A Traveller's History of Ireland

A Travellers History of Ireland gives a full and accurate portrait of Ireland from its prehistory right up to the present. The story opens with mysterious, early Celtic Ireland where no Roman stood, through Saint Patricks mission to Ireland which began the process of making it an island of saints, to the legendary high King Brian Boru and his struggle with Viking and Irish enemies alike. It moves on through the arrival of the Norman Strongbow in the twelfth century, and the beginnings of the difficult and tragic Anglo-Irish relationship. Great historical figures like Hugh ONeill, Oliver Cromwell, and Jonathan Swift figure, as well as ordinary people like the Londonderry apprentice boys who helped change the course of Irish history. The book then moves into modern times with the great revolts of 1798, the horrors of the potato famine, and the careers of the leading constitutional nationalists, Daniel OConnell and Charles Parnell. The book ends with a description of modern Ireland, and of its two separate Catholic Nationalist and Protestant Unionist traditions.