Ireland has been shaped by centuries of emigration as millions escaped poverty, famine, religious persecution, and war. But what happens when we reconsider this well-worn history by exploring the ways Ireland has also been shaped by immigration? From slave markets in Viking Dublin to social media use by modern asylum seekers, Migration and the Making of Ireland identifies the political, religious, and cultural factors that have influenced immigration to Ireland over the span of four centuries. A senior scholar of migration and social policy, Bryan Fanning offers a rich understanding of the lived experiences of immigrants. Using firsthand accounts of those who navigate citizenship entitlements, gender rights, and religious and cultural differences in Ireland, Fanning reveals a key yet understudied aspect of Irish history. Engaging and eloquent, Migration and the Making of Ireland provides long overdue consideration to those who made new lives in Ireland even as they made Ireland new.

The Making of Ireland by James Lydon provides an accessible history of Ireland from the earliest times. James Lydon recounts, in colourful detail, the waves of settlers, missionaries and invaders which have come to Ireland since pre-history and offers a long perspective on Irish history right up to the present time. This comprehensive survey includes discussion of the arrival of St. Patrick in the fifth century and Henry II in the twelfth, as well as that of numerous soldiers, traders and craftsmen through the ages. The author explores how these settlers have shaped the political and cultural climate of Ireland today. James Lydon charts the changing racial mix of Ireland through the ages which shaped the Irish nation. The author also follows Ireland's long and troubled entanglement with England from its beginning many centuries ago. The Making of Ireland offers a complete history in one volume. Through a predominantly political narrative, James Lydon provides a coherent and readable introduction to this vital complex history.

First full survey of how transhumance operated in Ireland from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth.

This groundbreaking book provides the first comprehensive study of the remaking of Ireland's aristocracy during the seventeenth century. It is a study of the Irish peerage and its role in the establishment of English control over Ireland. Jane Ohlmeyer's research in the archives of the era yields a major new understanding of early Irish and British elite, and it offers fresh perspectives on the experiences of the Irish, English, and Scottish lords in wider British and continental contexts. The book examines the resident peerage as an aggregate of 91 families, not simply 311 individuals, and demonstrates how a reconstituted peerage of mixed faith and ethnicity assimilated the established Catholic aristocracy. Tracking the impact of colonization, civil war, and other significant factors on the fortunes of the peerage in Ireland, Ohlmeyer arrives at a fresh assessment of the key accomplishment of the new Irish elite: making Ireland English.

This is the story of life in Ireland – a story half a billion years in the making. With its castles, crannogs and passage tombs, Ireland is a land where history looms large, but the saga of life on this island dates back millions of years before the first people set foot here. In Life in Ireland, Conor O’Brien guides the reader on a journey around the island to explore the history of natural life here, from the Jurassic Coast of Antrim to the great Ice Age bone-beds of Cork. Along the way, we’ll meet some of the astonishing creatures to have called Ireland home through the ages: shelled monsters; huge marine lizards; armoured dinosaurs; giant deer; mighty mammoths. Vital strands in the story of life on Earth have left their mark here, including some of the first creatures to crawl onto land or take to the wing. This epic journey will take us from the first fossils to the present day, to see how our wildlife has adapted to the human age and explore what the future might hold for life in Ireland.

'Technically this book is a masterly achievement: the collection, sorting, selecting and balancing of material has meant an immense amount of hard and highly skilful work. The presentation is not only learned but cool, objective, unimpassioned and yet almost always alive and compassionate as well . . . As a reference book alone it is immensely valuable . . . As an example of a humane, scholarly, expert history, Professor Beckett's book will be difficult to surpass.' D. B. Quinn, Belfast Telegraph '[He] has brilliantly succeeded. The book is admirably constructed and written with clarity and economy which carry the narrative unflaggingly through to the end . . . This excellent book supersedes all previous histories of modern Ireland.' F. S. L. Lyons, New Statesman

Challenges the argument that the English Pale was contracting during the early Tudor period.A key argument of this book is that the English Pale - the four counties around Dublin under English control - was expanding during the early Tudor period, not contracting, as other historians have argued. The author shows how the new system, whereby "the four obedient shires" were protected by new fortifications and a newly-constituted English-style militia, which replaced the former system of extended marches, was highly effective, making unnecessary money and troops from England, and enabling the Dublin government to be self-financing. The book provides full details of this new system. It also demonstrates how direct rule by an English army and governor, which replaced the system in the years after 1534, was much more costly and led on in turn to the policy of "surrender and regrant" under which Irish chiefs became subject to English law. The book highlights how this policy made the English Pale's frontiers redundant, but how ideologically ideas of "English civility" nevertheless survived, and "the wild Atlantic way" remained "beyond the Pale".t, but how ideologically ideas of "English civility" nevertheless survived, and "the wild Atlantic way" remained "beyond the Pale".t, but how ideologically ideas of "English civility" nevertheless survived, and "the wild Atlantic way" remained "beyond the Pale".t, but how ideologically ideas of "English civility" nevertheless survived, and "the wild Atlantic way" remained "beyond the Pale".

Explores the Irish Mesolithic - the period after the end of the last Ice Age when Ireland was home to hunter-gatherer communities, mostly from about 10,000-6,000 years ago. At this time, Ireland was an island world, with striking similarities and differences to its European neighbours - not least in terms of the terrestrial ecology created by its island status. To understand the communities of hunter-gatherers who lived there, it is essential that we consider the connections established between people and the other beings and materials with which they shared the world and through which they grew into it. Understanding the Mesolithic means paying attention to the animals, plants, spirits and things with which hunting and gathering groups formed kinship relationships and in collaboration with which they experienced life. The book closes with a reflection on hunting and gathering in Ireland today. The overriding aim of the book is to provide a point of entry into the lives of the Irish Mesolithic, to show the different ways in which people have lived on this island, and to show how we might narrate those lives.

This is the first comprehensive study of all the plantations that were attempted in Ireland during the years 1580-1650. It examines the arguments advanced by successive political figures for a plantation policy, and the responses which this policy elicited from different segments of the population in Ireland. The book opens with an analysis of the complete works of Edmund Spenser who was the most articulate ideologue for plantation. The author argues that all subsequent advocates of plantation, ranging from King James VI and I, to Strafford, to Oliver Cromwell, were guided by Spenser's opinions, and that discrepancies between plantation in theory and practice were measured against this yardstick. The book culminates with a close analysis of the 1641 insurrection throughout Ireland, which, it is argued, steeled Cromwell to engage in one last effort to make Ireland British.