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Ireland's Forgotten Past: A History of the Overlooked and Disremembered
This volume delves into Ireland’s forgotten history bringing to light some of the most colorful characters and intriguing episodes of the country’s long history. Ireland is approximately the size of the state of Indiana, yet this small country boasts an extensive, rich, and fascinating history. Ireland’s Forgotten Past is an alternative history that covers 13,000 years in 36 stories that are often left out of history books. Among the characters in these absorbing accounts are a pair of ill- fated prehistoric chieftains, a psychopathic Viking, a gallant Norman knight, a dazzling English traitor, an ingenious tailor, an outstanding war-horse, a brothel queen, an insanely prolific sculptor, and a randy prince. This volume offers a succinct account of the Stone Age and Bronze Age, as well as insights into the Bell-Beakers, the Romans, and the Knights Templar. Historian Turtle Bunbury writes a gently off-beat take on monumental events like the Wars of the Roses, the Tudor Conquest and the Battle of the Boyne, as well as the Home Rule campaign and the Great War. Ireland’s Forgotten Past adds color to the existing histories of the country by focusing on the unique characters and intriguing events. This volume will delight anyone interested in the rich untold history of Ireland. 100 illustrations
224 pages, Hardcover
Published February 18, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
September 27, 2022
Earlier this year I started this on audiobook but knew I wanted to pick it up in physical format to complete it. It's definitely more of a pretty coffee table book with some interesting tidbits in here. The book contains 36 chapters about various 'forgotten' events throughout millennia of Irish history. Some chapters, of course, are more interesting than others. I'm glad to have a copy, especially since the book itself is gorgeous and definitely a nice edition to my shelves. Would I go out of my way to recommend this to anyone? Probably not. But it's a perfectly engaging, interesting read.
June 20, 2022
This was a really interesting read. Some of the stories I already knew but there are a lot I'd never heard of. It was well written in an open and engaging way. It would be a good potted history for anyone who's looking for an introduction to ancient Ireland. It's illustrated in black mostly which didn't really appeal to me but didn't annoy me enough to drop a star.
I like this historian.
I like this historian.
August 27, 2021
I did not like this book as much as I hoped I would. I can't put my finger on exactly why - it IS lesser known historical figures and events, the illustrations are cool, and some of it is very funny - but I just wanted to be done with it.
Partly, for me, there was an overwhelmingly English look at Ireland's "forgotten" past. Obviously (looking at the bibliography) a lot of the records and sources are English, and English-leaning Dublin sources. So many of the stories centred on rich English gentry and their castles or horses or secret clubs, that it didn't really feel Irish.
Regarding the Easter Rising and the creation of the State, I reeeeally felt it was one sided. In fact, now that I'm finished, it makes me a bit mad. The book kind of says that it was a dangerous and stupid event, too many died, and nobody appreciated it. And that's true - AT THE TIME. It didn't go into the English response, the executions, the political play that caused the civil war. It seemed to be saying "Why would they do this when their own poor boys were out in Europe fighting for US? All the crown subjects together? Shameful." I KNOW there are plenty of books about this side of the war - this is the "forgotten" history. But I think you can show the "forgotten" history without belittling a massive turning point in Irish state history.
The epilogue makes a warm and sensible point about the "decade of centenaries" from 2012-2022 where we have been finding and studying more about our own Irish history as each event passes. My very Irish heart feels that I just spent a book reading about all the good the English did for us uneducated, slovenly Western Irish hicks and we should look at how nicely everyone treated the English Queen when she visited and be more like that.
Partly, for me, there was an overwhelmingly English look at Ireland's "forgotten" past. Obviously (looking at the bibliography) a lot of the records and sources are English, and English-leaning Dublin sources. So many of the stories centred on rich English gentry and their castles or horses or secret clubs, that it didn't really feel Irish.
