Ireland Great

This book is packed with trivia facts about Ireland. Some of the facts you’ll learn in this book are shocking, some are tragic, and others will leave you with goosebumps. But they’re all interesting! Whether you’re just learning about Ireland or you already think you’re an expert on the state, you’ll learn something you didn’t know in every chapter. Your history teacher will be interesting at all of your newfound knowledge.

Lancater and York is a riveting account of the Wars of the Roses, from beloved historian Alison Weir. The war between the houses of Lancaster and York was characterised by treachery, deceit, and bloody battles. Alison Weir's lucid and gripping account focuses on the human side of history. At the centre of the book stands Henry VI, the pious king whose mental instability led to political chaos, and his wife Margaret of Anjou, who took up her arms in her husband's cause and battled in a violent man's world.

The Great Hunger is the story of one of the worst disasters in world history: the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. Within five years, one million people died of starvation. Emigrants by the hundreds of thousands sailed for America and Canada in small, ill-equipped, dangerously unsanitary ships. Some ships never arrived; those that did carried passengers already infected with and often dying of typhus. The Irish who managed to reach the United States alive had little or no money....

This magnificent biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court - the most spectacular court ever seen in England - and the splendour of his many sumptuous palaces. An entertaining narrative packed with colourful description and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, but also a comprehensive analytical study of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history.

WASPs finally get their due in this stimulating history by one of the world's leading geneticists. Saxons, Vikings, and Celts is the most illuminating book yet to be written about the genetic history of Britain and Ireland. Through a systematic, ten-year DNA survey of more than 10,000 volunteers, Bryan Sykes has traced the true genetic makeup of British Islanders and their descendants.

She was a spirited young heiress. He was a handsome baronet with a promising career in government. Their marriage had the makings of a fairy tale but ended as one of the most salacious and highly publicized divorces in history. For over 200 years the story of Lady Worsley, her vengeful husband, and her lover, George Maurice Bisset, lay forgotten. Now Hallie Rubenhold, in her impeccably researched book, throws open a window to a rarely seen view of Georgian England, one colored by passion, adventure, and the defiance of social convention.

Thomas Keneally, the Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler’s List, is universally praised for crafting smooth narratives from authentic historical events. With The Great Shame, he turns his insightful eye toward the Irish struggle through the 19h century. In sharp contrast to much of Europe, Ireland was a terrible place to be during the 1800s. Many of the nation’s finest people set sail for America and Canada.

One evening in 1951, an itinerant storyteller arrives unannounced at a house in the Irish countryside. In exchange for a bed and a warm meal, he invites his hosts and their neighbors to join him by the wintry fireside and begins to tell formative stories of Ireland's history. Ronan, a nine-year-old boy, grows so entranced by the storytelling that, when the old man leaves abruptly under mysterious circumstances, the boy devotes himself to finding him again.

Pocket History: The Troubles chronicles the 30 year long Irish Troubles. It begins right at the start with the first English invasion of Ireland and continues right up until present day, answering the question of what does the legacy of the troubles mean for modern day Irish and British people.

From the first prehistoric inhabitants of the island to the St Andrews Agreement and decommissioning of IRA weapons, this uniquely concise account of Ireland and its people reveals how differing interpretations of history, ancient and modern, have influenced modern Irish society. Combining factual information with a critical approach, Coohill covers all the key events, including the Great Famine, Home Rule, and the Good Friday Agreement.

The story of Britain from the earliest settlements in 3000BC to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. To look back at the past is to understand the present. In this vivid account of over 4,000 years of British history, Simon Schama takes us on an epic journey which encompasses the very beginnings of the nation's identity, when the first settlers landed on Orkney. From the successes and failures of the monarchy to the daily life of a Roman soldier stationed on Hadrian's Wall, Schama gives a vivid, fascinating account of the many different stories and struggles that lie behind the growth of our island nation.

In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by a novel pathogen. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom, that the blight’s devastation reached apocalyptic levels, leaving more than a million people dead and forcing millions more to emigrate. In Rot, historian Padraic X. Scanlan offers the definitive account of the Great Famine, showing how Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom and the British Empire made it uniquely vulnerable to starvation.

In this sweeping history, Ireland's best-known historian, Tim Pat Coogan, tackles the dark history of the Irish Famine and argues that it constituted one of the first acts of genocide. In what the Boston Globe calls "his greatest achievement", Coogan shows how the British government hid behind the smoke screen of laissez faire economics, the invocation of divine providence, and a carefully orchestrated publicity campaign, allowing more than a million people to die agonizing deaths and driving a further million into emigration.

Entertaining and different, this is an enjoyable study of a flawed yet characterful Prince of Wales seen through the eyes of the women in his life. Edward Vll, who gave his name to the Edwardian Age and died in 1911, was King of England for the final 10 years of his life. He was 59 when at last he came to the throne. Known as Bertie, the eldest son of Victoria and Albert, he was bullied by both his parents.

The Scots-Irish were 40 percent of the Revolutionary War army; they included the pioneers Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston; they were the writers Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain; and they have given America numerous great military leaders, including Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Audie Murphy, and George S. Patton, as well as most of the soldiers of the Confederacy (only five percent of whom owned slaves, and who fought against what they viewed as an invading army).

Dublin, Ireland 1915. Eighteen-year-old May Gallagher is beautiful but restless, and longs for the freedom to live her own life, to decide her own destiny. Mollycoddled as the only remaining child of middle-class parents in the suburbs, she sneaks out to the theatre when she can. She is mesmerised by the captivating actor Peter Cullen, and wishes she could enjoy a more bohemian life. The Great War is taking all the boys away, and the promise that it will all be over by Christmas is ringing more hollow with each passing month.

In 1846 a baby girl is born to a young Irish fisherman and his wife. It is the second year of the Great Hunger and the young couple choose to remain in Ireland, while family and friends are leaving. Their story takes place in the fishing village of Blackrock, Dundalk, but with the cities of Liverpool and Sunderland playing a critical part in their lives. Is their love for each other and their homeland enough to sustain them, or will they be forced to join the one and a half million who emigrate?

With travel tips and culture in our guidebooks written by a local author, it is never too late to visit Dublin. Greater Than a Tourist - Dublin Ireland by author Sarah Whelan offers the inside scoop on Dublin’s fair city. Most travel books tell you how to travel like a tourist. Although there is nothing wrong with that, as part of the Greater Than a Tourist series, this book will give you candid travel tips from someone who has lived at your next travel destination.

Bartley Gorman was the greatest bareknuckle fighter of modern times. He reigned as King of the Gypsies for 20 years, beating all comers in illegal contests at fairs and racetracks, down mineshafts and in quarries, on campsites and car parks. He fought for honour and pride and became a legend among the travelling community.

The saga of English predominance in Ireland began in the 12th century following the Norman invasion of England, when a band of Norman adventurers, established on the Welsh mainland, set off across the Irish Sea to test their prospects on the shores of England’s western neighbor. Ireland at the time was ruled in provinces by local kings, each with limited power and authority, and often at war with one another.