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On the night of 29-30 October 1816 eight people were murdered by burning to death in a house known as Wildgoose Lodge in a remote part of County Louth, four miles from Ardee, nine miles from Dundalk and four miles from Carickmacross in County Monaghan. The perpetrators, who all belonged to a local agrarian secret society, were avenging three of their comrades hanged for a raid on the Lodge the previous April. Following the murders, the local community closed ranks. For months the authorities failed to arrest anyone. Then the state administration - in the form of Sir Robert Peel and Dublin Castle - took over. As a result of a combination of collusion, corruption and the use of paid informers, eighteen local men were tried and hanged. At least half of these men were innocent.

Edward Daly was Bishop of Derry from 1974 to 1993. Before then he had been a curate in the Bogside during some of the most turbulent and dramatic years of the Northern Troubles. This is the fascinating account of those years before he became bishop. He recalls his childhood in Belleek, Co. Fermanagh during World War II, his years as a reluctant boarder in St Columb's College in Derry, and his studies for the priesthood in the Irish College in Rome. His first years of priesthood were spent in Castlederg in Co. Tyrone. In 1962, he was appointed as curate in St Eugene's Cathedral in Derry and the area of the parish allocated to him incorporated the Bogside. (On his first day there, a little boy greeted him with the question, 'Hi, Mister, are you a Priest?' - thus the title of the book). He was horrified by the conditions in which many people were forced to live. During his time in Derry, he took part in the Civil Rights Marches; he had first-hand experience of the Battle of the Bogside in 1969, the early years of the Troubles, internment, the events of Bloody Sunday and Operation Motorman in 1972. In this book, he describes those experiences as he saw them and the personal impact that those events had on him. But there is much more here. Edward Daly was deeply involved in the theatrical and entertainment life of Derry in the Sixties. He was ordained a few years before the Second Vatican Council and he recalls the challenges and opportunities that the Council posed to his ministry and life as a priest. After twelve years as curate in Derry, he went to work with RT in Dublin as a Religious Adviser. During his time there, he was appointed as Bishop of Derry.

First published in 1988, this revised and updated fifth edition of the Directory of Irish Archives contains entries for some 250 repositories and organizations - educational, religious, cultural, and governmental - which hold records of historical significance. The holdings are briefly described, access information is provided, and contact details are supplied. Edited by Raymond Refausse .

Since its first appearance the Directory of Irish Archives has become the standard work for those who need introductory information on archival and manuscript collections in Irish repositories. This new revised and updated edition of a book first published in 1988 contains entries for some 250 repositories and organizations - educational, religious, cultural and governmental - which hold records of historical significance. The holdings are briefly described, access information is provided and contact details are supplied. The index for the new edition is the most detailed to date, with almost 2,500 entries, making it easier than ever for users to track down sources for a wide range of subjects, people and places.

From the Amazon rainforest to the South Pacific islands, and from India to the African plains, thousands of Irish missionaries devote themselves to the practical service of humanity. Working in dozens of countries around the globe, these missionaries - joined in recent years by hundreds of lay volunteer aid workers - have made an invaluable contribution to their adopted lands. They serve as pioneering health workers, as teachers of the poor (and sometimes as mentors to future world leaders), and as courageous advocates for marginalised peoples. They have left enduring and valuable legacies in fields as diverse as medicine, education, politics, ecology, and sport. In the course of their work they face enormous challenges. They must adapt to harsh environments of jungle, desert or city slum; wrestle with obscure languages; and offer respite to the victims of war, famine or tribal violence. Some have paid a high price at the hands of bandits, hostile regimes or tropical disease. These men and women have had unique adventures, misadventures and truly extraordinary experiences. In this book you will read vivid personal accounts of the most memorable experiences in their adopted homes, spanning the period from the mid-twentieth century right up to the 2010 World Cup. The stories they tell are amusing, informative, in some cases harrowing - but always engrossing. The short narratives and anecdotes comprising this anthology have been extracted from diaries, memoirs, letters home to Ireland, and from contributions specially commissioned for this book. They provide an insight into the lives of some of Ireland's most outstanding emigrants. Royalties from this book are being donated to the Mukuru Arts & Crafts Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. With a foreword by President Mary McAleese and special contributions by: Tom Arnold (Concern), John O'Shea (GOAL), Fr Sean Healy (Social Justice Ireland), Justin Kilcullen (Trocaire), Cardinal Sean Brady, Archbishop Alan Harper, Denis O'Brien (Iris O'Brien Foundation).

