Modern Ireland, 1600 - 1972

by R.F. Foster

Masterfully blending narrative and interpretation, and R.F. Foster's Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 looks at how key events in Irish history contributed to the creation of the 'Irish Nation'.

'The most brilliant and courageous Irish historian of his generation'
Colm Tóibín, London Review of Books

'Remarkable ... Foster gives a wise and balanced account of both forces of unity and forces of diversity ... a master work of scholarship'
Bernard Crick, New Statesman

'A tour de force ... Anyone who really wants to make sense of Ireland and the Irish must read Roy Foster's magnificent and accessible Modern Ireland'
Anthony Clare

'A magnificent book. It supersedes all other accounts of modern Irish history'
Conor Cruise O'Brien, Sunday Times

'Dazzling ... a masterly survey not so much of the events of Irish history over the past four centuries as of the way in which those events acted upon the peoples living in Ireland to produce in our own time an "Irish Nation" ... a gigantic and distinguished undertaking'
Robert Kee, Observer

'A work of gigantic importance. It is everything that a history book should be. It is beautifully and clearly written; it seeps wisdom through its every pore; it is full of the most elegant and scholarly insights; it is magnificently authoritative and confident ... Modern Ireland is quite simply the single most important book on Irish history written in this generation ... A masterpiece'
Kevin Myers, Irish Times

Genres: History, Ireland, Nonfiction, Irish Literature, European History, Politics, 20th Century

704 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 1988

About the author

Robert Fitzroy Foster, PhD, FBA, FRHistS, FRSL

Reviews

[Loring Wirbel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in conjunction with Ferriter's 'Transformation of Ireland', and might have given both books 3's instead of 4's if read in isolation. When read as a pair, however, the books give a good narrative of how a colonial Protestant Irish consciousness of the 1600s, where a native Catholic view was considered all but subhuman, evolved into the bifurcated Catholic nationalism and Northern Ireland UK support of the current era. Both Foster and Ferriter craft different books than a traditional historical narrative that focuses on leaders, and both look at what changes in lifestyle were like among common people. Where Ferriter (since his book is newer) focuses on specific advocacy communities like women and socialists in Ireland, Foster looks at how the methods of encouraging colonial "planter" settlements profoundly affected the way Ireland developed in the 1700s and 1800s. Both authors give interesting accounts of the 1916 Easter uprising and the civil war, but neither provides a blow-by-blow account. In the end, Foster and Ferriter have both written cultural studies, not strict histories of Ireland.

[Daniel Carrol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This came highly recommended as the best single book to provide an overview of Irish History and it proved to be just that. Starting from a place of having no understanding of Irish History I found Foster's approach to eschew focus on individual events and instead consider the social and political impact of them very rewarding and central to covering such a wide time period in any detail (if I want to read detailed histories of the Easter Uprising or The Nine Years War I now have an understanding of the socio-politcal climate that birthed and followed the events).

The writing itself was also a highlight, a near 600 page book never really felt like a slog or difficult to read, the prose is economical and not without anecdotes or strong criticism for certain historical figures or groups but his analysis is always deeply reasoned, clear and authoritative.

Perhaps the best thing that a general history can provide is an urge in the reader to dig deeper and read more into the subject and at that, the book succeeds with considerable ease.

[John Berner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I FINISHED IT.

Can't say I recommend this as a beginner text. I knew just about nothing about Irish history going into this thing, and Foster doesn't make it easy on you there. But it does have this sort of overall trial-by-fire effect where looking back (at least on the earlier chapters, which I started in the summer) I feel like I've retained a lot more than I ~felt like I was retaining at the time.

Also, Ireland is just a bonkers country. But at the same time, the dividing lines of their politics sometimes feel more rational than the dividing lines of our own.

[adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I love Foster's 2-volume biography of Yeats, I find this book incredibly difficult to follow. I think part of the problem is that he describes many things in a manner which assumes some knowledge of them. In other words, this isn't the best book for the neophyte.

