A New History of Ireland, Volume I: Prehistoric and Early Ireland

A New History of Ireland #1

by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (Editor), Paul Russell (Contributor), A. Buckley (Contributor)

In this first volume of the Royal Irish Academy's multi-volume A New History of Ireland a wide range of national and international scholars, in every field of study, have produced studies of the archaeology, art, culture, geography, geology, history, language, law, literature, music, and related topics that include surveys of all previous scholarship combined with the latest research findings, to offer readers the first truly comprehensive and authoritative account of Irish history from the dawn of time down to the coming of the Normans in 1169.

Included in the volume is a comprehensive bibliography of all the themes discussed in the narrative, together with copious illustrations and maps, and a thorough index.

Genres: History, Ireland, Irish Literature, Ancient History, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Prehistory

1400 pages, Paperback

First published February 24, 2005

About the author

Dáibhí Iarla Ó Cróinín is an Irish historian and noted authority on Hiberno-Latin texts, particularly eminent for his significant mid-1980s discovery in a manuscript in Padua of the "lost" Irish 84-year Easter table. Ó Cróinín was Professor of History at NUI Galway and Member of the Royal Irish Academy. He specialises in the history of Ireland, Britain and Europe during the Middle Ages and Hiberno-Latin texts.

Reviews

[Sean Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A invaluable collection of essays concerning Ireland prior to the Anglo-Norman invasion of CE 1169. There are some minor eye-twitching errors here and there, and some redundancies in certain subjects, but over all a suitable coverage of a very broad scope of time.

[Brandon Hawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume represents the most up-to-date introduction to a diverse range of issues for early Irish history; and, in doing so, its achievement is worthy of distinction.* It is clear that the individual essays reflect the writers' own interests, but they also do well to interact with other studies to bring together a collage of the whole field. The essays on the medieval period in particular do well to range across various periods of rising and falling trends in the sources. While many of the individual chapters are broad-ranging in their scope (e.g. "400-800," or "up to 1169"), they do break up these periods to present the changes and transformations rather than making monolithic claims across the centuries.

To my mind, only two major criticisms may be made. First of all, the separate essays on Hiberno-Latin and Irish literature often overlap to the extent that they cover much of the same materials. For my own interests, I found it frustrating that neither acknowledges the apocryphal traditions in proportion to how it is reflected in the sources, and little is said about this preponderance of materials. Additionally, the volume does occasionally suffer from distracting mistakes of editing. Nonetheless, it is, overall, a fine introduction for any student of early Ireland.

*N.B. I did not read this entire volume, but only essays relevant to my fields of study, and my review likely reflects this.

[Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A New History of Ireland, Volume I: Prehistoric and Early Ireland is edited by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, along with a board of editors. This book is the work planned and established by T. W. Moody, and done under the auspices of The Royal Irish Academy. It is Volume one of nine. I was eager to read a different volume; however, this is the one that is available from the public library that I visit. It was much, much more than I could have anticipated!

The book begins with geography and pre-3000 B.C. history, and continues (with many fascinating cultural topics, and not strictly in chronological order) to the 12th century. I read from front to back but it is textbook-like and a reader may instead prefer to jump from one section to another in other orders. With 22 individual contributors there is a collection of 12 maps, 140 plate images and 50 line drawings and text figures included in the volume.

I found all topics to be of interest, as they each shed light on the history. It seems quite natural that a reader will, however, gravitate more towards certain ares of the book based on individual taste. All of it was considered and compelling, though, and impressive for a single book!

I highly recommend for anyone with curiosity of Irish cultural history.

[Farah Mendlesohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent read although Byrne chapters are just long lists of names.

I really enjoyed the social chapters and the Latin literature chapters.

[Jake Maguire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was completely amazed at how thorough this edition is. It's packed with facts from archeology to social history and literature. If you like Irish history, pick this up, its definitely the one to get!

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magisterial collection of essays about Irish history up to 1167. This book had been available before as a very expensive hardback -- this paperback edition was published this year. I recommend this book for anyone interested in the archeology of Ireland, or the early history.

[Maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please see my whole series review at Celtic Scholar's Reviews and Opinions