Dublin: Foundation

by Edward Rutherfurd (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $4.63

  The history of Dublin is that of the whole island of Ireland. Best-selling author Edward Rutherfurd has lived in Dublin for the past decade; with the help of some of Ireland's leading historians, he has researched this epic and groundbreaking novel of the city. Rutherfurd managed to encapsulate the drama of Salisbury, Moscow, London and the New Forest in one volume in his previous best-sellers Sarum, Russka, London and The Forest. But such was the wealth of new material uncovered for this volume, Rutherfurd has taken the unprecedented step of splitting the hardback publication in two. The first of the two books, Dublin: Foundation, will take us from prehistory, the High Kings of Tara, the Viking invasion, the machinations of Henry II and the greed of Henry VIII to the burning of the saint's relics in front of Christchurch cathedral in 1538. At the end of this majestically sweeping narrative Rutherfurd effectively closes the story of the 'Irish' Irish: the descendants of Fingall and Cuchulainn, the princes and Kings of Tara of Brian Boru and the spiritual descendants of Patrick himself. The second novel, Dublin: Ascendancy taking the story of Dublin from the 16th Century will appear next year and in 2005 the two volumes will be combined in a single volume in Arrow paperback.

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $15.46

• Used

  Hardcover
  2004

  $4.26

  Rutherfurd's epic style, famously exercised in his dramatic accounts of Sarum, Russia and London, makes this saga, set against the backdrop of the great events of Irish history, so readable and moving. With the help of some of the country's leading historians, Rutherfurd has unearthed many curious gems that overturn our traditionally perceived notions of Ireland's past: - There were significant numbers of English people in early Ireland - they were actually slaves to the Irish Patrick was not a name the Irish ever used until modern times. For centuries, the saint's name was held in such reverence that the Irish would only call themselves Gilpatrick, which means 'servant of Patrick'. It was the one and only English Pope who first told the English King to conquer Christian Ireland in the Middle Ages. St Stephen's Green is the well-known centre of fashionable Dublin and is named after a small leper hospital that used to be there; Leopardstown racecourse is so-called because the land it is on also belonged to a leper hospital. The people in Ireland who most hated the Reformation were actually the English in Ireland, who were the strictest Catholics at that time.

• New

  Paperback
  2005

  $14.22

  Edward Rutherfurd's great Irish epic reveals the story of the people of Ireland through the focal point of the island's capital city. The epic begins in pre-Christian Ireland during the reign of the fierce and powerful High Kings at Tara, with the tale of two lovers, the princely Conall and the ravishing Deirdre, whose travails echo the ancient Celtic legend of Cuchulainn. From this stirring beginning, Rutherfurd takes the reader on a graphically realised journey through the centuries. Through the interlocking stories of a powerfully-imagined cast of characters - druids and chieftains, monks and smugglers, merchants and mercenaries, noblewomen, rebels and cowards - we see Ireland through the lens of its greatest city.