Ireland, a History

by Robert Kee

Book Overview

This book is an examination of the prison of Irish history, back to its very beginnings, to identify the principal groups involved in Ireland. It traces the emergence of each group and their links... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316485063
• ISBN13: 9780316485067
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

WONDERFUL HISTORY OF IRELAND,VERY EASY TO UNDERSTAND

THIS IS A VERY GOOD HISTORY OF IRELAND. IT TAKES YOU FROM THE EARLY BEGINNINGS TO THE PRESENT IN A FLOWING, INTERESTING WAY.IT IS OBJECTIVE IN ITS DEALING WITH THE MANY INTERNAL PROBLEMSIRELAND HAD AND STILL HAS WITH ENGLAND. IT IS A WONDERFUL WAY TO UNDERSTAND BOTH THE IRISH FEELINGS ABOUT INDEPENDENCE AND THEFEELING THE BRITISH HAVE ABOUT THIS INDEPENDENCE. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.......

A Fine Primer on Ireland

Robert Kee's "Ireland: A History" is, simply put, a fine introductory overview of modern Ireland. By "modern" I refer to the time from a bit before the Viking invasion (roughly 797 C.E.), through the Free State to the founding of the Republic and into "The Troubles" of today. For my money, the book's major flaw was its brief, superficial treatment of ancient Celtic Ireland. There is so much more to Ireland's Gaelic past than Kee covers that one will need other books to fill this gap. As a dual national -- I'm an Irish and a U.S. citizen -- I did not really "need" Kee's book to learn of modern or ancient Ireland, or the supplementary works I later bought to cover the pre-Viking material his "Ireland: A History" did not; I already knew a fair bit about this as a function of my birth. [A Dublin-born Irishman gave me Kee's book to read while I lived in Cyprus, where English-language books are very dear, and one reads what one may already have read or known to save money.] As a further note, ultra-Republican friends of mine scoff at what they characterize as Kee's "royalist/loyalist" leanings, dismissing out of hand anything he has to say as not quite "shamrock green" enough for a "True Republican" to be citing him as a source on anything Irish. I personally did not find Kee a propagandist for the Crown, so do not subscribe out of hand to this IRA carping. I can grouse, however, at Kee's or his editors' failure to state in which Dublin museum hangs the heartbreaking painting of "The Flight of the Earls," found on page 38 of the book. On one occasion, I'd sought out the painting in the National Gallery in Dublin, only to learn it hung in another museum -- which was closed the day I went after it. Notwithstanding this, in my humble opinion, for those not of Irish extraction or citizenship (or ultra-Republican bent), Kee's book is a good, easily readable, healthy introduction to the Emerald Isle. It is devoid of any blarney-sentimental cliches or slanderous stereotyping of the "glib, gab-gifted, Guinness-gulping" Irishman. And it pulls no punches at Britain's guilt for its arguably deliberate genocide of the Irish in the Great Famine of 1845-49 and those lesser ones that grass-stained starving Irish mouths and blood-stained the 19th century. But it will fill in only so many blanks in one's understanding of that ageless island and its early people, with their lost-in-mists religions, languages, superstitions, culture and monuments. Those wanting more will have to buy other works, such as Peter Beresford Ellis' "The Ancient World of the Celts," for instance. Overall, I found Kee's "Ireland: A History" a good survey course in Ireland, so much so that I bought it as a gift for a friend of Irish extraction, who'd developed a keen interest in tracing his own roots -- and in applying for Irish citizenship. On balance, Kee's book is worth the money and the read.Anthony O'Neill Miller

Great

A wonderful piece of literature, which has already helped my A-Level studies