[Jacob Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book alleges that the proper history of Eire has never been told, not because of neglect but because of an overwhelming anglocentric view of its history, even in Eire, reiterating the disingenuous claims from as far back as the times of Cromwell and Spenser. What Foster accordingly provides is a history that more or less traces the "partition" between the Irish state of present and "the North" to its origin in the fallout of Cromwell, and its main corollaries of agriculture and urbanization. The result is a somewhat uneven book, which features as many long and tedious chapters about the nuances of agricultural development and Dublin architecture as about the famous epochs of Irish history that spawned much of the nation's great literature; he writes with a particularly pointed tone, as though the fatalism of his contemporary Irish politics were almost explicit: Cromwell and the Civil War, perhaps as national traumas, are almost entirely elided over, whereas things like the Famine receive thoroughly deflationary treatments. He often takes a single figure and builds several chapters' worth of narrative around them, Hugh O'Neil, Jonathan Swift, Parnell, O'Conolly, de Valera; particularly memorable is his lengthy section on the buildup to Easter 1916, with its slow and subtle exposition of its pel-mel ideological impetus and elliptical hints at its long term effects.

The final chapters make his understanding of the entire situation clear: namely, the paradoxical dyad between the Republic and its insolvent legal problems insecurely seeking a scapegoat in the unionism it seems few actually want, and the North decaying of its own anti-Catholic oppression and associated detritus; as though in echo with Sean O'Casey's Plough and the Stars, the picture is of a nation that has finally completed its step into pure delusion in place of self-recognition ... or so a poet might say it. Foster's attitude is more one of a tired irony, recognizing how the atavistic impulses behind Irish independence ultimately proved little more than the pervasive trends of folly and ruin found from the time of his first chapter. In all events, I greatly enjoyed reading this, although it should be said that I am not exaggerating about his elisions about Cromwell and the Civil War (two epochs I had hoped to learn much more about than the few cagey pages devoted to them here), even though it seems to me this neglect is a deliberate, almost artistic choice (think of Thucydides' and Xenophon's omissions of major events for similarly ironic purposes).

