The period 1913–22 witnessed extraordinary upheaval in Irish society. The Easter Rising of 1916 facilitated the emergence of new revolutionary forces and the eruption of guerrilla warfare. In Galway and elsewhere in the west, the new realities wrought by World War One saw the emergence of a younger generation of impatient revolutionaries. In 1916, Liam Mellows led his Irish Volunteers in a Rising in east Galway and up to 650 rebels took up defensive positions at Moyode Castle. From the western shores of Connemara to market towns such as Athenry, Tuam and Galway, local communities were subject to unprecedented use of terror by the Crown Forces. Meanwhile, conflict over land, an enduring grievance of the poor, threatened to overwhelm parts of Galway with sustained land seizures and cattle drives by the rural population. War and Revolution in the West of Ireland: Galway, 1913–1922 provides fascinating insights into the revolutionary activities of the ordinary men and women who participated in the struggle for independence. In this compelling new account, Galway historian Conor McNamara unravels the complex web of identity and allegiance that characterised the west of Ireland, exploring the enduring legacy of a remarkable and contested era.

The second volume in Tim Robinson's phenomenal Connemara Trilogy - which Robert Macfarlane has called 'One of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English'. The first volume of Tim Robinson's Connemara trilogy, Listening to the Wind, covered Robinson's home territory of Roundstone and environs. The Last Pool of Darkness moves into wilder territory: the fjords, cliffs, hills and islands of north-west Connemara, a place that Wittgenstein, who lived on his own in a cottage there for a time, called 'the last pool of darkness in Europe'. Again combining his polymathic knowledge of Connemara's natural history, human history, folklore and topography with his own unsurpassable artistry as a writer, Tim Robinson has produced another classic. A native of Yorkshire, Tim Robinson moved to the Aran Islands in 1972. His books include the celebrated two-volume Stones of Aran. Since 1984 he has lived in Roundstone, Connemara. 'The Proust & Ruskin of modern place-writing, deep-mapper of Irish landscapes, visionary thinker, and human of exceptional intellectual generosity & kindness. He was an immense inspiration to & encourager of me & my work' Robert Macfarlane 'A masterpiece of travel and topographical writing and a miraculous, vivid and engrossing meditation on landscape and history and the sacred mood of places' Colm Tóibín, Irish Times 'One of the greatest writers of lands ... No one has disentangled the tales the stones of Ireland have to tell so deftly and retold them so beautifully' Fintan O'Toole