Jim Scanlon (deceased)
Senior Staff
FORUM CHAPLAIN
Commander South Texas outpost of the County Sligo Squadron
Currently: Offline
Posts: 5,075
Location:
Joined: July 2007
Retired: USAF NBA: Spurs NFL: Niners MLB: Giants NHL: Penguins
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Post by Jim Scanlon (deceased) on Oct 9, 2012 9:22:22 GMT 9
Don't really know where to put this.
I can't find the "What are you reading" Forum.
So:
Seeing Ireland has been at war since before the time of the Roman Conquest, I guess it sort of fits in the Military Trivia Forum.
I'm reading the greatest book on the history of Ireland that I have read.
I have read some very scholarly, boring, books.
I have read some fluff books.
However, this one is a charm.
Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland, by Malachy McCourt.
It is written almost as verbal history.
McCourt just tells the story, including lots of battles, with no great interest in making some college professor drool over the book.
He wanted people to be able to understand the Irish and the History of Ireland.
He has done a marvelous job.
If you want to find out more about the Irish, in a very humorous/political/practical/human way, this is the book.
It is available at the usual places.
I got my copy at Costco.
That means they no longer have it.
One other book on the subject, which I highly recommend:
"How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe", by Thomas Cahill.
Happy reading. :leprechaun
Jim Too
:god_bless_usa
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Post by ma1marv on Oct 9, 2012 12:19:10 GMT 9
Hey !!! I read "How the Irish Saved Civilization" many years ago! It is very interesting, very much a bit more than you might expect from a "History" book! When you do read it - take it all in! It was very uiplifting to me! Can not believe my heritage was so very important in keeping something so very important for all the rest of the world to have, and not loose.
Reccommended!
MArv :fire_missle_ani :patriotic-flagwaver :green-beer
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Post by Marvin Pine on Oct 11, 2012 13:33:57 GMT 9
By chance, I just finished re-reading a book about Ireland. It isn't history but still it's a very interesting book titled "Green Shadows, White Whale", a semi-autobiographic novel about Ray Bradbury's time in Ireland while writing the screen play for the movie Moby Dick. It's a good read that I would recommend to all, but might be hard to find as it was released in 1992.
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Jim Scanlon (deceased)
Senior Staff
FORUM CHAPLAIN
Commander South Texas outpost of the County Sligo Squadron
Currently: Offline
Posts: 5,075
Location:
Joined: July 2007
Retired: USAF NBA: Spurs NFL: Niners MLB: Giants NHL: Penguins
|
Post by Jim Scanlon (deceased) on Oct 13, 2012 14:05:11 GMT 9
Edward Rutherfurd wrote a two-part, fictional, history of Ireland.
They are very well researched and factual as to the actual history.
They are:
The Princes of Ireland "Working closely with leading Irish historians, Edward Rutherfurd in THE PRINCES OF IRELAND tells a magnificent tale of eleven hundred years of Irish history.
After a haunting prologue set at the timeless prehistoric site of Newgrange on the River Boyne, the narrative begins with the tragic story of Conall and Deirdre the green-eyed girl - part romance, part political thriller, part horror story - at the time of the pagan High Kings of Tara, the druid priests and the coming of Saint Patrick. Their descendants the O'Byrnes, and the MacGowans, Harolds, Doyles, Walshes and Tidies, experience triumph, danger and failure in a sweeping saga that leads us through the coming of the Vikings, the making of monastic treasures like the Book of Kells, the glorious reign of Brian Boru and the council where Ireland falls for the trickery of an English king.
So begins the long conflict between English and Irish cultures, through the English rulers at Dublin, the wild life 'beyond the Pale', the intrigues of the Fitzgeralds and Butlers. The story reaches its climax at the Reformation - after the only Irish attempt to invade England - when Henry VIII crushes the revolt of 'Silken Thomas' Fitzgerald, and the sacred Staff of Saint Patrick mysteriously vanishes.
Druids and chieftains, monks and smugglers, noblewomen and farmwives, craftsmens and orphans, rebels and cowards - THE PRINCES OF IRELAND captures the essence of place and people in this thrilling story steeped in the tragedy and glory that are Ireland."
And:
Rebels of Ireland "In THE REBELS OF IRELAND, Edward Rutherfurd, working closely with leading Irish historians, tells the story of the O'Byrne, MacGowan, Doyle, Walsh and Tidy families, together with the Catholic Smiths, Presbyterian Laws and Budges, down the turbulent centuries of Cromwell, the Ascendancy, and the Famine to the Easter Rising and the Irish Free State.
In the days of England's colonising plantations, the ranting Puritan preacher Doctor Pincher and his land-hungry nephew Barnaby Budge oppose the passionate piety of the Walshes. Against the background of the Irish Confederation, the coming of Cromwell, the massacre of Drogheda, and the Battle of the Boyne, the middle-aged adultery of Margaret Smith with the Irish chieftain Brian O'Byrne leads to many consequences. During the English Ascendancy, through the elegant world of Georgian Dublin, the literary times of Swift and Sheridan, and the political drama of Grattan's famous Parliament, rich Walshes, poor hedge schoolmasters, and Dublin shopkeepers try to protect their position and their faith - until all compromise breaks down with the rebellion of Wolfe Tone in 1798 - the Year of the French - and the tragedy of Emmet's Rising.
We follow Tidy the Quaker, Smith the Catholic, Dudley Doyle the economist, and many others through the rise and fall of O'Connell and of Parnell, and during the day-by-day misery of the Famine, where a poor girl tries to save her family. We reach the exciting but dangerous world of the Celtic revival of WB Yeats, the growth of Sinn Fein in the streets of James Joyce's Dublin, and the remarkable story of the Women of the Easter Rising."
Both books are quite long, but very good reads.
Rutherfurd has written a number of other books in the same genre.
Happy Reading
Jim Too
:god_bless_usa
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