Christianity in Ireland

This is the first fully-documented history of Ireland and the Irish from Saint Patrick to the Vikings. Other books cover either a longer period (up to the Anglo-Norman conquests) or do not indicate in detail the evidence on which they are based. The book opens with the Irish raids and settlements in Britain, and the conversion of Ireland to Christianity, and ends as Viking attacks on Ireland accelerated in the second quarter of the ninth century.

The Making of Ireland by James Lydon provides an accessible history of Ireland from the earliest times. James Lydon recounts, in colourful detail, the waves of settlers, missionaries and invaders which have come to Ireland since pre-history and offers a long perspective on Irish history right up to the present time.This comprehensive survey includes discussion of the arrival of St. Patrick in the fifth century and Henry II in the twelfth, as well as that of numerous soldiers, traders and craftsmen through the ages. The author explores how these settlers have shaped the political and cultural climate of Ireland today. James Lydon charts the changing racial mix of Ireland through the ages which shaped the Irish nation. The author also follows Ireland's long and troubled entanglement with England from its beginning many centuries ago. The Making of Ireland offers a complete history in one volume. Through a predominantly political narrative, James Lydon provides a coherent and readable introduction to this vital complex history.

Mary Peckham Magray argues that the Irish Catholic cultural revolution in the nineteenth century was effected not only by male elites, as previous scholarship has claimed, but also by the most overlooked and underestimated women in Ireland: the nuns. Once thought to be merely passive servants of the male clerical hierarchy, women's religious orders were in fact at the very center of the creation of a devout Catholic culture in Ireland. Often well-educated, articulate, and evangelical, nuns were much more social and ambitious than traditional stereotypical views have held. They used their wealth and their authority to effect changes in both the religious practices and daily activity of the larger Irish Catholic population, and by doing so, Magray argues, deserve a far larger place in the Irish historical record than they have previously been accorded. Magray's innovative work challenges some of the most widely held assumptions of social history in nineteenth-century Ireland. It will be of interest to scholars and students of Irish history, religious history, women's studies, and sociology.

This is the first full account of the role of the Irish Catholic Church in the Great Famine of 1846 and its aftermath. Kerr shows how the Famine and consequent evictions led to rural violence and assassination and how these years also saw an increase in religious tensions as Protestant Evangelicals made an all-out effort to Protestantize Ireland. His incisive analysis charts the souring of relations between church and state and the destruction of Lord John Russell's dream of bringing a golden age to Ireland.

Few European communities are more soaked in their bloody history than the Catholics of Ulster, but the Catholic and Protestant communities' faulty understanding of their past has had ruinous effects on the lives of its inhabitants. Marianne Elliott has written a coherent, credible, and absorbing history of the Ulster Catholics. The whole sorry sweep of the province's history is covered -- from its early medieval origins to the tenuous but holding Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and formation of an all-Ulster legislature.