[Dr G · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a young man maturing in blissfully peaceful 1960s-70s middle-class Australia, Ireland was ever-present in the news, as a darkly exotic war-zone similar, I suppose, to Beirut, and equally mysterious, defying simple understanding. There was a sine-curve of risings and lowerings of violent outbreaks, and I had a broad understanding that this was about three things, Catholicism and Protestantism, and England. I knew that one day I would need to plunge in and seek a more elaborate understanding. A few months ago, my fiction-reading took me to James Joyce and, subsequently Sebastian Barry. Both those authors had sufficient connection to past Irish events that it was now necessary to enlarge my meagre knowledge. A cursory glance in Google suggested that R.F. Foster’s Modern Ireland 1600-1972 was the best direction to take.
As so often, Google’s guidance was invaluable.
I am still trying to resolve all the information from Foster’s work into a form my brain can cope with, but this conundrum is made a little easier by three qualities of the book: its thoroughness in unravelling the tangle of complexities; its use of substantiation, and its impartiality and independence of analysis, and readiness to contest the clichés. On each of those counts, it scores 10/10. By contrast, there is Wikipedia . I am usually positive about Wikipedia as a reliable source but its account of the period 1600-1972 (Foster’s span) is lamentably simplistic and reliant on the clichéd tropes.
I am a little disappointed that Foster chose to begin the book as late as 1600 but, since it already comprises some 600 pages before the appendices, I accept that a limit had to be applied, and I suppose the very end of the Tudors is reasonable.
The first vital point Foster makes is that traditional Irish society (prior to the Normal Conquest) was a puzzlingly fluid affair, both in terms of land ownership and in terms of political authority and power. This meant that the period prior to 1600 saw an ever-changing social structure, with the Normans, breakaway-Normans, and locals (numbers of whom had Viking background!) engaged in transient alliances and hegemonies. It probably also meant that it was uniquely difficult to find some sort of melding of Irish and English ways. Mind you, in these pre-Enlightenment days, there was not much concern about the wishes or needs of dispossessed peoples.
It is evident that the last thousand years has seen a surfeit of individuals, institutions, organisations, and nations passing through Irish history, with very few of them, if any, emerging with unsullied merit.
In the early days, the Normans paid little attention to Ireland, although after the conquest, the conquered Harold Godwinson’s family used it as a base for incursions against William I. It was not until the late twelfth century that the later Normans, under Henry II, started to take Irish land, and they adopted the same methodology as their predecessors had followed in England. These people are now known as Anglo-Normans, although the original English aristocracy had had their lands taken from them and had mostly departed for the Byzantine Empire, so naming these people as “Anglo-Normans” is, strictly speaking, inaccurate. The twelfth century appropriation of Irish lands was carried out by the Normans as an extension of their activities in England and Scotland. (Ironically, their interest in Ireland appears to have begun as a result of a request by Diarmait Mac Murchada, a deposed King of Leinster, to Henry for assistance in recovering his personal kingdom. One suspects that, at this time, a chieftain’s/king’s enemy or friend was simply an enemy or friend depending on alliances, and not on which side of the Irish Sea they inhabited.) King Henry spread his interest from Leinster to most of the island, granting land to his – Norman – knights and barons.) While my quibble about nomenclature might seem pedantic, it is relevant in the light of the fact that the English (as well as Protestants) have frequently been accepted as the root of all Irish problems.
Matters appear to have continued fairly much in stability for the next few centuries with Henry’s legal squatter aristocracy consolidating their authority and wealth while the remainder of the population, the pre-conquest population, continued as either small farmers or as serfs, with the various chieftains free to choose between death, diaspora or acquiescence and ultimate absorption. The next important event was in 1541, when King Henry VIII decided to take a closer interest, and had himself named King of Ireland in addition to his other territorial thrones, having previously had the title of mere Lord of Ireland. By now, the landed classes in Ireland regarded themselves as English, a considerable amount of time having elapsed since the Conquest, and there being good self-preservation reasons for not publicly identifying as French.
The reign of Henry VIII is, of course, the time of the English Reformation. Curiously, Henry does not seem to have expended as much effort in imposing Protestantism in Ireland as he did in England. Edward VI and Elizabeth I both seem to have somewhat neglected enforcement of the Reformation in Ireland as well. One wonders what might have happened if there had been earlier focus on the Reformation there. Either way, the Irish population were almost entirely Catholic when this book begins its analysis in 1600, three years prior to Elizabeth’s death and James Stuart’s accession. And the “almost” is indicative primarily of the Protestants who had left England and taken up Irish land since Henry II’s time. Ireland was not a notable recipient of English recusants. We should remember, however, that the O’Neill family, at the end of the sixteenth century, followed Diarmait Mac Murchada’s model of collaborating with the English for his personal gain, (then subsequently washing on a tint of anti-Englishness to camouflage his own cupidity). As Foster fairly suggests, O’Neill saw himself as fighting for Ulster, rather than for a larger entity of Ireland.
Foster reports that, in 1603, 2% of the Irish population was of Anglo-Scots background, but by 1700, this had grown to 27%. This increase gave the English/Scots/Protestant section much greater heft.
Catholicism remained predominant, and the tradition began of Irish priests studying in Spain. The Spanish proved to be unreliable allies though, with little commitment to O’Neill’s 1600/1601 rebellion which accordingly was routed. One is tempted to imagine that to the average Catholic at this time, just who occupied the big house, and what their origin was, would be largely irrelevant.
According to Foster, at this stage, antipathy to the Protestant English was often piecemeal:
In many areas, discrimination against Catholics is hard to establish, let alone persecution…observance of the Catholic religion was fairly open…there were more Catholic than Protestant landowners; Catholics were made JPs and sheriffs on a large scale.
Subsequent policies of resettling Scots and English in Ireland moved apace, especially in Munster in the south, and Ulster in the north under James I and Charles I. It seems that a major turning point came with the appointment by Charles of Thomas Wentworth, later the Earl of Strafford, as Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1632. He was corrupt, greedy, ruthless and dictatorial, and set in concrete a Protestant versus Catholic framework, as well as a domineering England. In 1641, that dichotomy exploded with a violent attack by Ulster natives on settlers, and the place has never really looked … forward … since. Foster explains that the movement was not of
the dispossessed natives, driven beyond endurance; nor were they frantically Catholic revanchists. They were the Ulster gentry, of Irish origin, but still possessing land: And though their formal demands stressed religious freedom, the statements made by those who joined in… played it down. Throughout, the emphasis fell on threats to land titles, the depredations of the new-style government and – most importantly – a residual loyalty to the King.
This was followed by Oliver Cromwell’s arrival and his massacre of the civilian population at Drogheda, and then his appropriation of land to be distributed as salaries for his forces and sold off for funds. It is interesting that Catholics owned around 60% of land in 1641 and around 9% in 1660, although it rose back to about 20% after the Restoration.
