Product Description: A fascinating, and often surprising, study of Fifties Ireland-Dermot Bolger, Sunday Independent. ""Another revealing and insightful book by one of our best historians and a timely reminder that the past is not such a foreign country after all""-Andrew Lynch, Sunday Business Post...read more

Product Description: "He is sensible, courageous and cool-headed, a man of affairs with his feet on the ground [.] He is probably more progressive that the majority of his colleagues and fellow countrymen, but is too shrewd to try to force the pace." - Extract from a British Foreign Office briefing document, 1959 ** "Without doubt the ablest of the Fianna Fail Ministers...read more

Product Description: Paralleling his friend Alexis de Tocqueville's visit to America, Gustave de Beaumont traveled through Ireland in the mid-1830s to observe its people and society. In Ireland, he chronicles the history of the Irish and offers up a national portrait on the eve of the Great Famine...read more

Product Description: This book explores the processes of continuity and change that have forged the nature of the state in Ireland. In doing so, it offers a fresh and provocative analysis of modern Ireland presented by a new generation of scholars. The book's unique contribution to analysis of contemporary Irish politics is enhanced by its interdisciplinary nature, as the authors traverse the boundaries between different schools of thought in order to present a constructive text to a wide readership...read more

Product Description: A study of the role of passion and reason in national life with an emphasis on the role of myth and mythmaking in the emergence of modern Ireland.

The process of democratic nation-making reached full fruition while a vicious civil war was raging, ostensibly fought over points of political principle but actually deciding whether Ireland was to be ruled by popular majority will or by a virtuous but unaccountable minority. Gavin argues that militant republicanism always lacked popular, democratic legitimacy and that mainstream Irish nationalism was moderate and realistic. It was this nation-building tradition that triumphed in 1922. Thus, Ireland did not go the way of so many newly emerging European states. There evolved a stable democracy which eventually came to include most of those defeated in 1922.

This classic work studies the growth of nationalism in Ireland from the middle of the eighteenth century to modern times. It traces the continuity of tradition from earlier organizations, such as the United Irishmen and the agrarian Ribbonmen of the eighteenth century, through the followers of Daniel O'Connell, the Fenians and the Land League in the nineteenth century to the Irish political parties of today. The dual nature of Irish nationalism is shown in sharp focus. Despite the secular and liberal leanings of many Irish leaders and theoreticians, their followers were frequently sectarian and conservative in social outlook. This book demonstrates how this dual legacy has influenced the politics of modern Ireland. ""This stimulating book is one of the most important and original studies of Irish nationalism and politics to have been written... It will be discussed and cited for many years.""-Michael Gallagher, Irish University Review. ""Buy it rather than borrow it, since it calls for re-reading, reflection and discussion. It illuminates both past and present.""-John A. Murphy, The Sunday Tribune. ""a lively and original book""-L.M. Cullen, The Irish Times.

Product Description: These are fifteen original essays by leading academic, political and media figures are in honor of Brian Farrell, the well-known political interviewer and former member of the UCD Department of Politics. They cover many aspects of the history of Irish democracy, the role of government institutions and their relations with Europe...read more

Product Description: A reprint of the 1914 book by an Ulster Protestant Liberal arguing that avoiding Home Rule was not worth a civil war. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)