Irish art of the early Christian era is justly celebrated. So, too, are the individual contributions of artists such as Jack B. Yeats. What is perhaps less widely accepted is the existence of a continuing and developing tradition of Irish art from the earliest times to the present day. Bruce Arnold traces the complex evolution of Irish art through three millennia, showing how it has drawn on Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Mediterranean and other diverse sources. As the story unfolds, Arnold repatriates Irish artists who are frequently regarded as 'English'--including William Mulready, Daniel Maclise and James Barry--and shows how Irish painting and sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, metalwork and architecture together form a rich and distinctive cultural heritage.

This book introduces 15 of Ireland's most interesting painters and reproduces a selection of their work.

Ireland stood at the forefront of Westem European artistic culture in antiquity, when great passage graves were built; during the 7th and 8th centuries AD, when the Irish produced masterpieces of metalwork and manuscript illumination; and during the 18th century, an age of classical elegance. The achievements of these periods and others survive largely intact. This survey describes the whole sequence of Irish art and architecture.

This is the story of life in Ireland – a story half a billion years in the making. With its castles, crannogs and passage tombs, Ireland is a land where history looms large, but the saga of life on this island dates back millions of years before the first people set foot here. In Life in Ireland, Conor O’Brien guides the reader on a journey around the island to explore the history of natural life here, from the Jurassic Coast of Antrim to the great Ice Age bone-beds of Cork. Along the way, we’ll meet some of the astonishing creatures to have called Ireland home through the ages: shelled monsters; huge marine lizards; armoured dinosaurs; giant deer; mighty mammoths. Vital strands in the story of life on Earth have left their mark here, including some of the first creatures to crawl onto land or take to the wing. This epic journey will take us from the first fossils to the present day, to see how our wildlife has adapted to the human age and explore what the future might hold for life in Ireland.