Undaunted: Stories About the Irish in Australia

'The brutal oppression by a tyrannical foreign government of 80,000 Irish intellectuals, who were put in chains and shipped to the British West Indies against their will, to work as 'slaves' in the fields (circa 1649). The deliberate destruction of all Irish religious and cultural symbols (churches, schools and libraries), in Ireland and the taking away of all 'civil rights' of the Irish citizens, while forcing the Irish property owners off of their land. The slaughtering of thousands of innocent civilians using the term, "Divine Providence," by an English madman, Sir Oliver Cromwell, as his armies swept across Ireland acting out his personal vengeance against the Irish people. To try and humiliate an entire population by trying to destroy the Irish will to live and survive for over two hundred years. A sad chapter of a colonial empire whose arrogance, brutality and the subjugation of the people it conquered, could easily be ranked as possibly the most evil of all the worlds monarchies, when compared could easily be ranked as possibly the most evil of all the worlds monarchies, when compared to any of the Asiatic despots, who roamed the world seeking power and wealth. Added to this tragedy was an equally tragic natural calamity, the Irish potato famine of 1846-1850.'

"How to deal with the Irish ... it was a tricky problem. For years, the answer was to enslave them, sell them, make them someone else's property or someone else's problem. If you thought that only Africans or other black races were enslaved in Barbados, West India, the American colonies and beyond, this book will open your eyes."--Page 4 of cover.

What happened to slavery in Europe in the centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire? This work spans the whole of early medieval Western Europe and addresses issues of slave-taking and slave-trading; people who became slaves as a result of a debt or a crime; even people who chose to become slaves

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A book in the best tradition of popular history—the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. • The perfect St. Patrick's Day gift! Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent history of civilization. Not only did he bring Christianity to Ireland, he instilled a sense of literacy and learning that would create the conditions that allowed Ireland to become "the isle of saints and scholars"—and thus preserve Western culture while Europe was being overrun by barbarians. In this entertaining and compelling narrative, Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization -- copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were forever lost—they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. As Cahill delightfully illustrates, so much of the liveliness we associate with medieval culture has its roots in Ireland. When the seeds of culture were replanted on the European continent, it was from Ireland that they were germinated. In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, How The Irish Saved Civilization reconstructs an era that few know about but which is central to understanding our past and our cultural heritage. But it conveys its knowledge with a winking wit that aptly captures the sensibility of the unsung Irish who relaunched civilization.