Ireland

Having climbed from partisan leader to king of armies, Brian Boru eventually established himself as the first monarch of a consolidated Ireland.

For over 150 years, writes Christopher Duffy, generations of Irish gentry sought service in the armies of the European powers.

In the mid 1570s, writes R.C. Morton, the plantation and settlement of Ulster were undertaken by the Elizabethan Government.

Between the coming of St. Patrick and the arrival of the Normans art, literature and religion flourished in a country that had no organised central government.

J.J.N. McGurk describes how Irish art can claim its own place in the history of European civilization. Undisturbed by the troubles of the Dark Ages, Irish monks long continued to produce their splendid manuscripts.

J.W. Blake describes how, during the colonial period, just over half a million emigrants—English, Scottish, Irish, French, German, Dutch, Swedish and Finnish—are calculated to have left Europe for a new home in America. Often they reached their goal only at the cost of hideous suffering.

Meyrick H. Carré introduces an Irishman who personified the genius of experimental inquiry and did much to influence the Enlightenment in England.

Lord David Cecil appraises the eventful career of William Lamb, who influenced momentous political reform in both Ireland and England.

J.J.N. McGurk describes how Gerald’s later years were filled with his excellent books on Wales and his unsuccessful struggle for a bishopric.

The son of a Norman Marcher lord and a Welsh princess, J.J.N. McGurk writes, ‘Giraldus Cambrensis’ was a brilliant recorder of British life in the twelfth century.