Foster suggests there was initially an accommodation between King William III and the Irish, until 1688 when a Catholic heir was born to James II and dynastic Jacobitism became a long-term threat. William put down the Jacobites. This was concluded with the Treaty of Limerick, by which Catholics would retain the religious liberty they had under Charles II; as long as they swore allegiance to William, they were pardoned, could keep their property and practise a profession and keep civilian arms. However, these accommodations gradually diminished in later years, as they also did, of course, in England. Although, in England the Catholics were a tiny minority; in Ireland, a large majority. I suppose numbers do not matter much when you’re talking about “revealed truth”!
It was at this time that the “Protestant Ascendancy” became prominent, a social elite, whose “descent could be Norman, Old English, Cromwellian or even (in a very few cases) ancient Gaelic”, “an elite who monopolised law, politics and ‘society’, and whose aspirations were focused on the Irish House of Commons.” And they increasingly believed and preached the inferiority of the locals.
Foster makes the central point that “Increasingly, the Ascendancy were prey to fears that England would let them down by breaking their monopoly: resentment of English pressure towards liberalising the laws against Catholics and dissenters remained a constant irritant”. Even when the English parliament recognised the moral and practical need for tolerance of and autonomy for Catholics, even for separation from England, time and time again the Ascendancy pressured them to retain the status quo . They saw this as the means to protect the property they occupied. One of the great qualities of Foster’s work is that he bravely debunks the more extreme – and often more commonly accepted – interpretations of Ireland’s lamentable history. He explains that, while Catholic landowning had been decimated, the Catholic middle class in the towns were prospering. Business-men clannishly supported one another. And anti-Catholic laws, while severe, were rarely executed. Gradually, discrimination was edged back, with the foundation of Catholic colleges, the right to practise at the bar and, finally, the franchise in 1792-3, bearing in mind that English Catholics did not achieve franchise until 1829.
In the late 1700s, the Catholics were becoming more active and organised, with the Catholic Committee and the United Irishmen, and the activist Wolf Tone. Then followed what Foster has described as “probably the most concentrated episode of violence in Irish history. Mass atrocities were perpetrated in circumstances of chaos and confusion”; ultimately Tone orchestrated French involvement in an aborted invasion, with a goal of independence; Tone was captured and suicided before execution. The upshot was not independence but the 1801 Act of Union which consolidated Ascendancy protection, although it had been opposed by Ascendancy politicians who were displeased with the loss of their parliament.
Union, in fact, polarised matters even more. Subsequent years saw the escalation of Catholic agrarian guerilla activity. But there was also the emergence of Daniel O’Connell, a somewhat elitist figure, who sought to impart some structure to Catholic activity. Foster assesses his achievements as “scant” but notes that some Catholics were dismissive of him, others made him the centre of something approaching a “cult”.
One (amongst many) pivotal points was the Irish potato famine of 1845-9. This came to be seen as the epitome of English oppression. Foster notes that there had been several previous famines, most with the potential for tragic outcomes. Yet this one had dire consequences. Part of this was due to on-going restructuring of agrarian practices but part of it was due to a widespread belief amongst the governing class that “Irish fecklessness and lack of economy were bringing a retribution that would work out for the best in the end”. And there was a powerful political philosophy that opposed government welfare, so that there was inadequate institutional provision of relief food in the form that had been successful in other nations also experiencing the famine.
In 1869 Gladstone had the Church of Ireland disestablished, which was presumably one of those trigger points that set off some Ascendancy twitching. There were, perhaps, four other significant matters affecting Catholicism from around this time: one was the start of substantial migration to the United States prior to the potato famine but connected, in legend, to it. The second was the substantial increase in the number of priests and members of orders in the Catholic church. The third was the beginning of the Fenians and the rise of Parnell. In Foster’s words, Fenians’ “central motivation revolved round the view of England as a satanic power upon earth, a mystic commitment to Ireland, and a belief that an independent Irish Republic, ‘virtually’ established in the hearts of men, possessed a superior moral authority.” The Fenians were educated and literate and saw themselves as representatives of “the people”, although their followers were ‘the class above the masses’. And the fourth factor was the appearance of Gaelic Revivalism and Celtic nationalism in literature and mythology amongst the intellectual elite.
The Ulster Ascendancy, once again – or still – worried about their position, stressed their vulnerability as a minority, but also their assumed superiority in wealth, industriousness, enterprise and lawfulness.
Then came the First World War and a focus on militarism. The Ulster Volunteer Force acquired arms and training very quickly. Ironically, as patriotic Anglophiles, many of these men joined the British army, radically diminishing the UVF strength. The Irish Republican Brotherhood took the same path, but without the confusion of patriotism. Indeed, while the English army was in the trenches, the IRB planned the 1916 Easter Uprising, assuming that the Dublin affray would lead to mass, countrywide rejection of the British government. The uprising was far less successful in its goals, (Foster argues that “The reactions of working class Dublin concentrated more prosaically on epic feats of looting in the damaged shops, and those of bourgeois Dublin on appalled repudiation of what was generally seen as a German plot”), but its mythology was – and remains – substantial. (And we should recall here, Roger Casement’s chimerical flirtation with the Germans.)
Given that Britain was at war at the time, it is not surprising that the response was ferocious: there were ninety death sentences, although seventy-five were ultimately commuted. It was also not surprising that, the following year, Sinn Féin started to regroup. And the Black and Tans, auxiliaries to the Royal Irish Constabulary, were formed. In 1916 the Ulster Unionist Council finally agreed to Home Rule if six Ulster counties were excluded.
In 1929 Northern Ireland was granted Home Rule within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ireland was then partitioned, forming the Irish Free State in the remainder of the island. Eamon de Valera, who had been a major figure in the Easter Uprising and was court-martialled and sentenced to death but had his sentence commuted, was one of few of the leaders who survived and he became president of the Dáil Éireann parliament. He went on a fund-raising tour to his birthplace, the United States, where the expatriate Irish with an inexhaustible dedication to a country they had long ago left, donated vast sums of money to the Catholic Irish cause, thereby helping to prolong the conflict.
Foster notes that the Irish Free State was “ruthlessly authoritarian” with a severe outlook on social welfare, and gave the Catholic Church the opportunity to retain a highly conservative position on matters such as marriage, birth, state healthcare and mothers working. De Valera was a devout Catholic, at one time having contemplated becoming a religious. “Old-fashioned farming and inadequate sanitation did not, in any case, rank high among de Valera’s targets; his vision of Ireland, repeated in numerous formulations, was of small agricultural units, each self-sufficiently supporting a frugal family; industrious, Gaelicist and anti-materialist.” He also sent a message of sympathy to Germany on Hitler’s death.
By this time, Ireland had really degenerated into the intractable polarised dysfunction that I remember from the 1950s and 60s. There were the bombings, the IRA targeting of policemen, there were Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Ian Paisley and Bernadette Devlin, and the apprentice boy marches. There were the images of hatred and passionate partisanship, violence, death and destruction, justified on grounds of religion and ancient accidental events.
RF Foster’s outstandingly comprehensive and balanced study is a magnificent aid to understanding, even although I found myself shaking my head at the actions and words of so many individuals, institutional spokesmen and governments.

