Here are 100 books that Eyewitness to Irish History fans have personally recommended if you like
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I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
I love this story because it is a time portal that swiftly deposited me in the streets of Dublin just before the Easter Rising. I could see the dirty streets and poverty and feel the hunger for change, for freedom from occupation, that was palpable in the air. I watched the unbelievable and fantastic display of doomed, deadly belligerence against the British.
I love the intensity and rawness of the author’s changing outlook. From a disinterested privileged medical student to a hard-core rebel, abandoning his bright future, he leads men across the wilds of Ireland in tasks he would rather not undertake. I love that he tells this with such a poetic turn of phrase that I can feel the grass underfoot as the men walk and my stomach churning as they take aim.
More than any other book of the period, On Another Man's Wound captures the feel of Ireland―the way people lived, their attitudes and beliefs―and paints brilliant cameo sketches of the great personalities of the Rising and the War. Like many of the Irish, O'Malley was largely indifferent to the attempts to establish an independent Ireland―until the Easter Rising of 1916. As the fight progressed his feelings changed and he joined the Irish Republican Army.
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
I love the voice of authenticity that emanates from this story. The location is what was once considered one of the most remote, poor parts of Ireland, West Cork.
The author is a mere teenager at the time of the Rising. I love his deep regard for the men and women of his community, his understanding of the simple pleasures of their hard lives, his ability to communicate their stoic determination to fight the enemy in the face of possible disaster, particular cruelty, and severe punishment if they are caught.
I love how, without even trying, the author presents an explanation of how the rebel mindset permeated whole swathes of the country.
Where Mountainy Men have Sown gives a first-hand account of the fight for freedom in West Cork from 1916-21. It chronicles the social and military aspects of the War of Independence and describes the IRA's activities in the area, from Macroom to as far west as Ballingeary and Coolea, and covering Inchigeelagh to Ballyvourney and the Derrynasaggart Mountains. Micheal O Suilleabhain joined the armed struggle for freedom in his local area of Kilnamartyra at the age of thirteen and describes attacks on armed police patrols, barracks and a large-scale engagement against the elite of Britain's specially recruited fighting forces in…
I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
Frank O'Connor is one of Ireland's most famous writers of short stories. I love that he took on this story about a beloved rebel leader and did so with all of the attention to detail and deep insight into characters that he is known for. I also love that his own affection and admiration of the man shines through even when trying to be dispassionate and unbiased and tell the bad with the good. It matters not.
His love for the man resonates across every type of action Collins takes, good, bad, or ugly. O'Connor opens a window into a nation's deep regard and tragic loss of the fearless man who convinced everyone freedom could be pried from the British and then set about to do it.
Re-issued with an introduction by Neil Jordan, 'The Big Fellow' is the 1937 biography of the famed Irish leader Michael Collins by acclaimed author Frank O'Connor. It is an uncompromising but humane study of Collins, whose stature and genius O'Connor recognised. A masterly, evocative portrait of one of Ireland's most charismatic figures, 'The Big Fellow' covers the period of Collins' life from the Easter Rising in 1916 to his death in 1922 during the Irish Civil War.
The author, having served with the Anti-Treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War, wrote 'The Big Fellow' as a form of reparation over…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
I love that this book is a treasure chest of ancient stories passed down by word of mouth for countless generations. The Irish were originally a separate nation of Celts, with their own set of gods and heroes and warriors, their own idiosyncratic characters like shape-shifters, fairies, and leprechauns. I love that Lady Gregory spent years collecting these stories from the locals on her native West Coast, starting with her own nanny.
What I love most about this book is that it was a best seller when the rebels of 1916 were young and that they were raised on some of these same stories of courage, fortitude and yes, trickery. These wild characters were the role models of young developing Irish rebels at the turn of the century.
Lady Augusta Gregory's Irish Myths and Legends, or Gods and Fighting Men as it was first titled in 1904, is an essential collection of Irish myths, legends and folk tales gathered by Gregory from Irish oral story tellers at the close of the nineteenth century.
