During a Biblical seven years in the middle of the nineteenth century, Ireland experienced the worst disaster a nation could suffer. Fully a quarter of its citizens either perished from starvation or emigrated, with so many dying en route that it was said, "you can walk dry shod to America on their bodies." In this grand, sweeping narrative, Ireland''s best-known historian, Tim Pat Coogan, gives a fresh and comprehensive account of one of the darkest chapters in world history, arguing that Britain was in large part responsible for the extent of the national tragedy, and in fact engineered the food shortage in one of the earliest cases of ethnic cleansing. So strong was anti-Irish sentiment in the mainland that the English parliament referred to the famine as "God's lesson." Drawing on recently uncovered sources, and with the sharp eye of a seasoned historian, Coogan delivers fresh insights into the famine's causes, recounts its unspeakable events, and delves into the legacy of the "famine mentality" that followed immigrants across the Atlantic to the shores of the United States and had lasting effects on the population left behind. This is a broad, magisterial history of a tragedy that shook the nineteenth century and still impacts the worldwide Irish diaspora of nearly 80 million people today.

The Easter Rising began at 12 noon on 24 April, 1916 and lasted for six short but bloody days, resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians, the destruction of many parts of Dublin and the true beginning of Irish independence. The 1916 Rising was born out of the Conservative and Unionist parties' illegal defiance of the democratically expressed wish of the Irish electorate for Home Rule; and of confusion, mishap and disorganisation, compounded by a split within the Volunteer leadership. Tim Pat Coogan introduces the major players, themes and outcomes of a drama that would profoundly affect twentieth-century Irish history. Not only is this the story of a turning point in Ireland's struggle for freedom, but also a testament to the men and women of courage and conviction who were prepared to give their lives for what they believed was right.

Bobby Sands captured the imagination of the world when, despite predictions, he was elected a Member of Parliament to the British House of Commons while still on hunger-strike in the Northern Ireland concentration camp of Long Kesh. When he later died after sixty-six gruelling days of hunger he commanded more television, radio and newspaper coverage than the papal visits or royal weddings. What was the secret of this young man who set himself against the might of an empire and who became a microcosm of the whole Northern question and a moral catalyst for the Southern Irish conscience? In calm restrained language John M. Feehan records the life of Bobby Sands with whom he had little sympathy in the beginning - though this was to change. At the same time, he gives us an illumination and crystal-clear account of the terrifying statelet of Northern Ireland today and of the fierce guerilla warfare that is rapidly turning Northern Ireland into Britain's Vietnam.

"The sinking of the Lusitania, one of the most famous incidents in world history, occurred on 7 May 1915, off the Irish coast. Lusitania, an Irish Tragedy is the first book to pick up the narrative from the point of the sinking to tell the stories which surround this historic event." "The book highlights for the first time the heroic rescue work undertaken by Irish fishermen and lifeboats; it tells the tales of those who tended the dead and succoured the living, those who served on the coroner's jury, and those who worked as bodyhunters scouring the coast in response to rewards." "There is much more, including the stories of the numerous Irish passengers and crew who were aboard the doomed vessel. Here too is a thorough guide to the rich legacy of Lusitania graves in Ireland, and comprehensive information on the memorial, discovery, salvage and protection efforts carried out in the years since."--BOOK JACKET.

In Tragedy and Irish Literature, McDonald considers the culture of suffering, loss, and guilt in the work of J.M. Synge, Sean O'Casey and Samuel Beckett. He applies external ideas of tragedy to the three dramatists and also discerns particular sorts of tragedy within their own work. While alert to the real differences between the three writers, the book also traces common themes and preoccupations. It identifies a conflict between form and content, between heightened language and debased reality as the hallmark of Irish tragedy.