Regarding the Easter Rising and the creation of the State, I reeeeally felt it was one sided. In fact, now that I'm finished, it makes me a bit mad. The book kind of says that it was a dangerous and stupid event, too many died, and nobody appreciated it. And that's true - AT THE TIME. It didn't go into the English response, the executions, the political play that caused the civil war. It seemed to be saying "Why would they do this when their own poor boys were out in Europe fighting for US? All the crown subjects together? Shameful." I KNOW there are plenty of books about this side of the war - this is the "forgotten" history. But I think you can show the "forgotten" history without belittling a massive turning point in Irish state history.
The epilogue makes a warm and sensible point about the "decade of centenaries" from 2012-2022 where we have been finding and studying more about our own Irish history as each event passes. My very Irish heart feels that I just spent a book reading about all the good the English did for us uneducated, slovenly Western Irish hicks and we should look at how nicely everyone treated the English Queen when she visited and be more like that.
April 10, 2020
This is a marvellous and quirky gallop through glimpses in Irish history that are either forgotten or overshadowed by seemingly more significant occurrences. The truth is that most of the tales told in the book describe events or people that influenced Ireland in ways in which the ripples are still felt today. Highly recommended.
March 26, 2020
I picked this up from a display in a local bookstore. In short chapters, the author brings to light some little known facts of Irish history. It was written in a very engaging manner and I learned many things I had never even heard of before. I enjoyed it and will look for some of his other books.
May 19, 2020
What an charming and engaging jaunt through some of the lesser known moments of Irish history. I started reading Ireland's Forgotten Past at breakfast and finished the final chapter that same evening. This is very much of the just-one-more-chapter-and-then-I'll-stop (which of course one couldn't) type with no little insight into the evolution of modern Ireland to go along with the quirky tales of men and women (and horses) down through the ages. The beautiful illustrations sit alongside the entertaining stories perfectly.
March 17, 2021
An interesting way to get an understanding of a broad sweep of Irish history through entertaining little stories.
April 30, 2020
It's the sort of book that you can start anywhere, in the middle, dip in anywhere, or even read in reverse running order!
It's a collection of vignettes across the many centuries, most of which you will not come across in the standard history texts, which somehow manage to convey the spirit and attraction of our small island.
You'll certainly be amused as well as learning about some recondite subjects.
The quirky illustrations, by Joe McClaren, will often raise a smile.
It's a collection of vignettes across the many centuries, most of which you will not come across in the standard history texts, which somehow manage to convey the spirit and attraction of our small island.
You'll certainly be amused as well as learning about some recondite subjects.
The quirky illustrations, by Joe McClaren, will often raise a smile.
April 26, 2020
Turtle Bunbury always makes history very accessible and his latest book is hugely interesting as the writer takes us on a journey into some of Ireland’s forgotten past. I am not reading it in any particular order, just dipping in and out of the concise chapters as a title captures my interest - as a resident of Wicklow I enjoyed the description of Gold Fever in Avoca in the 18th C, and the description of Queen Victoria’s visit to Dublin n 1900 is fascinating. Not only is it well-written- it’s also a visual feast thanks to the wonderful illustrations by Joe McLaren.
April 26, 2020
This book is a must read for anyone thinking of meandering around Ireland and drinking in all it has to offer. As an Aussie with a very scant knowledge of Irish history, this has given so much more meaning to all those crumbling castles and ancient sites of significance. Turtle's charming and sparkling personality comes through in his writing, making this an extremely easy way to soak up some of Ireland's more obscure, turbulent & colourful past.
April 27, 2020
This book is an entertaining and informative ramble through the lesser-known history of Ireland. Particular personal highlights include Romans in Ireland, the Knights Templar, Prince Lionel in Carlow, Cromwells Tailor, the Hell Fire Club and Gold Fever in Avoca - but these are only a few of the chapters in this great read.
Well written and beautifully illustrated by Joe McLaren, this book would make a great present for people of all ages.
Highly recommended.
John Kelly
Well written and beautifully illustrated by Joe McLaren, this book would make a great present for people of all ages.
Highly recommended.
John Kelly
July 20, 2023
This touched on a lot of interesting things about Ireland but at the same time left a lot to be desired. A lot of time was spend talking about the prehistory that could have been better spent.
Also, for a book about Ireland SO much is spent talking about the English and the “good” they did for Ireland. It felt like that was given precedence over actual Irish stories.
