Ireland Awakening

by EdwardRutherfurd (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $4.62

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $4.77

  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

  Hardcover
  2006

  $38.58

  Following the critically acclaimed success of Dublin , this riveting sequel takes the story of Ireland from the 17th century onwards. Ireland: Awakenings picks up where the former left off - at the Reformation, and with it, the devastating arrival of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell heralds the inauguration of two hundred years of Protestant dominance, throughout which many of the Irish people were impoverished and dispossessed. Dublin is made a Protestant capital, and Catholics become an underclass. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Irish political history, the novel revisits family dynasties such as the Walshes and the Doyles, whose epic voyages through the centuries continue right the way up to the twentieth century's Easter Rising and Independence, passing through turbulent milestones such as The Year of the French and The Independence Movement of Parnell along the way. But literature does not entirely give way to history; the encroaching of the Celtic Dawn and the timeless worlds of W.B. Yeats and James Joyce are also paid rich tribute to, and bring this powerful saga to its conclusion.

• New

  Paperback
  2005

  $15.14

  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.