Using a wide array of sources and interviews, Michael Farry has produced a balanced, comprehensive and absorbing study of county Sligo from 1912 when the Irish Party controlled all political affairs to 1922-3 when the county saw considerable action during the civil war. This wide-ranging study offers fascinating new insights into the Irish Revolution and details how the county moved from being one of the most loyal to the Irish Party to one of the best-organised Sinn Fein counties. Farry is especially good on how both organised unionism and the strong labour movement in Sligo reacted to the rise of Sinn Fein, its election victory in 1918 and the subsequent Truce, Treaty and civil war. His use of the recently released BMH accounts as well as British military sources results in a richly detailed examination of the IRA campaign and the British reaction. It examines the superior attitude of the IRA towards 'mere politicians' during the Truce period and explains why Sligo saw so much conflict during the civil war. This book is the first volume to appear in The Irish Revolution, 1912-23 Series (Mary Ann Lyons & Daithi O Corrain, series editors). This major new series explores the experience of the Irish Revolution, addressing key developments and issues in the period. The approach will be both thematic and chronological, and the series will bring to a wide readership the findings of a new generation of historians with concise, accessible, scholarly studies of the Irish Revolution at a county level. Each volume will take 1912 as its starting point, opening with an overview of the social, economic and political milieu, and the local experience of the War of Independence will be treated in detail. Responses to the Truce of 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and partition will also be considered. Each volume will close with an acute examination of the Irish civil war and its local impact.

This book discusses the rich written heritage of the Old and Middle Irish period, 600-1200, and is suitable for students of medieval Ireland as well as the general reader who wants to learn about the stories, poetry and themes of early Irish literature. Early chapters deal with the poets, druids, monks, the beginnings of writing manuscripts as well as an introduction to each of the saga cycles. These sagas contain the stories of heroes such as Cu Chulainn and Finn mac Cumaill as well as kings, such as Cormac mac Airt. Further chapters focus on the poets and their poetry, the heroes visiting the Otherworld, the births and deaths of famous heroes as well as stories about kings, kingship and sovereignty goddesses. Included also is a bibliography and a comprehensive index including personal and place names.

Blarney Castle, the medieval home of the MacCarthy lords of Muskerry, is one of Ireland's best-known castles. Many visitors to Ireland include a trip to the castle in their itinerary, often queuing to kiss the Blarney Stone in hope of acquiring the 'gift of the gab'. Yet, despite the castle's ubiquitous image on postcards and tourist promotional literature, the building's historical and archaeological significance as a native lordly residence are not widely appreciated. Illustrated in full colour, this book brings the castle's architecture to the fore, placing it in the context of an expansive native lordship in late medieval Munster, and showing how changes in the layout and appearance of the building can be attributed to the castle's occupants, who continued to redefine their social standing and cultural identity through the Tudor reconquest and beyond. The book includes a timeline to help situate developments at Blarney in a wider context, as well as a walking guide that will add an extra dimension to any tour of the castle. A handy glossary explains technical terms and phrases.

The Nine Years War was the greatest challenge that Gaelic Ireland presented to the Elizabethan English state. The role played by the young chieftain, Red Hugh O'Donnell (1572-1602), in the Gaelic confederacy that fought this war, was crucial. Without him, the possibility of such successful and wide-ranging resistance to the expansion of English power in Ireland would not have possible. This book represents a major reappraisal of O'Donnell's role. It is a study of how the abuse of power by English captains and officials led to the growth of anti-English sentiment in the lordship of Tir Chonaill and in O'Donnell's thinking itself, due in large part to his imprisonment in Dublin Castle. It is also a study in how the Gaelic lordships of Ulster proved themselves to be capable of military and political innovation, to enable their leaders to fashion a formidable confederacy which came very close to ending English sovereignty over Ireland.

At the height of the Land War in 1881, a dispute over land led to the shooting dead of a young man called Peter Doherty near Craughwell, County Galway. Intense police investigations discovered two informers whose perjured testimony before packed juries resulted in the conviction of two innocent men, Patrick Finnegan and Constable Michael Muldowney. The book features a forensic analysis of the trials that resulted in such a grave miscarriage of justice. Original research in primary sources has uncovered the role of informers, the payments made to them and their eventual 'disposal' by the Dublin Castle authorities. Following commutation of the death sentences each of the prisoners served terms of twenty years penal servitude and became known as the 'Craughwell prisoners'. The experiences of the prisoners in Mountjoy and Maryborough jails are revealed from the prison files, which also contain their heartfelt please for release and pardon, and affirmations of their innocence.