[ParisianIrish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modern Ireland is an engaging and authoritative survey of Irish history that excels in its breadth, clarity, and narrative coherence. The author brings together political, social, and cultural threads to create a sweeping portrait of Ireland’s transformation from the early modern period to the twentieth century. The prose is consistently readable, the analysis thoughtful, and the thematic structure effective in helping readers understand how Ireland’s past shaped its modern identity.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its ability to synthesize vast amounts of material without becoming bogged down in minutiae. The author succeeds in making complex historical developments accessible to a wide audience, which is no small achievement. The sections dealing with nationalism, land reform, religious tension, and the emergence of the modern Irish state are particularly well crafted, offering clear explanations supported by careful scholarship.

However, the book’s commitment to broad coverage comes with a noticeable trade-off: several of Ireland’s most pivotal historical moments receive less depth than many readers might expect. The Great Famine—arguably the single most defining catastrophe in Irish history—feels condensed, with limited exploration of its social trauma, regional variations, and political aftermath. Similarly, the Jacobite War, including the Williamite campaigns and their long-term consequences, is sketched rather than fully examined. The 1798 Rebellion, a watershed event in Ireland’s revolutionary tradition, is also addressed more briefly than its importance warrants, leaving readers without a complete sense of its complexity, ideological roots, and brutal suppression.

