Originally published in 1960 and edited by Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Shaping of Modern Ireland was a seminal work surveying the lives of prominent early twentieth-century figures who influenced Irish affairs in the years between the death of Charles Stewart Parnell in 1891 and the Easter Rising of 1916. The chapters were written by leading historians and commentators from the Ireland of the 1950s, some of whom personally knew the subjects of their essays. This volume draws its inspiration from that seminal work. Written by some of today’s leading figures from the world of Irish history, politics, journalism and the arts, it revisits a crucial phase in the country’s history, one that culminated in the Easter Rising and the Revolution, when everything ‘changed utterly’. With chapters on men and women of the stature of Carson, Connolly and Markievicz, but also industrialists such as Guinness who contributed to ‘shaping modern Ireland’ in the social and economic sphere, this book offers an important contribution to the renewal of the debate on the country’s history.

This is the first textbook on the history of modern Ireland to adopt a social history perspective. Written by an international team of leading scholars, it draws on a wide range of disciplinary approaches and consistently sets Irish developments in a wider European and global context.

This is a book about the Irish Question, or more specifically about Irish Questions. The term has become something of a catch-all, a convenient way to encompass numerous issues and developments which pertain to the political, social, and economic history of modern Ireland.The Irish Question has of course changed: one of the main aims of this book is to explore the complicated and shifting nature of the Irish Question and to assess what it has meant to various political minds and agendas. No other issue brought down as many nineteenth-century governments and no comparable twentieth-century dilemma has matched its ability to frustrate the attempts of British cabinets to find a solution; this inability to find a lasting answer to the Irish Question is especially striking when seen in the context of the massive shifts in British foreign policy brought about by two world wars, decolonization, and the cold war. Senia Paseta charts the changing nature of the Irish Question over the last 200 years, within an international political and social historical context. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Gillespie looks at the role of religion in the shaping of early modern Ireland, taking a new approach which identifies the commonalities of religious thought and the differences between confessional groups.

"The contributors to this volume deal with the notion of belonging - how it evolves, manifests itself, is shaped and challenged - across a range of contexts in contemporary Ireland. In Belongings, the reader is invited to contemplate recent developments in Irish society through the eyes of sociologists, who scrutinise a series of events and issues relevant to the years 2005 and 2006. The book provides sociological insights into such diverse topics as the Michael Neary case, the Miss China Ireland pageant, Paddy Power's provocative advertisements and the Jumbo Breakfast Roll. It re-visits events such as the 2006 commemoration of the 1916 Rising, the opening of the Dundrum Town Centre and the Irish Ferries dispute. Issues such as apartment-living, new planned communities, the busyness of everyday life, the attraction of self-help books, and the fervour of 'Munster mania' are examined in a fresh and engaging way."--BOOK JACKET.