This highly acclaimed book is being published for the first time in paperback. The author studies the cheap printed literature which was read in eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland and the cultures of its audience. It takes an interdisciplinary approach to a little-known topic, pursuing comparisons with other regions such as Brittany and Scotland. By addressing questions such as the language shift and the unique social configuration of Ireland in this period, it adds a new dimension to the growing body of studies of popular culture in Europe.

This book looks at popular print culture in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Small cheap books featuring knights and heroes, highwaymen and rapparees, the Battle of Aughrim, and other historical episodes circulated widely in both town and country. They were absorbed by a vibrant culture and the study touches on topics as diverse as Orange ritual, folk drama, and religious songs in the Irish language. This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to a little-known area of Irish history and literature and, by pursuing comparisons with other European regions and cultures, adds a new dimension to the growing body of studies of popular reading in the past.

Analyses the construction and dissemination of the image conveyed of Irish society in the early nineteenth century

An edited collection examining the construction of popular culture in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

This collection of essays illustrates various pressures and concerns—both practical and theoretical—related to the study of print culture. Procedural difficulties range from doubts about the reliability of digitized resources to concerns with the limiting parameters of 'national' book history.

This book explores the differences between 'high' and 'low' cultures in an Irish context, arguing that these differences need constant redefinition. It examines the boundary between élite and popular culture using objects of study as various as canonical Irish literature, postcards, digital animation, surfing and the teaching of Irish mythology.