On 21 June 1798, 20,000 men, women and children found themselves trapped on a hill outside Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, facing a Crown force of some 15,000 troops led by no less than four generals and 16 general officers. It was the dying days of a rebellion that had shaken British rule in Ireland to its core. The army that now surrounded the hill was determined that none should escape. Now a multi-disciplinary research programme involving archaeologists, historians, folklorists, architectural historians and military specialists provides startling new insight into what actually happened at Vinegar Hill on that fateful day in June 1798. Using cutting-edge technology and traditional research, the sequence of the battle jumps sharply into focus, beginning with the 'shock-and awe' bombardment at dawn, the attack on Enniscorthy and the hill, and the critical defence of the bridge across the Slaney that allowed so many of the defenders on the hill to escape.

The spectre of ‘The Disappeared’, those abducted by the IRA, secretly executed and their bodies buried in bogs, lakes and woodlands, has overshadowed the debate around the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland for the last two decades. This book, the first of its kind, uncovers the extent to which ‘forced disappearances’ were part of the violent political conflicts that blighted Ireland for 200 years. Succeeding where attempts by the PSNI, journalists, and other historians had failed, Ó Ruairc’s research led to the identification and recovery of a British soldier killed by the IRA. He reveals in this book the location of several other bodies that remain to be exhumed. The Disappeared cuts through the exaggeration and myth that pervade the popular history of the Irish struggle for freedom. The author examines the role of leading Irish politicians in these killings and challenges the commonly held belief that the Provisional IRA disappeared more victims than the ‘Good Old-IRA’ of the War of Independence. Behind each disappearance there is a face, a life story, and a family left searching for answers. Ó Ruairc deftly incorporates this human element, paying tribute to those who were disappeared on both sides of the conflict.

The People's Rising is already established as the definitive account of Wexford in 1798. The story of this tragic and heroic episode in Irish history, in which as many as 30,000 people may have died, is told with authority, passion and attention to detail.

From the dawn of history to the decline of the Celtic Tiger - how Ireland has been shaped over the centuries. Ireland has been shaped by many things over the centuries: geography, war, the fight for liberty. A Brief History of Ireland is the perfect introduction to this exceptional place, its people and its culture. Ireland has been home to successive groups of settlers - Celts, Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Scots, Huguenots. It has imported huge ideas, none bigger than Christianity which it then re-exported to Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In the Tudor era it became the first colony of the developing English Empire. Its fraught and sometimes brutal relationship with England has dominated its modern history. Killeen argues that religion was decisive in all this: Ireland remained substantially Catholic, setting it at odds with the larger island culturally, religiously and politically. But its own culture and identity have stayed strong, most obviously in literature with a magnificent tradition of writing from the Book of Kells to the modern masters: Joyce, Yeats, Beckett and Heaney.

International tragedies, national disgraces, and local dangers: reporting can magnify trauma. But how can we gain a deeper analytical understanding of episodes seemingly too immediate for detached observation by our sources or even, perhaps, by ourselves? This volume brings together a broad range of current research in Europe and abroad, regarding an issue of crucial importance for understanding past cultures and our own. Papers discuss the ramifications of media-induced anxiety and anxiety-induced mediality, engaging the humanities, including history, film studies, literature, folklore, creative writing and adjacent fields intersected by sociology, politology, psychology, & anthropology. News media here include all means of mass communication impinging on daily experience, from books to music, from the social web to films, on multiple platforms and in multiple languages across municipal, state, and regional boundaries.