The Great Irish Politics Book


Book Description

The latest book in the Gill Books series of important topics tackled by experts, this engaging guide demystifies political systems, elections, voting, and government, and explores issues including human rights, freedom of speech, and fake news.




Rogues and Redeemers


Book Description

From the bestselling coauthor of Black Mass, a behind-the-scenes portrait of the Irish power brokers who forged and fractured twentieth-century Boston. Rogues and Redeemers tells the hidden story of Boston politics--the cold-blooded ward bosses, the smoke-filled rooms, the larger-than-life pols who became national figures: Honey Fitz, the crafty stage Irishman and grandfather to a president; the pugilistic Rascal King, Michael Curley; the hectored Kevin White who tried to hold the city together during the busing crisis; and Ray Flynn, the Southie charmer who was truly the last hurrah for Irish-American politics in the city. For almost a century, the Irish dominated Boston politics with their own unique, clannish brand of coercion and shaped its future for good and ill. Former Boston Globe investigative reporter Gerard O'Neill takes the reader through the entire journey from the famine ships arriving in Massachusetts Bay to the wresting of power away from the Brahmins of Beacon Hill to the Title I wars of attrition over housing to the rending of the city over busing to the Boston of today--which somehow through it all became a modern, revitalized city, albeit with a growing divide between the haves and have-nots. Sweeping in its history and intimate in its details, Rogues and Redeemers echoes all the great themes of The Power Broker and Common Ground and should take its place on that esteemed shelf as a classic, definitive epic of a city.




Biting at the Grave


Book Description

"In an eloquent and haunting book, O'Malley makes the fanaticism of [the hunger strikers] and their supporters, the obdurate and morally discredited tactics of the British Government and the hopeless combat of the Protestant and Roman Catholic factions in the Northern Ireland struggle explicable, and exposes the politics behind it."--The New York Times Book Review




Black '47 and Beyond


Book Description

Here Ireland's premier economic historian and one of the leading authorities on the Great Irish Famine examines the most lethal natural disaster to strike Europe in the nineteenth century. Between the mid-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, the food source that we still call the Irish potato had allowed the fastest population growth in the whole of Western Europe. As vividly described in Ó Gráda's new work, the advent of the blight phytophthora infestans transformed the potato from an emblem of utility to a symbol of death by starvation. The Irish famine peaked in Black '47, but it brought misery and increased mortality to Ireland for several years. Central to Irish and British history, European demography, the world history of famines, and the story of American immigration, the Great Irish Famine is presented here from a variety of new perspectives. Moving away from the traditional narrative historical approach to the catastrophe, Ó Gráda concentrates instead on fresh insights available through interdisciplinary and comparative methods. He highlights several economic and sociological features of the famine previously neglected in the literature, such as the part played by traders and markets, by medical science, and by migration. Other topics include how the Irish climate, usually hospitable to the potato, exacerbated the failure of the crops in 1845-1847, and the controversial issue of Britain's failure to provide adequate relief to the dying Irish. Ó Gráda also examines the impact on urban Dublin of what was mainly a rural disaster and offers a critical analysis of the famine as represented in folk memory and tradition. The broad scope of this book is matched by its remarkable range of sources, published and archival. The book will be the starting point for all future research into the Irish famine.




Story of Ireland


Book Description

The history of Ireland has traditionally focused on the localized struggles of religious conflict, territoriality and the fight for Home Rule. But from the early Catholic missions into Europe to the embrace of the euro, the real story of Ireland has played out on the larger international stage. Story of Ireland presents this new take on Irish history, challenging the narrative that has been told for generations and drawing fresh conclusions about the way the Irish have lived. Revisiting the major turning points in Irish history, Neil Hegarty re-examines the accepted stories, challenging long-held myths and looking not only at the dynamics of what happened in Ireland, but also at the role of events abroad. How did Europe's 16th century religious wars inform the incredible violence inflicted on the Irish by the Elizabethans? What was the impact of the French and American revolutions on the Irish nationalist movement? What were the consequences of Ireland's policy of neutrality during the Second World War? Story of Ireland sets out to answer these questions and more, rejecting the introspection that has often characterized Irish history. Accompanying a landmark series coproduced by the BBC and RTE, and with an introduction by series presenter, Fergal Keane, Story of Ireland is an epic account of Ireland's history for an entire new generation.




