A Concise History of Ireland

Fülszöveg

a concise history of
IRELAND
MAIRE and CONOR CRUISE O'BRIEN
There is a tragic inevitability about Irish history which this boolt brings out with clarity, impartiality and compassion. From the first Protestant settlements in Elizabethan times to the barricades of the Bogside it has been, for the most part, a story of 'hatred answering hatred', as Lady Gregory wrote, 'death answering to death through the generations like clerks at the mass'. In Yeats's striking phrase, four bells are heard, 'four deep, tragic notes in Irish history'. The first was the Catholic revolt in Elizabeth's reign, which ended with the Protestant settlement of Ulster — a work of 'pacification' taken to its logical conclusion fifty years later by Cromwell. The second bell, still echoing annually today, was the battle of the Boyne, when William of Orange defeated Catholic James II and put the seal on the Protestant Ascendancy. The third was the impact of the French Revolution on Ireland, giving rise to... Tovább

Fülszöveg

a concise history of
IRELAND
MAIRE and CONOR CRUISE O'BRIEN
There is a tragic inevitability about Irish history which this boolt brings out with clarity, impartiality and compassion. From the first Protestant settlements in Elizabethan times to the barricades of the Bogside it has been, for the most part, a story of 'hatred answering hatred', as Lady Gregory wrote, 'death answering to death through the generations like clerks at the mass'. In Yeats's striking phrase, four bells are heard, 'four deep, tragic notes in Irish history'. The first was the Catholic revolt in Elizabeth's reign, which ended with the Protestant settlement of Ulster — a work of 'pacification' taken to its logical conclusion fifty years later by Cromwell. The second bell, still echoing annually today, was the battle of the Boyne, when William of Orange defeated Catholic James II and put the seal on the Protestant Ascendancy. The third was the impact of the French Revolution on Ireland, giving rise to radical movements such as Wolfe Tone's 'United Irishmen' — ancestor of Sinn Fein and the IRA. The fourth toll of the bell was the fall from power of Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Land League, when a disillusioned and embittered Ireland turned from parliamentary politics, and the chain of events started which led to partition, the solution that solved nothing. But in spite of the bloodshed in Ulster, the authors are not without hope that Catholic and Protestant may in the end be 'able to work out ways of existing peacefully together in the island which they share and whose history they inherit'.
With iy4 illustrations
on the jacket: Map of Ireland by John Speed, 1616 Vissza