Young Finnabair, daughter of the great warrior queen Medb of Connacht, becomes a pawn in her mother's quest for the Brown Cow of Cuailnge.

AN EPIC TALE OF LOVE AND WAR In a land already plagued by internal strife, a new terror suddenly strikes at Ireland's undefended coastlines. As the Vikings brutally exploit Irish disunity in the North, they hungrily eye the three remaining provinces in the south...Connaught, Meath and Leinster. While the dragonships continue to isolate and crush the feuding clans, Ireland's fate comes to depend on the strength and wisdom of a young chieftain...a man of peace who is destined to lead the people he loves into war. "Sword of Ireland catapults the reader into a tale of adventure and romance in the most heroic sense, a story that grips the reader's imagination to the very last page. The author is a welcome addition to the bards who are bringing Ireland's past to life for a new generation." - Morgan Llwelyn, best selling author of LION OF IRELAND

Swords Around the Cross presents one of the few full-length treatments of the heroic struggle of the Irish clansmen in their effort to defend their faith and country against English encroachment and conquest in the sixteenth century. This book has infuriated establishment academics for its honest and thorough treatment of the Irish past. In so doing, the image of a "golden age" under Elizabeth I is dealt a serious blow.

'There followed a blue flash accompanied by a ver y bright magnesium-type flare ... Then came a frighteningly loud but rather flat explosion, which was followed by a blast of hot air ... All this was followed by eerie silence.' This was Cork doctor Aidan MacCarthy's description of the atomic bomb explosion above Nagasaki in August 1945, just over a mile from where he was trembling in a makeshift bomb shelter in the Mitsubishi POW camp. At the end of the war, a Japanese officer did the unthinkable: he surrendered his samurai sword to MacCarthy, his enemy and former prisoner. This is the astonishing story of the wartime adventures of Dr Aidan MacCarthy, who survived the evacuation at Dunkirk, burning planes, sinking ships, jungle warfare and appalling privation as a Japanese prisoner of war. It is a story of survival, forgiveness and humanity at its most admirable.

The first of a projected two-volume survey of Irish military history, this is a facsimile version of the original articles from the Middle Ages to the present day. The articles were first published in the Irish Sword, the journal of the Military History Society of Ireland. The Society was founded in 1949 with the aim of promoting the study of Irish military history, defined as the history of warfare in Ireland and of Irishmen in war. Among the essays on medieval warfare are an account of the part played by Irishmen in the Crusades and an analysis of the military history of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are particularly well represented as warfare was frequent in that period, including the Tudor re-conquest, the rebellion of 1641 and subsequent overflow of the English Civil War into Ireland, and the Williamite war of 1689-91. Writers such as Cyril Falls on Hugh O'Neill, G A Hayes-McCoy on The Army of Ulster 1593-1603 and J G Simms on Cromwell at Drogheda feature in this section. In the part covering the eighteenth century the military exploits of Irish soldiers in foreign armies are examined by Micheline Kerney-Walsh, while Charles Petrie describes the position of Ireland in international strategic thinking in his Ireland in Spanish and French Strategy, 1558-1815. There are two papers on the rebellion of 1798: Richard Hayes The Battle of Castlebar 1798 and Paul Kerrigan's Weapons and Tactics of 1798.

This book tells the story of eighteenth century Ireland's most renowned duelists, gladiators, swordsmen, and fencing masters. It also contains a rare fencing treatise, now published again for the first time in more than 230 years, that is the only known original Irish treatment of swordsmanship published in Ireland during the eighteenth century.

The fifteen-year period between 1645 and 1660 was one of the most dynamic in British history, during which the republican Commonwealth and Cromwellian Protectorate attempted to create a new type of 'Godly' state after the execution of Charles I. Drawing on the latest research and established sources, as well as the works and diaries of contemporaries such as John Evelyn, Lucy Hutchinson and Samuel Pepys, A Sword for Christ offers a new and stimulating perspective on these extraordinary years. Key personalities such as Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Marquis of Argyll, Charles II and, of course, Oliver Cromwell himself – one of the most contentious figures in history – are re-appraised and brought vividly to life. In addition to exploring the religious and political debates which shaped the era and the military culture which defined it, the book also considers how society was profoundly affected by the upheaval caused by the civil wars; the relations between what was essentially an English republic and its Irish and Scottish neighbours; and the ethos of the New Model Army and the navy.