Ireland Since 1800: Conflict and Conformity

The text, though lively and entertaining, is closely argued, bringing a refreshing intellectual rigour to a field too often bedevilled by sharp-edged polemic or soft-focus romanticism. Its firm structure and distinctive combination of chronological and thematic approaches throw a searching light on how the twin imperatives of conflict and conformity have shaped the lives of Irish men and women in the past two centuries. These insights are not only of interest in themselves, but are of compelling contemporary relevance: in few places does the past obtrude so inescapably on the present as it does in Ireland, and nowhere else, perhaps, has that past been subjected to such intense analysis in modern times. Ireland since 1800 does justice to both dimensions, and its reworking will be warmly welcomed by old admirers and new readers alike.