These omissions don’t undermine the overall value of Modern Ireland, but they do leave the narrative thinner at precisely the points where deeper context would have enhanced the book’s interpretive power. Readers looking for detailed treatments of these events may feel compelled to supplement their reading with more specialized works.

Despite these limitations, Modern Ireland remains an excellent introduction to Irish history—lucid, comprehensive in scope, and intellectually engaging. Its strengths in thematic organization and big-picture analysis far outweigh its shortcomings. For anyone seeking a well-written overview of Ireland’s historical journey, it is a highly worthwhile read.

[Evan Willford · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5
I'm sure that this survey is much better if you already have an excellent grasp on the last 400 years of Irish and British history, but if you don't (like me), you're in for a tough time. Foster assumes that you know all of the history and most of the historiography. I did end up learning a reasonable amount once I admitted to myself that I would follow about 30% of his arguments. On the positive side, it is written well, strikes a reasonable balance of social, political, and economic history, and does a good job articulating the views of the different factions/populations over time.

[Mike]

This isn't a DNF but I'm putting it aside for now. It presupposes a knowledge of Irish history that I just don't have right now. I expect to come back to it, but only after reading some more basic history first. This clearly isn't the right place to start.

[Nicole Fitzmaurice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for college and it’s honestly the most useful book for anyone studying Irish history, concise and to the point.

[Patrick Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Foster is widely considered the preeminent historian of Modern Ireland. His knowledge of the subject is certainly not in doubt. But I found this book rather hard going. The real problem is that it's two books, neither of which is a general history of Ireland. The first book, told in the main text, addresses certain controversies in Irish historiography. It is chronological in its structure without really being a chronological history. The second, told in the copious running biographical notes, is a series of biographies of famous Irish people. There is very little interaction between the two sections: judging by the preface, the notes are the work of Foster's research assistant. They also often seem aimed at a difference audience than the main text.

Foster can be a witty a writer, something that is particularly evident in the later chapters. His particularly gleeful when puncturing the pomposity of some of Patrick Pearse's more bizarrely romantic pronouncements. Doubtless, this work has its uses as a textbook for an Irish history course at the postgraduate or advanced undergraduate level (one cannot imagine it being assigned for lower-level undergraduate courses, except perhaps in Ireland itself). Other readers might well prefer a more accessible and livelier introduction.

[Jonathan Tranter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional. Another reviewer has mentioned feeling like it requires a prior knowledge of Irish history, and another that it's a baptism of fire into the same - it certainly feels this way in the early chapters, but it's entirely worth persevering; this feeling dissipates. By the end, your sense of Ireland and what it means to be Irish will have been entirely rebuilt, discarding any clichés you may have had for a truth that is unflinching in its examination of all parties and individuals.

[Norman Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I looked forward to reading this book, since my knowledge of Irish history is quite limited, but could not in the end finish. I worked away at it for weeks and just couldn't make it happen.

The book seems scholarly and thorough, and the footnotes giving a short biography of each character mentioned in the book are useful, but it was very turgid. Each paragraph was a dreary march.

Part of the problem is, I think, that the author assumed that readers already knew a lot of Irish history and geography. There were times, especially at the beginning, where I thought that it seemed like I needed to have read the previous book, but even as I reached the half-way point, at which point I had the context, I still felt that I was missing necessary information.

If you are looking for a reference work to be able to follow up on a particular subject within the scope of this book, this would likely be a very good book to have, but I think most people would have trouble reading this end to end.

So, did not finish.

[Abigail Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comprehensive and detailed, I learned a lot, but it was tough going. As others have said there is a lot of knowledge assumed - you’re meant to have the general swathes, and he fills in the details. Given the huge amount of biographical footnotes I was confused by this approach though. Why not temper some of these and give us footnotes for important events or concepts? It almost felt intentional to skip over these. I found myself in panicked consultation with the index trying to figure out where some central concept had been described before - and invariably it hadn’t.

I also felt Foster was a little preoccupied with giving an alternate viewpoint or proving other historians wrong. This deepened the sense of it being an academic text rather than an introductory history.

Having said all of that, I really did learn a lot about a fascinating country and culture, and this was also excellent attention span training.