Also, for a book about Ireland SO much is spent talking about the English and the “good” they did for Ireland. It felt like that was given precedence over actual Irish stories.
May 4, 2022
A collection of anecdotes about the royal family and English gentry. The book has very little light to shed on the forgotten history of Ireland or the Irish people.
April 30, 2020
Review of ‘Ireland's Forgotten Past’ by Steve Whitaker, Literary Correspondent, Yorkshire Times, 23rd February 2020
https://yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/...
Acclaimed broadcaster, writer and journalist Turtle Bunbury has pulled off a feat of exquisite skill - the upholding of a mandate to edify entertainingly without overwhelming his audience in scholarly aridity. Ireland’s Forgotten Past is a rare and cherishable thing: combining assiduous research with a nose for ribald fun, Bunbury disinters the odd, the arcane and the profoundly surprising from the dark recesses of a mostly unknown history.
His purview is panoramic: beginning with the tectonic continental shifts of distant geological time, Bunbury adds accretion to learned accretion, introducing the first human inhabitations, and welcoming the Neolithic age through the migration of its human embodiments from – judging by the verisimilitude of Dolmen and standing stones in the respective landscapes - Northern Spain or Brittany.
Bunbury’s tour through time is breathless but never less than engaging. He leads the curious reader down alleyways of enquiry which shed genuine light; we begin to sense continuity in the detail, the shaping of the human landscape by succeeding generations over millennia, and the weaving of a cultural identity from disparate, often unpromising, threads. The mixing and matching of racial characteristics from all over Europe and the Middle East, the thriving trade lanes, and the frequent, and frequently hostile, English incursions are the building blocks upon which the far from homogeneous modern Ireland is constructed. And it is to this writer’s credit that the island’s ‘forgotten past’ is qualified in the book’s subtitle: that some of that past is ‘disremembered’ suggests that the overlooking has been deliberate. At least one subtext, for example, of the constant sackings of Ireland’s east coast over many centuries has been the displacement of large numbers of people, frequently into slavery, as when large-scale Viking raids denuded the coast of its populations twelve and thirteen centuries ago.
Not that Ireland’s essentially heterogeneous provenance ever got in the way of an urgent, somewhat flattering compulsion, in certain quarters, to imitate local culture. Bunbury, whose own origins are expatriate English/Scots baronial, is quick to recall the words of the seventeenth-century historian, John Lynch, who remarked on the tendency of early Norman and English settlers to adopt the manners and customs of their grudging hosts to a chameleon-like degree. It is ironic in the extreme that his Latin expression - Hiberniores, Hibernis ipsis (‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’) – still holds water, not least in the New York diaspora on St Patrick’s Day.
There is real, often subtextual, wit in Bunbury’s lively examination. His remarkable facility for trawling revealing detail from historical backwaters yields an opportunity for the satirical undoing of religious hypocrisy. The diminishing hegemony of the Knights Templar in Medieval Ireland is illustrated in the words of one Hugo de Lummour who stooped low when recounting a visit to the Templar preceptory at Clontarf, wherein he apparently witnessed one Knight, William de Warecome, ‘bend his head at the elevation of the sacrament , not caring to look at the host’. ‘Nobody’, Bunbury notes, ‘could construe this as evidence that the spirit of Beelzebub had taken root’.
Elsewhere, an acute description of the Battle of the Boyne of 1690 is rendered through the depiction of one of its protagonists, and his white charger. Colonel Robert Byerley and his horse, Turk, were in the vanguard of 'King Billy’s' victories, but it is a lesser known fact that Turk’s estimable speed and proportion were the genetic propensities upon which many generations of racing champions were subsequently founded: his ‘line’ includes such modern luminaries as Galileo, Masar and Frankel amongst many others.
