Boxing was phenomenally popular in 18th and 19th century Britain. Aristocrats attended matches and patronized boxers, and the most important fights drew tens of thousands of spectators. Promoters of the sport claimed that it showcased the timeless and authentic ideal of English manhood--a rock of stability in changing times. Yet many of the best fighters of the era were Irish, Jewish or black. This history focuses on how boxers, journalists, politicians, pub owners and others used national, religious and racial identities to promote pugilism and its pure English pedigree, even as ethnic minorities won distinction in the sport, putting the diversity of the Empire on display.

Boxing was phenomenally popular in 18th and 19th century Britain. Aristocrats attended matches and patronized boxers, and the most important fights drew tens of thousands of spectators. Promoters of the sport claimed that it showcased the timeless and authentic ideal of English manhood--a rock of stability in changing times. Yet many of the best fighters of the era were Irish, Jewish or black. This history focuses on how boxers, journalists, politicians, pub owners and others used national, religious and racial identities to promote pugilism and its pure English pedigree, even as ethnic minorities won distinction in the sport, putting the diversity of the Empire on display.

As bareknuckle fighting is poised to steal MMA’s spotlight, its greatest modern-day champion tells his story of rising to the top in the brutal sport. Steeped in the tradition of his Irish Traveller ancestry, Bartley Gorman also embraced its dangerous subculture: bareknuckle fighting. Though it gave birth to boxing as we know it today, the sport has remained underground—and illegal in most developed countries. But that didn’t stop Gorman from rising through the prize-fighting ranks of Great Britain and Ireland and staying undefeated for twenty years. Now, through Gorman’s thrilling memoir, readers get a front row view of the punches exchanged in back parking lots and fair grounds, the gritty characters populating the fight circles, and the hazards facing a sought after champion. “A rare glimpse into a secret world,” Bareknuckle celebrates one man’s mastery of fighting in its purest form and heralds the rebirth of one of the oldest combat sports in history (The Independent on Sunday). “Every page shines. A tremendous book.” —Traveller Magazine “Well-written and interesting.” —Boxing News

Over twenty years, the families become engulfed in a cycle of violent revenge -- taunting each other with video messages, risking the families' honour and placing big-money bets on the result of bare-knuckle fights between the clans' best fighters. Two men, two neutral referees, a country lane. No gloves, no biting, no rests. The last man standing wins, takes home the money, and more importantly, the bragging rights. KNUCKLE is the story of Irish traveller, clan head and champion bare-knuckle boxer James Quinn McDonagh. It's a journey from his grandfather's barrel-top caravan to the modern life of the travellers, a brutal story of threats, guns, and fists -- an antidote to the cleaned-up portrayal of travellers in the media, a gritty and truthful insight into a hidden world.

"Tells the story of the Irish fighting man with wit, clarity, and scholarship." —Andrew Roberts, author of The Storm of War For hundreds of years, Irish soldiers have sought their destiny abroad. Wherever they've traveled, whichever side of the battlefield they've stood, the tales of their exploits have never been forgotten. Leaving his birthplace, the Irish soldier has traveled with hope, often seeking to bring a liberating revolution to his fellow countrymen. In search of adventure the Fighting Irish have been found in all corners of the world. Some sailed to America and joined in frontier fighting, others demonstrated their loyalty to their adopted homeland in the bloody combats of the American Civil War, as well as campaigns against the British Empire in Canada and South Africa. The Irish soldier can also be found in the thick of war during the twentieth century—facing slaughter at the Somme, desperate last-stands in the Congo—and, more recently, in Iraq and Afghanistan. In The Fighting Irish, Tim Newark tells their tales in the dramatic words of the soldiers themselves, gathered from diaries, letters, journals, and interviews with veterans in Ireland and across the world.