Ireland: History of a Nation

by David Ross

Book by Ross, David

Genres: History, Ireland

384 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2002

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

David Sutherland Ross is a fully fledged member of that well-established species, the Scottish literary exile. Born in Oban, Argyll, he was removed at an early age to his ancestral county of Ross and Cromarty, where he grew up and went to school. Furnished with a little knowledge about all sorts of things thanks to a Scottish education, he migrated to London expecting to become a journalist, but became a publisher instead.

Having learned from blurb-writing how to represent a tangle of ill-assorted elements and random events as a unified whole, he realised he was eminently qualified to write the history of Scotland, and produced Scotland: History of a Nation. Nowadays, as chairman of a small Scottish-based publishing company, he combines publishing with writing and the compilation of anthologies, including Awa’ and Bile Yer Heid, a collection of Scottish insults and invective. Although he enjoys it all immensely, sometimes he wonders whether it isn’t too late to try something completely different, like utilising his ability to do water-divining; or perhaps opening a beach restaurant in Bali.

His favourite place in Scotland is the summit of Ben Venue; his favourite Scottish food, new-baked scones with raspberry jam; his favourite Scottish book, The Scottish National Dictionary, and his favourite Scottish phrase, “Just a sensation.”

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive, highly readable and well-illustrated summary of Irish history from the earliest times to the end of the twentieth century. The author’s at first quirky decision to deal with the last century in the chapter one, then go back to trace Ireland’s history up to 1900, in fact proved very effective. I found I did not have to wade through the whole book before I reached the most recent and relevant history. For me the book was a fair and informative read.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fairly informative but my goodness so boring, and a weird structure that starts with the twentieth century and then goes back to start from ancient times, and then suddenly ends at 1900 as if the writer died before having chance to conclude. My appalling lack of knowledge about Irish history has been slightly corrected, so that's something.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

History of Ireland up to 1900. Covers major events and what happened, not a whole lot of analysis.

[Corey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have liked to have given this book a higher rating, because David Ross' narrative is easy going, informative and quite well written. However, this book abruptly ends with "Ireland at the Turn of the Century" -- ala ending at the very beginning of the 20th century. Absolutely no mention of the later Home Rule crisis, the rise of the UVF and Irish Volunteers, the Curragh Mutiny, Eater Rising, Civil War, Ireland during the two world wars, the Great Depression, the transition from "Commonwealth" to "Republic" and nothing about the Troubles. It is as if the author decided an extensive bullet-point chronology to 2007 would suffice, which it woefully does not. While it would not say it's a "bad history" book, I would say it's appears the author simply got tired of writing about Ireland and picked an extremely strange point in time (as far as Irish history is concerned) to end the book. Would I recommend this book? I doubt it; there are far better and more comprehensive histories out there. No disrespect intended to the author mind you, but I do feel I was rather cheated of the time I invested in reading this

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this because I’ve always been a little self conscious about my knowledge of history. I have to say it’s a good overview of Irish history but is really lacking in depth. It describes Larkin’s Lockout in ONE sentence.

At times it’s difficult to follow, assuming the reader has some knowledge of the topic already which in older Irish history (at the time of Irish Kingdoms), I had virtually none. That said I feel like it’s a good place to start delving into more Irish history - in that you can kind of understand what topics you’re more interested in and thus research further. It’s also written in a quite accessible, yet interesting manner which makes it a relatively good read overall.