Modern Ireland

Masterfully blending narrative and interpretation, and R.F. Foster's Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 looks at how key events in Irish history contributed to the creation of the 'Irish Nation'. 'The most brilliant and courageous Irish historian of his generation' Colm Tóibín, London Review of Books 'Remarkable ... Foster gives a wise and balanced account of both forces of unity and forces of diversity ... a master work of scholarship' Bernard Crick, New Statesman 'A tour de force ... Anyone who really wants to make sense of Ireland and the Irish must read Roy Foster's magnificent and accessible Modern Ireland' Anthony Clare 'A magnificent book. It supersedes all other accounts of modern Irish history' Conor Cruise O'Brien, Sunday Times 'Dazzling ... a masterly survey not so much of the events of Irish history over the past four centuries as of the way in which those events acted upon the peoples living in Ireland to produce in our own time an "Irish Nation" ... a gigantic and distinguished undertaking' Robert Kee, Observer 'A work of gigantic importance. It is everything that a history book should be. It is beautifully and clearly written; it seeps wisdom through its every pore; it is full of the most elegant and scholarly insights; it is magnificently authoritative and confident ... Modern Ireland is quite simply the single most important book on Irish history written in this generation ... A masterpiece' Kevin Myers, Irish Times R. F. Foster is Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. His books include Modern Ireland: 1600-1972, Luck and the Irish and W. B. Yeats: A Life.

This is a book about the Irish Question, or more specifically about Irish Questions. The term has become something of a catch-all, a convenient way to encompass numerous issues and developments which pertain to the political, social, and economic history of modern Ireland.The Irish Question has of course changed: one of the main aims of this book is to explore the complicated and shifting nature of the Irish Question and to assess what it has meant to various political minds and agendas. No other issue brought down as many nineteenth-century governments and no comparable twentieth-century dilemma has matched its ability to frustrate the attempts of British cabinets to find a solution; this inability to find a lasting answer to the Irish Question is especially striking when seen in the context of the massive shifts in British foreign policy brought about by two world wars, decolonization, and the cold war. Senia Paseta charts the changing nature of the Irish Question over the last 200 years, within an international political and social historical context. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

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.

Originally published in 1960 and edited by Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Shaping of Modern Ireland was a seminal work surveying the lives of prominent early twentieth-century figures who influenced Irish affairs in the years between the death of Charles Stewart Parnell in 1891 and the Easter Rising of 1916. The chapters were written by leading historians and commentators from the Ireland of the 1950s, some of whom personally knew the subjects of their essays. This volume draws its inspiration from that seminal work. Written by some of today’s leading figures from the world of Irish history, politics, journalism and the arts, it revisits a crucial phase in the country’s history, one that culminated in the Easter Rising and the Revolution, when everything ‘changed utterly’. With chapters on men and women of the stature of Carson, Connolly and Markievicz, but also industrialists such as Guinness who contributed to ‘shaping modern Ireland’ in the social and economic sphere, this book offers an important contribution to the renewal of the debate on the country’s history.

This is the first textbook on the history of modern Ireland to adopt a social history perspective. Written by an international team of leading scholars, it draws on a wide range of disciplinary approaches and consistently sets Irish developments in a wider European and global context.

The Modern Ireland Documents Resource Book is the perfect companion to the Modern Ireland textbook. Together they help students to achieve their maximum potential through active and effective learning. * Focuses on the compulsory documents-based topic Government, Economy and Society in the Republic of Ireland, 1949-89 * Excellent for both Ordinary and Higher Level students * Contains strategies for answering the documents-based questions * Includes additional documents-based questions and sample answers for all three case studies * Explains key concepts and important terms * Provides summaries of key personalities NEW! Additional resources for Modern Ireland are available on Gillexplore.ie, our new smart, reliable and easy-to-use resources platform.

An accessible and innovative look at Irish history by some of today's most exciting historians of Ireland This book brings together some of today's most exciting scholars of Irish history to chart the pivotal events in the history of modern Ireland while providing fresh perspectives on topics ranging from colonialism and nationalism to political violence, famine, emigration, and feminism. The Princeton History of Modern Ireland takes readers from the Tudor conquest in the sixteenth century to the contemporary boom and bust of the Celtic Tiger, exploring key political developments as well as major social and cultural movements. Contributors describe how the experiences of empire and diaspora have determined Ireland’s position in the wider world and analyze them alongside domestic changes ranging from the Irish language to the economy. They trace the literary and intellectual history of Ireland from Jonathan Swift to Seamus Heaney and look at important shifts in ideology and belief, delving into subjects such as religion, gender, and Fenianism. Presenting the latest cutting-edge scholarship by a new generation of historians of Ireland, The Princeton History of Modern Ireland features narrative chapters on Irish history followed by thematic chapters on key topics. The book highlights the global reach of the Irish experience as well as commonalities shared across Europe, and brings vividly to life an Irish past shaped by conquest, plantation, assimilation, revolution, and partition.

A 2001 volume of essays about the relationship between past and present in Irish society.