The only succinct account of the origins and development of Orangeism currently available.

Orangeism: A Historical Profile traces the Orange movement from its pre-Reformation beginnings in the French principality of Orange, to its role in 21st century Ulster. This narrative history offers a lucid account which explains how the Orange tradition took root and developed. Many important events are examined, including the Orange/Green controversies of the 19th century, the Order’s role in the creation of Northern Ireland, its influence during the Stormont era and its stance during the ‘Troubles’. The book also features hard-to-get data provided on the Order’s associated bodies: The Apprentice Boys of Derry, the Purple Order and the Black Preceptory, and provides details of their rituals and lodge practices. International Orangeism and the Order’s role in popular culture are explained and apprised, and the stage is filled with historic figures. Meticulously researched and written without malice, Orangeism: A Historical Profile embodies a reevaluation of accepted views and includes information from unused, usually sealed, archives. Praise for the First Edition: “At last there is an excellent, reliable and absorbing account of Orangeism” – Eamonn Phoenix, The Irish News “A thorough and determinedly unbiased account … written with great enthusiasm” – Niall Savage, The Sunday Business Post

Follows the political, economic, and social development of Ireland from the pagan past to the contemporary religious strife and hope for reconciliation.

The religion of Orange politics is an ethnographic study of the Orange Order in contemporary Scotland. The Order is ultra-Protestant, ultra-British, and ultra-unionist. It is also vehemently anti-Catholic. Drawing on new debates about the politics of hate, this book asks if religious bigotry can ever form part of human experiences of 'The Good'.

Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) wrote remarkably little about himself, but he has attracted the attention of many writers, politicians, and scholars, both during his lifetime and ever since. His controversial and provocative role in Irish and British affairs had him vilified as a murderer in The Times, and afterwards dramatically vindicated by the Westminster Parliament. It cast him as a romantic hero to the young James Joyce, and a self-serving opportunist to the journalists of the Nation. Parnell has been the subject of court cases, parliamentary enquiries and debates, journalism, plays, poems, literary analysis and historical studies. For the first time all these have been collected, catalogued and cross-referenced in one volume, an invaluable resource for scholars of late nineteenth century Ireland and Britain. Divided into fifteen chapters, including a biographical sketch, the volume contains information on manuscript and archival collections, printed primary sources, Parnell's writing, Parnell's speeches in the House of Commons and outside Parliament, contemporary journalism, contemporary writing, and contemporary illustrations on Irish affairs, and a substantial list of scholarly work, including biographies, books, articles, chapters, and theses. This volume offers readers a clear record of the substantial material already available on Parnell, and in doing so offers resources to future research in this area.

Exiles and Islanders describes Irish settlement in Prince Edward Island from 1763 to 1880. By tracing the history of these early settlers, Brendan O'Grady demolishes the myth that the Island's Irish settlers were largely refugees from the Great Potato Famine. Using a wide variety of sources, including folklore, newspaper reports, personal interviews, letters, shipping records, and historical data, O'Grady goes beyond mere statistics. We learn about settlers' hometowns in Ireland, why they left, when and how they came to Prince Edward Island, where they settled, and how they adapted to living in PEI. Over ten thousand Irish settled in PEI in the nineteenth century; by 1850 they comprised about a quarter of the Island's population. They were mainly pre-Famine immigrants and mostly Catholic. They came from all thirty-two counties of Ireland and settled in all sixty-seven townships of PEI. They took up farming, fishing, and rural occupations; raised large families; and retained their Irishness for several generations. Exiles and Islanders includes family names and places of origin that will be of particular interest to the Island's Irish descendants. An intriguing cultural history, the book provides new insight into the early settlers of Prince Edward Island.

An updated printing of John O'Beirne Ranelagh's history, covering events to September 1998.

Change is constant in human affairs and Ireland has seen its fair share over the centuries. If we are to understand Ireland's current challenges then we must grasp the complexity of its past. This concise and even-handed account describes the history of Ireland from early times. Based upon up-to-date research, the narrative covers all political, social and cultural issues of importance, right up to the autumn of 1995 with the visit of President Clinton and the end of the first year of peace in Northern Ireland.

This third edition of John O'Beirne Ranelagh's classic history of Ireland incorporates contemporary political and economic events as well as the latest archaeological and DNA discoveries. Comprehensively revised and updated throughout, it considers Irish history from the earliest times through the Celts, Cromwell, plantations, famine, Independence, the Omagh bomb, peace initiatives, and financial collapse. It profiles the key players in Irish history from Diarmuid MacMurrough to Gerry Adams and casts new light on the events, North and South, that have shaped Ireland today. Ireland's place in the modern world and its relationship with Britain, the USA and Europe is also examined with a fresh and original eye. Worldwide interest in Ireland continues to increase, but whereas it once focused on violence in Northern Ireland, the tumultuous financial events in the South have opened fresh debates and drawn fresh interest. This is a new history for a new era.

The artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992) and the writer Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) both convey in their work a sense of foreboding and confinement in bleak, ritualistic spaces. This book identifies many similarities between the spaces and activities they evoke and the initiatory practices of fraternal orders and secret societies that were an integral part of the social landscape of the Ireland experienced by both men during childhood. Many of these Irish societies modelled their ritual structures and symbolism on the Masonic Order. Freemasons use the term 'spurious Freemasonry' to designate those rituals not sanctioned by the Grand Lodge. The Masonic author Albert Mackey argues that the spurious forms were those derived from the various cult practices of the classical world and describes these initiatory practices as 'a course of severe and arduous trials'. This reading of Bacon's and Beckett's work draws on theories of trauma to suggest that there may be a disturbing link between Bacon's stark imagery, Beckett's obscure performances and the unofficial use of Masonic rites.