"A comprehensive survey of Ireland's place in Europe, providing a detailed narrative of a cultural relationship that began with Irish missionaries bringing Christianity and learning to the continent. How have Ireland and her people and culture been perceived and represented in Europe? Twenty-two internationally renowned experts address this question through contributions on film, music, art, architecture, media, literature and European Studies" -- publisher's website.
The history of Ireland has traditionally focused on the localized struggles of religious conflict, territoriality and the fight for Home Rule. But from the early Catholic missions into Europe to the embrace of the euro, the real story of Ireland has played out on the larger international stage. Story of Ireland presents this new take on Irish history, challenging the narrative that has been told for generations and drawing fresh conclusions about the way the Irish have lived. Revisiting the major turning points in Irish history, Neil Hegarty re-examines the accepted stories, challenging long-held myths and looking not only at the dynamics of what happened in Ireland, but also at the role of events abroad. How did Europe's 16th century religious wars inform the incredible violence inflicted on the Irish by the Elizabethans? What was the impact of the French and American revolutions on the Irish nationalist movement? What were the consequences of Ireland's policy of neutrality during the Second World War? Story of Ireland sets out to answer these questions and more, rejecting the introspection that has often characterized Irish history. Accompanying a landmark series coproduced by the BBC and RTE, and with an introduction by series presenter, Fergal Keane, Story of Ireland is an epic account of Ireland's history for an entire new generation.
Ireland is a strikingly different country now to the one it was in the mid-1990s. Dramatic economic, social and cultural changes, including the Celtic Tiger boom and increasingly secular debate about abortion, the status of women and same-sex marriage underlined the scale of the transformation. The new diversity of the population and literary and musical prowess also revealed a country experiencing rapid alteration. The road to peace - that saw an end to war in Northern Ireland and culminated in the first visit to southern Ireland of a reigning British monarch in 100 years - illuminated the new Anglo-Irish dynamic. Explosive revelations about deep betrayals from the past destroyed the credibility of the traditionally powerful Catholic Church. And in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, Ireland rebounded and rebuilt to great success, but remained plagued by health and housing failures. Economic recovery, the end of civil war politics, ever closer European involvement and Anglo-Irish highs were followed by Brexit lows and increasing talk of Irish unity. There is much to open people's eyes in this riveting account of contemporary Ireland. As the Republic enters its second century of independence, and the North continues to grapple with the legacy of the Troubles, Diarmaid Ferriter makes historical sense of post-1990s Ireland, and what lies in the darkest corners of its archives.
Routledge International Handbook of Irish Studies begins with the reversal in Irish fortunes after the 2008 global economic crash. The chapters included address not only changes in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland but also changes in disciplinary approaches to Irish Studies that the last decade of political, economic, and cultural unrest have stimulated. Since 2008, Irish Studies has been directly and indirectly influenced by the crash and its reverberations through the economy, political landscape, and social framework of Ireland and beyond. Approaching Irish pasts, presents, and futures through interdisciplinary and theoretically capacious lenses, the chapters in this volume reflect the myriad ways Irish Studies has responded to the economic precarity in the Republic, renewed instability in the North, the complex European politics of Brexit, global climate and pandemic crises, and the intense social change in Ireland catalyzed by all of these. Just as Irish society has had to dramatically reconceive its economic and global identity after the crash, Irish Studies has had to shift its theoretical modes and its objects of analysis in order to keep pace with these changes and upheavals. This book captures the dynamic ways the discipline has evolved since 2008, exploring how the age of austerity and renewal has transformed both Ireland and scholarly approaches to understanding Ireland. It will appeal to students and scholars of Irish studies, sociology, cultural studies, history, literature, economics, and political science. Chapter 3, 5 and 15 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Examines how the Celtic Tiger, an economy that was hailed as one of the most successful in history, fell into a macroeconomic abyss necessitating an unheard of bail-out. A highly-readable account of the unprecedented near collapse of the Irish economy, it covers property market bubbles, regulatory incompetency, and disastrous economic policies.
"A collection of essays that discuss representative eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French and English views of American democracy and society, and offer a critical assessment of various narrative constructions of American life, society, and culture"--Provided by publisher.
Post-war Marshall Plan aid to Europe and indeed Ireland is well documented, but practically nothing is known about simultaneous Irish aid to Europe. This book provides a full record of the aid – mainly food but also clothes, blankets, medicines, etc. – that Ireland donated to continental Europe, including France, the Netherlands, Hungary, the Balkans, Italy, and zones of occupied Germany. Starting with Ireland’s neutral wartime record, often wrongly presented as pro-German when Ireland in fact unofficially favoured the western Allies, Jerome aan de Wiel explains why Éamon de Valera’s government sent humanitarian aid to the devastated continent. His book analyses the logistics of collection and distribution of supplies sent abroad as far as the Greek islands. Despite some alleged Cold-War hijacking of Irish relief – and this humanitarianism was not above the politics of that East-West confrontation – it became mostly a story of hope, generosity and European Christian solidarity. Rich archival records from Ireland and the European beneficiary countries, as well as contemporary local and national newspapers across Europe, allow the author to measure and describe not only the official but also the popular response to Irish relief schemes. This work is illustrated with contemporary photographs and some key graphs and tables that show the extent of the aid programme.
'Jolts like jump-leads to the complacent heart ... an eye-opener. MIRIAM LORD FOR FOUR DECADES, JUSTINE MCCARTHY'S FEARLESS JOURNALISM AND COMMENTARY HAS HELD POWER TO ACCOUNT AS SHE, IN HER OWN WORDS, 'GREW UP ALONGSIDE MY COUNTRY'. The book opens with a long personal essay in which Justine recounts her early years as a fearful child who dreamed of being a writer, to cutting her teeth in the male-dominated newsrooms of the 1980s, where she faced down sexism and broke gender barriers in a determined career marked by excellence. From Mary Robinson making history as Ireland's first female president to a present-day RTÉ in crisis, over thirty years of stories are collected here. In her long career, Justine broke child sexual abuse scandals and reported from the frontline of the Northern Ireland Troubles; she documented political turmoil and charted the role of Ireland on the world stage. She followed the times the country let down its people, through its ailing health system, its legal system, the domination of the church, and its treatment of women. An Eye on Ireland maps a transformative era in Irish life towards a more progressive and just society, and one woman's extraordinary career at the forefront of change.
Greece through Irish Eyes is an insightful personal view by Richard Pine of the country where he has lived for the past 15 years. One of Ireland’s leading literary criti, Pine asks, What links Ireland and Greece? The author’s trenchant, provocative arguments acknowledge both the strengths and the weaknesses of Greece today, and draw suggestive parallels with the Irish situation Pine pays special attention to the family values of honour, loyalty, and economy, arguing that these are at the heart of Greek society and culture. He develops this in a comprehensive survey of Greek law, literature and politi, and Greece’s position at the centre of Balkan affairs. He graphically describes the effects of austerity on society and the economy, with up-to-the-minute accounts of the new government’s attempts to renegotiate Greece’s bailout. He strongly criticises the intransigence of bureaucracy, the pervasiveness of bribery and corruption and the continuing threats of terrorism and fascism. Richard Pine also calls for a major rethink on Greek and Irish positions on Europe. The parallels between Ireland and Greece may make some readers uncomfortable, but they are substantiated by solid examples of cultural, economic and historical differences which argue against integration into a centre-dominated Europe. “Greece is a country I both love and mourn. Richard Pine writes about it with a unique and painful empathy” - Roy Foster
