The Books That Define Ireland
The Books That Define Ireland

Author: Bryan Fanning

Publisher: Merrion Press

Published: 2014-03-03

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1908928670

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This engaging and provocative work consists of 29 chapters and discusses over 50 books that have been instrumental in the development of Irish social and political thought since the early seventeenth century. Steering clear of traditionally canonical Irish literature, Bryan Fanning and Tom Garvin debate the significance of their chosen texts and explore the impact, reception, controversy, debates and arguments that followed publication. Fanning and Garvin present these seminal books in an impelling dialogue with one another, highlighting the manner in which individual writers informed each other s opinions at the same time as they were being amassed within the public consciousness. From Jonathan Swift s savage indignation to Flann O'Brien s disintegrative satire, this book provides a fascinating discussion of how key Irish writers affected the life of their country by upholding or tearing down those matters held close to the heart, identity and habits of the Irish nation.

Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf
Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf

Author: Sean Duffy

Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd

Published: 2013-10-11

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 0717157768

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Brian Boru is the most famous Irish person before the modern era, whose death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 is one of the few events in the whole of Ireland's medieval history to retain a place in the popular imagination. Once, we were told that Brian, the great Christian king, gave his life in a battle on Good Friday against pagan Viking enemies whose defeat banished them from Ireland forever. More recent interpretations of the Battle of Clontarf have played down the role of the Vikings and portrayed it as merely the final act in a rebellion against Brian, the king of Munster, by his enemies in Leinster and Dublin. This book proposes a far-reaching reassessment of Brian Boru and Clontarf. By examining Brian's family history and tracing his career from its earliest days, it uncovers the origins of Brian's greatness and explains precisely how he changed Irish political life forever. Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf offers a new interpretation of the role of the Vikings in Irish affairs and explains how Brian emerged from obscurity to attain the high-kingship of Ireland because of his exploitation of the Viking presence. And it concludes that Clontarf was deemed a triumph, despite Brian's death, because of what he averted – a major new Viking offensive in Ireland – on that fateful day.

Oral and Print Cultures in Ireland, 1600-1900
Oral and Print Cultures in Ireland, 1600-1900

Author: Marc Caball

Publisher: Four Courts Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13:

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In charting previously unexplored patterns of communicative practice, these essays by leading experts examine the interchange between written and verbal cultures in Ireland from the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century. Contents include: Gaelic Texts and English Script * Print and Oral Tradition in Charlotte Brooke's "Reliques of Irish Poetry" (1789) * Print, Penmen, and Public in Gaelic Ireland, 1700-1850 * The Case of Geoffrey Keating's "Foras Feasa ar Eirinn" * 'James Cleland His Book': The Library of a Small Farming Family in Early 19th-Century County Down * The Geography of 19th Century Irish Song Books * Orality, Authenticity, and the 1641 Depositions * Reading and Orality in 18th-Century Ulster Poetry.