Irish History

In the eleven months between August 1971 and July 1972, Northern Ireland experienced its worst year of violence. No future year of the Troubles experienced such death and destruction. The 'year of chaos' began with the introductio…

First published in 1949, 'Guerilla Days in Ireland' is an extraordinary story of the Irish War of Independence and the fight between two unequal forces, which ended in the withdrawal of the British from twenty-six counties. Seven …

The story of Catholic Emancipation begins with the violent Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in 1780, fuelled by the reduction in Penal Laws against the Roman Catholics harking back to the sixteenth century. Some fifty years later, the p…

You may know all about the Easter Rising and the Good Friday Agreement, but did you know that the hypodermic needle was invented in Tallaght? Or that Dublin was the first city in the world to have a woman stockbroker, decades befo…

By the sixth week of the Irish Civil War in 1922, all eyes turned to Cork, as the National Army readied its climactic attack on the 'rebel capital'. At 2 a.m. on a Bank Holiday Monday, Emmet Dalton and 450 soldiers of the National…

When Rudyard Kipling, whose only son died fighting with the Irish Guards on the Western Front in 1915, penned the words "For where there are Irish there's bound to be fighting," he wasn't exaggerating Ireland's contribution to the…

On a sunlit evening in l882, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke, Chief Secretary and Undersecretary for Ireland, were ambushed and stabbed to death while strolling through Phoenix Park in Dublin. The murders were carried ou…

In June 1922, just seven months after Sinn Fein negotiators signed a compromise treaty with representatives of the British government to create the Irish Free State, Ireland collapsed into civil war. While the body count suggests …

One hundred years after the Anglo-Irish Treaty and partition, after 30 years of Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement and Brexit, the debate on Irish unity has intensified. But what could a united Ireland look like, and what would i…

Myles Dungan's family was involved in four violent deaths between 1915 and 1922. Jack Clinton, an immigrant small farmer from County Meath, was murdered in the remote and lawless Arizona territory by a powerful rancher's hired ass…

From the founder of IrishCentral, a fascinating piece of Civil War history: Lincoln's relationship with the immigrants arriving in America to escape the Irish famine. "If you're a Lincoln fan like me, you'll love this book." -Liam…

During the Irish Civil War, events of late 1922 and early 1923 together with waves of 'dishonourable' killings created poisoned relations between Republicans and 'Free Staters' which would last for several generations. The most en…

Guardians of the Peace is a political history of the Irish police force, An Garda Síochana, from its foundation at the birth of the Irish State, through the Irish Civil War, the threat of the fascist ‘Blueshirts’, the continuing c…

A compelling history of the turbulent journey to Irish independence, published for the centenary of the Partition In the aftermath of the horrors of the Irish Famine, the grim, distrustful relationship between Ireland and the rest…

War Hotels is a gripping exploration of hotels in wartime and in other times of crisis, told through the prism of now iconic hotels that were frequented by foreign correspondents, diplomats, aid workers, politicians, paramilitarie…

David Dicksinson reveals the untold story of ten Irish cities and their remarkable development before the age of industrialization. Ireland was a backward island on the periphery of Europe in 1600, but underwent profound changes i…

In this follow-up to their landmark first book, Deric Henderson and Ivan Little have gathered new stories from seventy journalists who have worked in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. These contributors write powerfully about …

Beautiful examples of this still-living craft can be found all over the island, from bustling urban centres and quiet country roads to the wild coasts of the west. Since moving into a thatched cottage several years ago, Emma Byrne…

The Number One Bestseller Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards 2021 When Dubliner Derek Scally goes to Christmas Eve Mass on a visit home from Berlin, he finds more memories than congregants in the church where he was once an alt…

Eamon de Valera is the most remarkable man in the history of modern Ireland. Much as Churchill personified British resistance to Hitler and de Gaulle personified the freedom of France, de Valera personified Irish independence. Fro…

Did You Know? Cork’s Lord Mayors still annually perform the traditional ‘Throwing the Dart’ ceremony to signify their authority over the port and harbour. On the corner of the Grand Parade and Tuckey Street, embedded into the pave…

A tragic death, a murder trial and a 170-year-old mystery - but what really happened? Shortly after Maria Kirwan died in a lonely inlet on Ireland's Eye, it was decided that she had drowned accidentally during a day spent with her…

A fascinating look at the lifestyle and values of ancient IrelandThousands of years ago, Celtic Ireland was a land of tribes and warriors; but a widely accepted, sophisticated and surprisingly enlightened legal system kept society…

Thirty-two inspiring speeches by women of Ireland from the nineteenth century to the present. Rallying cries for trade union action, denunciations of apartheid, calls for independence, unionism, peace and gender equality: Irish wo…

On the morning of 11 October 1921, the world’s media watched as Michael Collins, leader of the ‘Irish murder gang’, bounded through the door of 10 Downing Street. Moments later, he shook hands with the British Prime Minister. So b…

Tales of passion and romance, love on the battlefield, affairs kept secret on pain of death ... From the bride who married in a prison cell, to the leader caught in a love triangle, to the revolutionaries who did their loving on t…