These epic tales are divided into two parts: the first charts the coming of the mythic Tuatha De Danaan to Ireland, the lives of Manannan and Lugh, and the tragedy of the Children of Lir. The second part follows the exploits and trials of Finn Mac Cumhal, the Fianna, Oisin, and the love story of…
My first introduction to Ireland was in 1953 when my parents took the entire family over for two months. We stayed mostly in Dublin as "paying guests" with a threadbare, though incredibly proud, Anglo-Irish mother and her adult daughter in their decrepit apartment. What a learning experience for a seven-year-old boy! My fascination with the country's culture and history has never dampened, climaxed by my purchase of a 16th-century ruin, Moyode Castle, in County Galway, now finally restored. Over the years I have written seven books, six of them on Irish themes, plus innumerable articles in scholarly journals. The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland is my magnum opus as an Irish historian.
This fine introduction to both the Irish themselves, and their tortured history, was first published in 1947 by this respected commentator. The only way to really understand Ireland is to dissect the many distinctive population groups -- their peculiarities of religion, social outlook, political ambitions, and allegiances -- and then to see how the mixture of these complex streams determined the country's history, with positive but also calamitous results over many centuries. O'Faolain deals with the indigenous Celts, the interloping Normans, the increasingly acquisitive English, and how the tumultuous interactions between them produced the core of Irish society: its peasantry, the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, the clergy, politicians, rebels, writers, and dreamers.
The only thing O'Faolain missed, because he didn't live to see it, was the emergent, and now dominant, middle class of the Celtic Tiger. A beautifully written book.
I am a retired history teacher with 36 years of teaching experience in high school and college. I am also a passionate world traveler and for over four decades led students on overseas tours. In 2012 (the year I retired from teaching) I released my first novel, Widder’s Landing set in Kentucky in the early 1800s. One of my main characters came from a family of Irish Catholics—and he is featured in Rebels Abroad. Ireland has always fascinated me and in my nine trips to the country, I smelled the peat fires, tasted the whiskey, listened to the music and the lyrical tales told by the tour leaders—and came to love the people.
Perhaps no book has moved me more than Ireland by Frank Delaney.
Through a series of tales told by an itinerant storyteller the author paints a series of haunting, vivid portraits of Irish history. Each story stands alone, but over the course of three nights of story-telling, the pieces of this mosaic come together, revealing a clearer history than most history books could hope to present.
Delaney reaches deeper historical facts and allows a rare glimpse into how people felt and what they believed. I felt that I was listening to the storyteller, rather than reading words. This presents the Irish people in a unique and engaging light.
One evening in 1951, an itinerant storyteller arrives unannounced and mysterious at a house in the Irish countryside. By the November fireside he begins to tell the story of this extraordinary land. One of his listeners, a nine-year-old boy, grows so entranced by the storytelling that, when the old man leaves, he devotes his life to finding him again. It is a search that uncovers both passions and mysteries, in his own life as well as the old man's, and their solving becomes the thrilling climax to this tale. But the life of this boy is more than just his…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
For centuries, Ireland struggled to gain independence from Britain. Many Irish abroad, in the USA and elsewhere, helped to arm and fund that struggle. My Grandfather Kenny in Dublin was among those who helped Arthur Griffith, founder of the Sinn Féin liberation movement, to promote his ideas in the early twentieth century. Grandfather also sought support for the educational initiatives of Patrick Pearse before the British executed Pearse as a leading rebel in 1916. Between 1905 and 1923, a revolutionary movement in Ireland broke Britain’s resolve. The independent Irish state was founded, comprising all but six of the thirty-two counties of Ireland.
Townshend is a foremost British historian of his country’s rule in Ireland. He and the late Michael Hopkinson (whose books include Green Against Green about the Irish Civil War) are among British academics who have helped to educate the UK public on the impact of imperialism in Ireland.
Townshend astutely argues that the Catholic dimension of Irish republicanism has distinguished it from other forms.
A gripping narrative of the most critical years in modern Ireland's history, from Charles Townshend
The protracted, terrible fight for independence pitted the Irish against the British and the Irish against other Irish. It was both a physical battle of shocking violence against a regime increasingly seen as alien and unacceptable and an intellectual battle for a new sort of country. The damage done, the betrayals and grim compromises put the new nation into a state of trauma for at least a generation, but at a nearly unacceptable cost the struggle ended: a new republic was born.
