Ireland's regional and provincial newspapers have played a largely unrecognised role in Irish history, this book charts their experiences in the dramatic and sometimes violent years leading up to independence. They were not immune from the conflict - they risked censorship, suppression, prolonged closure, and sometimes violent attack. This book tells their story for the first time.

The delineation and emergence of the Irish border radically reshaped political and social realities across the entire island of Ireland. For those who lived in close quarters with the border, partition was also an intimate and personal occurrence, profoundly implicated in everyday lives. Otherwise mundane activities such as shopping, visiting family, or travelling to church were often complicated by customs restrictions, security policies, and even questions of nationhood and identity. The border became an interface, not just of two jurisdictions, but also between the public, political space of state territory, and the private, familiar spaces of daily life. The effects of political disunity were combined and intertwined with a degree of unity of everyday social life that persisted and in some ways even flourished across, if not always within, the boundaries of both states. On the border, the state was visible to an uncommon degree -- as uniformed agents, road blocks, and built environment -- at precisely the same point as its limitations were uniquely exposed. For those whose worlds continued to transcend the border, the power and hegemony of either of those states, and the social structures they conditioned, could only ever be incomplete. As a consequence, border residents lived in circumstances that were burdened by inconvenience and imposition, but also endowed with certain choices. Influenced by microhistorical approaches, Unapproved Routes uses a series of discrete 'histories' -- of the Irish Boundary Commission, the Foyle Fisheries dispute, cockfighting tournaments regularly held on the border, smuggling, and local conflicts over cross-border roads -- to explore how the border was experienced and incorporated into people's lives; emerging, at times, as a powerfully revealing site of popular agency and action.

"The strength of this volume cannot be conveyed by an itemisation of its contents; for what it provides is an incisive commentary on the newly-recognised landmarks of Irish agrarian history in the modern period. . . . The importance, even indispensability, of this achievement is compounded by exemplary editing."—Roy Foster, London Times Literary Supplement "As a whole, the volume demonstrates the wealth, complexity, and sophistication of Irish rural studies. The book is essential reading for anyone involved in modern Irish history. It will also serve as an excellent introduction to this rich field for scholars of other peasant communities and all interested in problems of economic and political developments."—American Historical Review "A milestone in the evolution of Irish social history. There is a remarkable consistency of style and standard in the essays. . . . This is truly history from the grassroots."—Timothy P. O'Neill, Studia Hibernica

"A beautifully written exploration of a vanishing holiday ritual that can be traced back to the dramas of the sixteenth century and beyond." --Philadelphia Inquirer

(O) Farrells/Ferrells and others worldwide often ponder their Irish roots. This is currently the most comprehensive attempt to explore the origins of one of the largest branches of the Farrells/Ferrells. It includes: 1,400 years of Celtic roots in northwest Ireland, Gaelic ancestry linked to St Colum Cille (St Columba) from c.AD 655, 400-year-old associations with the Ulster Plantation, and worldwide migration. Those wishing to explore their own Irish family history and genealogy may use the methodology adopted by the author as a template for their own research. Almost 1,000 references are detailed, representing an invaluable resource to all those researching their Irish and Ulster roots. The benefits of DNA testing in family history and genealogy are outlined, and the results of the Donegal Farrell/Ferrell DNA research are analysed. Extensive genealogies of Ulster Farrells/Ferrells and associated families from the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries have been compiled, and this database will assist others research their roots in Donegal, Ulster, and Ireland.