Haughey


Book Description

With exclusive access to the Haughey archives, Gary Murphy presents a reassessment of Charles Haughey's life and legacy. Saint or sinner? Charles Haughey was, depending on whom you ask, either the great villain of Irish political life or the benevolent and forward-thinking saviour of a benighted nation. He was undoubtedly the most talented and influential politician of his generation, yet the very roots of his success – his charisma, his intelligence, his ruthlessness, his secrecy – have rendered almost impossible any objective evaluation of his life and work. That is, until now. Based on unfettered access to Haughey's personal archives, as well as extensive interviews with more than eighty of his peers, rivals, confidants and relatives, Haughey is a rich and nuanced portrait of a man of prodigious gifts, who, for all his flaws and many contradictions, came to define modern Ireland. 'A superbly balanced exploration of the life and politics of one of the most fascinating figures in 20th century Ireland.' Professor John Horgan 'An indispensable read for anyone with an interest in modern Irish history.' David McCullagh 'Offers much new detail – and not a few surprises – about the personality and career of a political titan who is still, in equal measure, revered and reviled in 21st century Ireland.' Conor Brady




Great Irish Speeches


Book Description

A stirring anthology of 50 speeches""eulogies and damnations, new beginnings and last words, threats of war and demands for peace""that have shaped Irish historyFiftyof the most stirring and memorable speeches in Irish history are collected here""from the political oratories of Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Collins, and Eamon De Valera to emotive addresses by the nation s celebrated poets, writers, and musicians. All of the included speeches have had a remarkable impact on the course of Irish and world history.The oratorical skills of the greatest names in Irish politics and culture are here: Henry Grattan, Daniel O'Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Collins, W. B. Yeats, Eamon de Valera, John F. Kennedy, and Seamus Heaney, to name but a few. Each speech is preceded by an introduction, which places the address in context and underlines its historical significance, as well as an iconic photograph of the speaker. Presented chronologically, the collection provides tremendous insight into Irish history."




Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics


Book Description

“Golway’s revisionist take is a useful reminder of the unmatched ingenuity of American politics.”—Wall Street Journal History casts Tammany Hall as shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft and patronage personified by notoriously crooked characters. In his groundbreaking work Machine Made, journalist and historian Terry Golway dismantles these stereotypes, focusing on the many benefits of machine politics for marginalized immigrants. As thousands sought refuge from Ireland’s potato famine, the very question of who would be included under the protection of American democracy was at stake. Tammany’s transactional politics were at the heart of crucial social reforms—such as child labor laws, workers’ compensation, and minimum wages— and Golway demonstrates that American political history cannot be understood without Tammany’s profound contribution. Culminating in FDR’s New Deal, Machine Made reveals how Tammany Hall “changed the role of government—for the better to millions of disenfranchised recent American arrivals” (New York Observer).




The Tribe


Book Description

From JFK to Trump, Irish American voters have played a pivotal role in US politics, but is their influence on the wane? The Tribe provides a definitive, clear-eyed look at Irish American voters.




Ruairí Ó Brádaigh


Book Description

Since the mid-1950s, Ruairí Ó Bradáigh has played a singular role in the Irish Republican Movement. He is the only person who has served as chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army, as president of the political party Sinn Féin, and to have been elected, as an abstentionist, to the Dublin parliament. Today, he is the most prominent and articulate spokesperson of those Irish Republicans who reject the peace process in Northern Ireland. His rejection is rooted in his analysis of Irish history and his belief that the peace process will not achieve peace. Instead it will support the continued partition of Ireland and result in continued, inevitable, conflict. The child of Irish Republican veterans, Ó Bradáigh has led IRA raids, been arrested and interned, escaped and been "on the run," and even spent a period of time on a hunger strike. An articulate spokesman for the Irish Republican cause, he has at different times been excluded from Northern Ireland, Britain, the United States, and Canada. He was a key figure in the secret negotiation of a bilateral IRA-British truce. His "Notes" on these negotiations offer special insight to the 1975 truce, the IRA cease-fires of the 1990s, and the current peace process in Ireland. Ó Bradáigh has been a staunch defender of the traditional Republican position of abstention from participation in the parliaments in Dublin, Belfast, and Westminster. When Sinn Féin voted to recognize these parliaments in 1970, he led the walkout of the party convention and spearheaded the creation of Provisional Sinn Féin. He served as president of Provisional Sinn Féin until 1983, when he was forced from the position by his successor, Gerry Adams. In 1986, with Adams as its president, Provisional Sinn Féin recognized the Dublin parliament. Ó Bradáigh led another walkout and later became president of Republican Sinn Féin, a position he still holds.




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