[J Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite a difficult read. Very vague in explaining certain terms used throughout the book and discusses various happenings with the assumption that the reader will know what he is talking about. For someone with a very basic understanding of the history of Ireland I found it seemed to be aimed at professors and scholars of history rather than people with a curious interest in their country's past. Diarmaid Ferriter's 'Transformation of Ireland' has a much more reader friendly style to it, granted, it covers a much narrower timescale than this book but it kept me very much interested and didn't make me feel like I was reading an academic article throughout.

[Matt Murphy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was probably unqualified to read this book, considering it assumes a relatively rich precursory knowledge of Irish history, so my feeling dumb may have influenced my enjoyment a bit. That being said, this book was irritating. Nuance is important in history. The stories and myths of nations are always more complicated than the songs would suggest. However, there is such a thing as too much nuance. Many parts of this felt too nuanced. It felt like the author had so much to say that he ended up saying nothing at all. Overall, it was a tedious and unsatisfying jaunt through a very interesting period in a fascinating place.

[Zan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't give this an adequate rating, because I've been unable to finish it. Interesting, but very slow, difficult reading. It reads more like a somewhat dull history book rather than a vibrant story about fascinating events. Perhaps if it had been broken into multiple volumes I would have felt able to tackle it all.

[Clara]

DNF about 100 pages in. I still really want to learn more about Irish history, but this assumed I had a lot more contextual knowledge than I actually did, particularly about what was going on in England and Scotland at the time. I got a good general sense of what was going on, but I think there are going to be better and less time-consuming ways for me to get a more detailed understanding.

[David]

An enormous parade of facts and figures, interspersed with occasional flashes of brilliant diction, and many handy little thumbnail sketches of significant figures in Irish history over the last c. 400 years. In brief, it’s about money.

[Benjamin Eskola · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dry; OK in the first chapters but eighteenth century onwards, and especially nineteenth, were pretty dull.

[Greg Akins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult to read with no elementary understanding of Irish history.

[Ron Nurmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A broad view of Ireland with a mixture of religion, politics and social history with good coverage from the mid-19th century to the final break from Britain.

[Doris Raines · Rating 4 out of 5]

NICE BOOK.

[Matt Fuller · Rating 3 out of 5]

couldn't decide if it was meant to be a narrative story of the period or something analytical

[Peter Graarup Westergaard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant

[David Allan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Foster loves sweeping surveys and sweeping "definitive" takes on Ireland. He is a skilled writer but I just do not agree with many of the conclusions from this poster child of the Revisionist camp.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

dry to the point of occasional acerbism, sometimes doesn't explicate quite enough, assuming prior understanding and attending to big picture interrelation rather than minute specifics

[Thomas Gallagher Romero · Rating 5 out of 5]

loooool

[Craig Woolmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Detailed but did drag a bit

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Modern Ireland 1600-1972 us a well done and well presented history of the economic, cultural, architectural, religious, military and political history of Ireland. Foster writes well (not always a given among hisorians, even those who write popular surveys) with a self-conscious literary style.

Running footnotes are very vaulable--instead of interrupting the narrative to tell the reader who someone is on first reference there is a footnote (separate from the Notes at the end of the book) at the bottom of the page that gives a very short thumbnail biography of the person, usually only three or four lines. He references everyone which at first seems odd but it works. For each name that everyone will know--Burke, Swift, Yeats--there are ten for individuals such as: "Robert Monroe (d. 1680?): the zealous plunderer of many Ulster towns including Newry, 1642...seized Belfast, 1644; routed by Owne Roe and Benburb, 1646...given up to General Monck by the treachery of his own officers..." Excellent stuff.

He gives a very detailed discussion of structure of Irish politics and political life during the eighteenth century although without really showing that it was terribly important. Foster undermines his descriptions with statements on how the real decisions were made in London and not only on Foreign and Defense affairs.

The Catholic Church as a political and social force was handicpped by impoverished clergy and a heirarchy whose authority was often shaky; beset by traditional problems of Irish Catholicism: internal indiscipline, vague and latitudinarian bishops, factional squabbles often with a family orientation.

This is a "literary" history of Ireland--not literary in the sense of discussion the poetry and prose of the time and place but in the way Foster wrote it with plenty of rhetorical devices and imagery.

A reasonably detailed account of Ireland from the time of Elizabeth I.