I’ve chosen to recommend fiction by Irish women, because I’m a female Irish writer myself. My own books are mostly for children, but, hey, I’m an adult. As well as a writer I am a retired publisher, a not-quite-retired editor, and an occasional translator, so I tend to engage very closely – OK, obsessively – with text. I have a pretty serious visual impairment, so most of my ‘reading’ is through the medium of audiobooks. I’m never sure if that influences my taste in reading. Anyway, these are the books I’ve liked recently, and hope you do too.
A few years ago, I spent a week in the hospital recovering from surgery. When my husband came to visit, I would fill his ears with tragic and/or hilarious tales of my ward-mates. He kept saying, “Write it down. This is novel material.” He was right. But I didn’t.
Looks like Elaine Feeney did. Her novel, mostly set in a hospital ward, is uproariously funny as well as deeply sad and very wise.
I grew up near Elaine’s home town in east Galway. So, though I don’t know her, I do know the society she is writing about. And she gets it spot on!
WINNER OF THE KATE O'BRIEN AWARD 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2020 AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT 2020
'Riveting... I was exhilarated reading this' Roddy Doyle
Sinead Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young property developer with a terrifying secret.
No-one knows it: not her fellow patients in a failing hospital, and certainly not her family. She has confided only in Google and a shiny magpie.
But she can't go on like this, tirelessly trying to outstrip her past and in mortal fear of her future. Across the…
For centuries, Ireland struggled to gain independence from Britain. Many Irish abroad, in the USA and elsewhere, helped to arm and fund that struggle. My Grandfather Kenny in Dublin was among those who helped Arthur Griffith, founder of the Sinn Féin liberation movement, to promote his ideas in the early twentieth century. Grandfather also sought support for the educational initiatives of Patrick Pearse before the British executed Pearse as a leading rebel in 1916. Between 1905 and 1923, a revolutionary movement in Ireland broke Britain’s resolve. The independent Irish state was founded, comprising all but six of the thirty-two counties of Ireland.
I am gripped by this account of the real impact of Ireland’s short but very bitter civil war, which left the new state fractured long after the war ended in 1923.
Aiken is the great-granddaughter of a former “terrorist” who later became foreign minister of the Republic of Ireland. She mines fiction as well as historical records to produce a lively work relevant to any war.
SPIRITUAL WOUNDS challenges the widespread belief that the contentious events of the Irish Civil War (1922–23) were covered in a total blanket of silence. The book uncovers an archive of published testimonies by pro- and anti-treaty men and women, written in both English and Irish. Most of the testimonies discussed were produced in the 1920s and 1930s, and nearly all have been overlooked in historical study to date. Revolutionaries went to great lengths to testify to the ‘spiritual wounds’ of civil war: they adopted fictionalised disguises, located their writings in other places or periods of time, and found shelter behind…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I love exploring the theme of family legacies and learning the stories, even if fictionalized, of our ancestors who helped build America for future generations. I explored this theme with my Ellis Island series, but truly it influences everything I write. It began with my interest in my own genealogy and my love of research. Along with writing my own books, I host a blog on historical fiction called Novel PASTimes and am co-founder of the Faith & Fellowship Book Festival with the aim of connecting readers with really good books.
This is a gritty story of the peril young Irish immigrants faced when coming to America, along with the hardships they were escaping back in Ireland. The fact that others were waiting to abuse and exploit the immigrants is certainly historically accurate. However, B.J. Hoff’s stories are always filled with hope and shine a light on hope in God. It’s Christian fiction, so readers should be aware of that. Also, this new edition includes two stories, a great deal. B.J. Hoff passed away in 2021 but left a long legacy of inspirational historical fiction.
The mysteries of the past confront the secrets of the present in bestselling author BJ Hoff's magnificent "Song of Erin" saga. In her own unique style, Hoff spins a panoramic story that crosses the ocean from Ireland to America, featuring two of her most memorable characters. In this tale of struggle and love and uncompromising faith, Jack Kane, the always charming but sometimes ruthless titan of New York's most powerful publishing empire, is torn between the conflict of his own heart and the grace and light of Samantha Harte, the woman he loves, whose own troubled past continues to haunt…
