kevin O’Higgins was assassinated on his way to Mass in Booterstown, Co. Dublin. A reviled figure for anti-Treaty republicans, O’Higgins became the target of particular venom for his voc…

In 1983 twenty-four-year-old Catholic taxi driver Kevin Barry Artt was convicted and sentenced to life for Miles’ murder, falsely named by an IRA member-turned-jailhouse-informant. On his way to the Maze in handcuffs, Artt resolut…

Branded as ‘Bandit Country’ by the British government, South Armagh was the heartland of the Provisional IRA. It was the rebel Irish stronghold where Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy reigned supreme, bomb attacks on England were planned and t…

This selection of documentary photography by Billy Mundow matches monochrome images of Ireland from the 1960s to the words of Irish poets, recalling lost generations. Themes of a vanished world spool through the pages, capturing t…

The first of a six book series on titles on the Military History Of The Irish Civil War, this is an in-depth study of the battle for Limerick city. The story concentrates on the vicious battle that took place between Republican an…

In March 1920, the republican Lord Mayor of Cork, Tomas MacCurtain, was shot dead in his home. Blaming the RIC for his death, IRA members followed District Inspector Swanzy, believed to have ordered the killing, to his new posting…

During the War of Independence, faced with an armed insurrection it couldn’t stop, the British government introduced increasingly harsh penalties for suspected republicans, including internment without trial. This led to the incar…

The Royal Irish Constabulary are often portrayed as the villains of the War of Independence in Ireland, Irishmen who betrayed their country by serving the British regime. No memorial has been raised in Ireland to those who died du…

The period from 1913 to 1923 in Ireland's history of rebellion, is undoubtedly the most significant. The period takes in the revival of interest in all things Irish around 1913, the heroic Easter Rising of 1916, the bloody War of …

Tadhg Barry was the last high-profile victim of the crown forces during the Irish War of Independence. A veteran republican, trade unionist, journalist, poet, GAA official and alderman on Cork Corporation, he was shot dead in Ball…

There are violent events and murders in the history of every country and Ireland is no exception. Through the years, it has had its share of violent murders including the murder of its most famous victim, Ellie Hanley or the 'Coll…

Sublime calligraphy, marvellous art, and amazing initials, have charmed and captivated the audience of the Book of Kells for over twelve hundred years. This remarkable illuminated Gospel book attracts the attention of scholars as …

Killing Thatcher is the gripping account of how the IRA came astonishingly close to killing Margaret Thatcher and to wiping out the British Cabinet – an extraordinary assassination attempt linked to the Northern Ireland Troubles a…

In the summer of 1982, Irish aristocrat Malcolm Macarthur embarked on a brutal killing spree in a doomed plan to remedy his financial woes. Two weeks later, in a sensational turn of events, he was arrested in the home of Attorney …

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. In 1904, Casement became internationally celebrated…

On the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Peter Taylor tells for the first time the gripping story of Operation Chiffon, the top-secret intelligence operation that helped bring peace to Ireland. April 1998: the Good Fr…

Explore the lives of over forty men and women – great and otherwise – whose pioneering journeys beyond the Irish shore played a profound role in world history. The Irish have always been a travelling people. Since 1800 an estimat…

In the first half of the 20th century, the men and women of Ireland experienced the brutal realities of a succession of wars - from the unrelenting casualties of WW1, to the domestic upheavals of the 1916 Rising and the Irish Civi…

Born in Cloughjordan in Co. Tipperary, MacDonagh was a poet and playwright, an educator and political activist. Appointed to the IRB Military Council he became a member of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic and was a…

In the twenty-first century there are two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland, and two very different heads of state represent the populations of Ireland and Northern Ireland respectively: the elected presidency of the republic…

Executed in Kilmainham Gaol on 8 May 1916, Michael Mallin had commanded a garrison of rebels in St Stephen's Green and the College of Surgeons during Easter Week. He was Chief-of-Staff and second-in-command to James Connolly in th…

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 poet, he was already dying of TB when, aged 28,…