One of the classic travel books about Ireland by one of the century's best-selling writers. Shortly after the declaration of the Irish Free State, H. V. Morton goes in search of Ireland by motor-car and finds, amongst other things, a Norman village in Galway, lobster fishermen, a shy girl in need of an apron in Connemara, and a great many beds in which Michael Collins is said to have slept. Full of local stories and wayside conversations, Morton's witty and enticing travelogue recalls a way of life not quite disappeared even at the beginning of a new century. Anecdotal, leisurely, full of character and event, insight, and opinion, this is travel writing of the very highest order.

In Search of Ireland argues that Ireland's political problems are created by conflicts and confusions of identity. It brings together a number of distinguished contributors, each of whom examines a particular aspect of Ireland's diverse cultural geography and history. Issues covered include: the changing definitions of Irishness the roles of class and gender in constructing traditional alignments of identity the role of ethnicity in Irish society the invention and imagining of Irish 'place' the political implications of a pluralistic Ireland The contributors demonstrate that many people both inside and outside of Ireland continue to define themselves and their conflicts through simple sectarian stereotypes. The authors argue that politicians and others must reject these outdated either/or representations and accommodate instead the fluidity of Irish identity. James Anderson, University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne S.J. Connolly, Queens's University, Belfast Neville Douglas, Queen's University, Belfast Brian Graham, University of Ulste

The hysterical story bestseller about one man's epic Celtic sojourn in search of ancestors, nostalgia, and the world's greatest round of golf By turns hilarious and poetic, A Course Called Ireland is a magnificent tour of a vibrant land and paean to the world's greatest game in the tradition of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. In his thirties, married, and staring down impending fatherhood, Tom Coyne was familiar with the last refuge of the adult male: the golfing trip. Intent on designing a golf trip to end all others, Coyne looked to Ireland, the place where his father has taught him to love the game years before. As he studied a map of the island and plotted his itinerary, it dawn on Coyne that Ireland was ringed with golf holes. The country began to look like one giant round of golf, so Coyne packed up his clubs and set off to play all of it-on foot. A Course Called Ireland is the story of a walking-averse golfer who treks his way around an entire country, spending sixteen weeks playing every seaside hole in Ireland. Along the way, he searches out his family's roots, discovers that a once-poor country has been transformed by an economic boom, and finds that the only thing tougher to escape than Irish sand traps are Irish pubs.

James Charles Roy, a noted authority on Irish history and travel, escorts a disparate group of Americans through the lonely backwaters of ancient Ireland. Visions of a glorious enterprise evaporate as he sees a dejected and weary handful of aged American tourists disembark at Shannon Airport. Fortified by Guinness, Roy hurls himself into sharing with them the joys and wonders of Ireland's twisted byways. Determined to avoid clichéRoy leads his group to obscure Celtic coronation sites, monasteries, and remote abbeys as he spins a narrative that pulls Ireland's chaotic story into coherence. His unsuspecting charges begin to shed their hesitancies, relishing their guide's idiosyncratic approach to Ireland. Black comedy aside, Roy touches an emotional chord: how the economic phenomenon known as the Celtic Tiger has transformed Old Ireland into a high-tech power. At the tour's end, Roy embarks alone for the inaccessible Ardoilean, a seventh-century Celtic hermitage in County Galway. His vision of an Ireland lost forever is an emotional tour de force.

Twelve birds. One country. A wild Ireland waiting to be discovered. In Ireland Through Birds, Conor O’Brien takes the reader on an ornithological adventure around Ireland in search of twelve of our rarest and most elusive birds. Along the journey the author explores every kind of landscape and habitat our island has to offer across all four seasons, from the remote isles of Donegal to the rugged mountains of Kerry and urban parks of Dublin. Through it all, O’Brien is enchanted by calling corncrakes, mesmerised by hunting harriers, and chased by angry skuas. It’s a journey through a staggering array of landscapes that’ll bring the reader face to face with the rich history and stunning wildlife to be savoured right on our doorstep. It explores the stories of the remarkable birds that live here: the genius of the jay, the sublime mimicry of the cuckoo, the nocturnal prowess of the barn owl, while paying a moving,poetic tribute to our natural heritage – and a warning about the threats that face it. Ireland Through Birds is a unique blend of natural history and travelogue, making it a great read for anyone with an interest in Ireland’s natural world.

The elusive search for stability is the subject of Professor D. George Boyce's Nineteenth-Century Ireland, the fifth in the New Gill History of Ireland series. Nineteenth-century Ireland began and ended in armed revolt. The bloody insurrections of 1798 were the proximate reasons for the passing of the Act of Union two years later. The 'long nineteenth century' lasted until 1922, by which the institutions of modern Ireland were in place against a background of the Great War, the Ulster rebellion and the armed uprising of the nationalist Ireland. The hope was that, in an imperial structure, the ethnic, religious and national differences of the inhabitants of Ireland could be reconciled and eliminated. Nationalist Ireland mobilised a mass democratic movement under Daniel O'Connell to secure Catholic Emancipation before seeing its world transformed by the social cataclysm of the Great Irish Potato Famine. At the same time, the Protestant north-east of Ulster was feeling the first benefits of the Industrial Revolution. Although post-Famine Ireland modernised rapidly, only the north-east had a modern economy. The mixture of Protestantism and manufacturing industry integrated into the greater United Kingdom and gave a new twist to the traditional Irish Protestant hostility to Catholic political demands. In the home rule period from the 1880s to 1914, the prospect of partition moved from being almost unthinkable to being almost inevitable. Nineteenth-century Ireland collapsed in the various wars and rebellions of 1912–22. Like many other parts of Europe than and since, it had proved that an imperial superstructure can contain domestic ethnic rivalries, but cannot always eliminate them. Nineteenth-Century Ireland: Table of Contents Introduction - The Union: Prelude and Aftermath, 1798–1808 - The Catholic Question and Protestant Answers, 1808–29 - Testing the Union, 1830–45 - The Land and its Nemesis, 1845–9 - Political Diversity, Religious Division, 1850–69 - The Shaping of Irish Politics (1): The Making of Irish Nationalism, 1870–91 - The Shaping of Irish Politics (2): The Making of Irish Unionism, 1870–93 - From Conciliation to Confrontation, 1891–1914 - Modernising Ireland, 1834–1914 - The Union Broken, 1914–23 - Stability and Strife in Nineteenth-Century Ireland