The Making of Modern Ireland 1603-1923

by J.C. Beckett

'One of the essential works of Irish history written over the last thirty years' Irish Times

'One of the most remarkable single-volume histories of modern Ireland. It would be hard to indeed to improve upon its lapidary style and concise ludidity' History Today

'A classic among historical books on Ireland' Irish Independent

Genres: History, Ireland, Nonfiction, Irish Literature, World History

520 pages, Hardcover

First published May 23, 1966

About the author

James Camlin Beckett was a Northern Irish historian.

Reviews

[Steve]

. . .

[Jack Glynne-Jones]

Just read the final quarter of the book, from 1850 onwards. Not an easy read for a beginner, but I feel I have a good foundation to build on now.

[Michael Armstrong]

Just the right level of detail for me.
The Faber Finds edition I used had very small print and a myriad of typographical errors (poor OCR of the original?)

[Simon]

J C Beckett's masterly survey of Irish history from the 17th to the early 20th centuries, though now itself half a century old, has stood the test of time. It remains a comprehensive, fair and above all highly readable textbook. Though it has taken me from "the Glorious Twelfth" to "St Paddy's Day" to read it from cover to cover (having owned my copy for 40 years!), I now have a solid foundation on which to base my study of the last century of Irish history, as yet again Ireland moves into an uncertain future, so many of the issues of a hundred years ago still unresolved.

[Michael Linton]

This was a challenging book to read if you didn't have the background of Ireland to begin with. You need to understand how Ireland was in 1603 and the different groups there at the time. It just starts off as the story was already happening (which it was). I learned a little but I need a more basic book. Also, it provided a lot of details in terms of the passage of bills and who was in power in that I didn't understand how it affected the people.

[Kevin]

Great read, covered a lot of ground and weaved nicely how one era moved into another.

[Charles Curran]

If you want to know a bit about Ireland…