Ireland This Century

by TonyGray (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1994

  $3.34

  This book assesses Ireland's major political, social and cultural developments during this troubled century. With a chronological appraoch to the events that have shaped a nation, this book provides both an impression of day-to-day life in Ireland since 1900, while also offering a political and historical overview of the period. It is a portrait of a nation's struggle to define itself; to translate the strong national identity of the Irish abroad into a coherent homogeneity at home. Blighted, or blessed, with a deeply ambivalent attitude to the power of the English influence over the centuries, the Irish people have for decades been divided between those loyal to the British Crown, and those advocates of Home Rule. This division found formal expression in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, separating the Protestant North from the new Irish Free State (later the Republic of Ireland) in the South. While this fledgling state established its autonomy, introducing a republican constitution in 1937 and seceding from the Commonwealth in 1949, the identity of the nation as a whole continued to struggle with the difficulties of its perpetual political and religious cleavages. It also examines the artistic and social wealth of a formidable cultural legacy. The influence of writers and poets, artists and playwrights such as Joyce, Yeats, Shaw and Synge is discussed in both social and political contexts, and wider cultural trends are examined in an accessible style. The author shows us Ireland and the Irish as they really are - the truths behind the stereotype of gregarious, sport-loving Guinness drinkers, as well as the realities of the lasting wounds inflicted on this divided nation.

• Used

  Paperback
  1996

  $3.34

  This work is a chronological account of the events and inviduals that have helped shape Ireland. It provides a review of Ireland's experience of this troubled century, juxtoposing impressions of day-to-day life with a more general assessment of the country's development - whether social, cultural, political or historical. It includes all the things that dominated Irish thinking between 1900 and the present: the Irish Hospitals Sweep (the biggest lottery in the world in its day); Downey's pub strike, which went on for so long that one generation of picketers was replaced by the next; the cultural glories of the Irish theatre; the price of a pint of Guinness or a dozen oysters; and the trade of Kerrygold butter for Russian oil. Arguably these reflect the nature of the Irish people far more accurately than many of the main political events. It also combines headlines of international import with quirky regional news stories and personal anecdotes.