As a historian of languages and someone who learned Irish as an adult, Caoimh¡n De Barra offers both academic and personal insights into Ireland's complex relationship with its national language. This book explains why most people don't learn Irish at school, where the deep hatred some have for the language comes from, and how people who want to learn Irish can do so successfully. Drawing upon the history of other minority languages around the world, De Barra demonstrates why current efforts to promote Irish are doomed to fail, and proposes a radical solution for how to revive An Ghaeilge so it can again become the first language of the Irish people.

This groundbreaking book shatters historical stereotypes, demonstrating that, in the century before 1870, Ireland was not an anglicized kingdom and was capable of articulating modernity in the Irish language. It gives a dynamic account of the complexity of Ireland in the nineteenth century, developments in church and state, and the adaptive bilingualism found across all regions, social levels, and religious persuasions.

Was there an Irish Revolution, and - if so - what kind of revolution was it? What motivated revolutionaries and those who supported them? How was the war fought and ended? What have been the repercussions for unionists, women and modern Irish politics? These questions are here addressed by leading historians of the period through both detailed assessments of specific incidents and wide-ranging analysis of key themes. The Irish Revolution, 1913-1923 provides the most up-to-date answers to, and debate on, the fundamental questions relating to this formative period in Irish history. Clear coverage of the historiography and a detailed chronology make this book ideal for classroom use. The Irish Revolution is essential reading for students and scholars of modern Ireland, and for all those interested in the study of revolution.

The years of the Irish revolution were the crucible of modern Ireland. Richard Killeen's authoritative survey of the period is an ideal introduction to this tumultuous time. The Irish revolution began with the Ulster crisis of 1912 followed by the Irish Nationalist Party securing the passage of the Home Rule Act in 1914. By then, however, the Great War had broken out: the Act was suspended for the duration of the war, with the violent Ulster opposition to it still unresolved. But the war changed everything. Over thirty thousand Irish troops died. A radical nationalist minority rebelled against British rule at Easter 1916, an event that established itself as the foundation date of a new, more assertive nationalism. In 1918 Sinn Féin supplanted the old Nationalist party and formed its own assembly in Dublin. At the same time the IRA began an armed campaign against British Rule. By 1922, Britain had withdrawn from twenty-six of the thirty-two counties of Ireland which now constituted the Irish Free State. The Ulster problem had, however, never been resolved. The result was partition and the establishment of two states on the island — something unthinkable fifteen years earlier. A Short History of the Irish Revolution, 1912 to 1927: Table of Contents - Ulster Crisis - Nationalism Before 1916> - The Rising and the War - From the Rising to Partition - Partition and the Treaty - Two States

Handbook of the Irish Revival collects for the first time many of the essays, articles, and letters written during the Revival.

Winner, 2010 Donald Murphy Prize for a Distinguished First Book, American Conference on Irish Studies Renowned as one of the most brilliant satirists ever, Jonathan Swift has long fascinated Hibernophiles beyond the shores of the Emerald Isle. Sean Moore's examination of Swift's writings and the economics behind the distribution of his work elucidates the humorist's crucial role in developing a renewed sense of nationalism among the Irish during the eighteenth century. Taking Swift's Irish satires, such as A Modest Proposal and the Drapier's Letters, as examples of anticolonial discourse, Moore unpacks the author's carefully considered published words and his deliberate drive to liberate the Dublin publishing industry from England's shadow to argue that the writer was doing nothing less than creating a national print media. He points to the actions of Anglo-Irish colonial subjects at the outset of Britain's financial revolution; inspired by Swift's dream of a sovereign Ireland, these men and women harnessed the printing press to disseminate ideas of cultural autonomy and defend the country's economic rights. Doing so, Moore contends, imbued the island with a sense of Irishness that led to a feeling of independence from England and ultimately gave the Irish a surprising degree of financial autonomy. Applying postcolonial, new economic, and book history approaches to eighteenth-century studies, Swift, the Book, and the Irish Financial Revolution effectively links the era's critiques of empire to the financial and legal motives for decolonization. Scholars of colonialism, postcolonialism, Irish studies, Atlantic studies, Swift, and the history of the book will find Moore's eye-opening arguments original and compelling.

A topical and authoritative investigation of the Irish language and identity in Northern Ireland. The phrase 'our own language' has come to symbolize the importance of the Irish language to Irish identity for many Nationalists in Northern Ireland. However, different interests compete to have their version of the meaning and importance of the Irish language accepted. This book investigates the role of the Irish language movement in the social construction of competing versions of Irish political and cultural identity in Northern Ireland, arguing that for some Nationalists, the Irish language has become an alternative point of political access and expression.