A North Light - John Hewitt's own account of his life in Northern Ireland from his early years until his 'enforced exile' in Covntry in 1957 - provides a fascinating glimpse into his association with key figures from the literary and art world, including W.B. Yeats, George Orwell, Brendan Behan, Colin Middleton and John Luke. It details Hewitt's career in the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery; the evolution of his critical and literary thinking; his quest for identity and creative space; and it voices his maverick political views on his homeland. This hitherto-unpublished text, one of the most anticipated Irish memoirs of the twentieth century, will be valuable to those interested in Hewitt's achievement, work and legacy and to those wishing to gain an insight into Northern Ireland's cultural and political history.

Aimed at the student and general reader, this is a study of Ireland's people, landscape and place in the world from late antiquity to the reign of Brian Borama. It narrates the story of Ireland's emergence into history, using anthropological, archaeological, historical and literary evidence. Subjects covered include the king, the kingdom and the royal household; religion and customs; free and unfree classes in society; exiles and foreigners. The rural, urban, ecclesiastical, ceremonial and mythological landscapes of early medieval Ireland anchor the history of early Irish society in the rich tapestry of archaeological sites, monuments and place-names that have survived to the present. A historiography of medieval Irish studies presents the commentaries of a variety of scholars from the 17th-century Franciscan Micheal O Cleirigh to Eoin Mac Neill, the founding father of modern scholarship.

During the period 1912-23, Tyrone was at the centre of the conflict between nationalism and unionism, the evolution of partition and the emergence of two Irish governments. The fate of Tyrone shaped that of Ireland itself. McCluskey has produced the first comprehensive and meticulously researched study of Co. Tyrone during the Irish Revolution. He offers fresh perspectives on how Tyrone men and women engaged in a range of unionist, nationalist, republican and trade union activities. Intent on resisting home rule, the county's sizable unionist minority, led by the local aristocracy and back-boned by the Orange Order, mustered four thousand members of the UVF. The forced acceptance of partition in 1914 shattered nationalist confidence and apparent unanimity. This occasioned a dramatic reorientation of nationalism in Tyrone as Sinn Fein eclipsed the Irish Parliamentary Party. The nature of the two-year conflict between IRA and the Ulster Special Constabulary, a force based firmly on the UVF, is carefully analysed by McCluskey. The work charts the prominence of Tyrone during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations and examines Michael Collins' incongruous attempts to achieve a middle ground between the treaty and the republic through the abortive joint-IRA northern campaign of 1922. By this time, Tyrone's position under a northern administration had solidified. The book concludes that the British government's stance on Tyrone confirmed its role as an imperial power determined to bolster unionism and thwart the republican demand. Richly detailed, this ground-breaking study represents essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Irish revolution.

This book tells the story of the decline and fall of Ireland's premier aristocratic family - the dukes of Leinster - who, for almost 300 years, lived amidst glorious splendour in their grand Palladian mansion, Carton House, Co. Kildare. From the 1870s they were engulfed by public and private events: Land War, Home Rule, the Great War, revolution, global economic collapse, sadness and madness, the consequences of the beautiful Hermione, 5th duchess of Leinster's extra-marital affair and a profligate 7th duke. The story moves from the little Irish town of Maynooth to London to continental Europe and America before returning to Carton. In its epic scope it encapsulates the reasons for the decline and fall of so many Irish and British aristocratic dynasties.

John Hume, civil rights activist, founding member of the SDLP and leading politician in Northern Ireland during the long period of the Troubles, gained worldwide recognition and respect for his principled opposition to the use of violence as a means of resolving the deep divisions between the people of Northern Ireland, between those who favour Irish unity and those who favour maintaining the union with Britain. His constant message was the need to heal sundered relationships between the people of Ireland, north and south, and between the people of Ireland and Britain. This book of essays assesses Hume's role throughout the Troubles as he campaigned in Ireland, Europe and the US to influence politicians and opinion makers in the cause of justice and peace. The essays discuss the political background to his entry into public life in 1960s Derry as a champion of the credit union movement, the civil rights campaign, the Sunningdale Agreement, the failed efforts to establish a power-sharing executive, the trauma of terrorism, the hunger strikes, his role in Europe and the US, the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the Hume-Adams dialogue and the Good Friday Agreement.