Bunbury’s great skill is to illuminate the past through the picaresque activities of significant contemporary individuals. The approach is profoundly effective. The apparently humourless figure of the English protestant, Joshua Dawson, who went on to be Ireland’s de facto ruler in the early eighteenth century, became the scourge of Catholicism with a series of brutal internecine purges facilitated by an elaborate spy-ring. Whilst the nether end of the moral telescope reveals the louche Richard Parsons, 1st Earl of Rosse, whose stewardship of the ‘Hell-Fire Club’ in Dublin in roughly 1737 is a paean to decadence and indolent excess:
‘Lord Rosse and his cronies are said to have hosted black masses, mock crucifixions and homosexual orgies, featuring women dressed as nuns. Black cats were reputedly sacrificed on the altar while the bucks drank hot scaltheen, a potent cocktail of whiskey and melted butter, and played cards with the Devil’.
Dawson’s own excesses, and the vehement anti-catholicism of Rosse’s young bucks – setting fire to church thatches, murder – give notice of the wider political landscape of the time, whose resonances continue to shadow our time like a cancerous long.
It is a testament, in fact, to Turtle Bunbury’s insight that a bigger picture is vouchsafed throughout this diverting volume. A sense is yielded, both in the easy eloquence of his prose, and in the fine accompanying illustrations, of an ad hoc building process enlivened at every stage by the strange carnival of social and cultural evolution.
Ireland’s Forgotten Past: A History of the Overlooked & Disremembered is published by Thames & Hudson
https://yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/...
https://yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/...
Acclaimed broadcaster, writer and journalist Turtle Bunbury has pulled off a feat of exquisite skill - the upholding of a mandate to edify entertainingly without overwhelming his audience in scholarly aridity. Ireland’s Forgotten Past is a rare and cherishable thing: combining assiduous research with a nose for ribald fun, Bunbury disinters the odd, the arcane and the profoundly surprising from the dark recesses of a mostly unknown history.
His purview is panoramic: beginning with the tectonic continental shifts of distant geological time, Bunbury adds accretion to learned accretion, introducing the first human inhabitations, and welcoming the Neolithic age through the migration of its human embodiments from – judging by the verisimilitude of Dolmen and standing stones in the respective landscapes - Northern Spain or Brittany.
Bunbury’s tour through time is breathless but never less than engaging. He leads the curious reader down alleyways of enquiry which shed genuine light; we begin to sense continuity in the detail, the shaping of the human landscape by succeeding generations over millennia, and the weaving of a cultural identity from disparate, often unpromising, threads. The mixing and matching of racial characteristics from all over Europe and the Middle East, the thriving trade lanes, and the frequent, and frequently hostile, English incursions are the building blocks upon which the far from homogeneous modern Ireland is constructed. And it is to this writer’s credit that the island’s ‘forgotten past’ is qualified in the book’s subtitle: that some of that past is ‘disremembered’ suggests that the overlooking has been deliberate. At least one subtext, for example, of the constant sackings of Ireland’s east coast over many centuries has been the displacement of large numbers of people, frequently into slavery, as when large-scale Viking raids denuded the coast of its populations twelve and thirteen centuries ago.
Not that Ireland’s essentially heterogeneous provenance ever got in the way of an urgent, somewhat flattering compulsion, in certain quarters, to imitate local culture. Bunbury, whose own origins are expatriate English/Scots baronial, is quick to recall the words of the seventeenth-century historian, John Lynch, who remarked on the tendency of early Norman and English settlers to adopt the manners and customs of their grudging hosts to a chameleon-like degree. It is ironic in the extreme that his Latin expression - Hiberniores, Hibernis ipsis (‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’) – still holds water, not least in the New York diaspora on St Patrick’s Day.
There is real, often subtextual, wit in Bunbury’s lively examination. His remarkable facility for trawling revealing detail from historical backwaters yields an opportunity for the satirical undoing of religious hypocrisy. The diminishing hegemony of the Knights Templar in Medieval Ireland is illustrated in the words of one Hugo de Lummour who stooped low when recounting a visit to the Templar preceptory at Clontarf, wherein he apparently witnessed one Knight, William de Warecome, ‘bend his head at the elevation of the sacrament , not caring to look at the host’. ‘Nobody’, Bunbury notes, ‘could construe this as evidence that the spirit of Beelzebub had taken root’.
Elsewhere, an acute description of the Battle of the Boyne of 1690 is rendered through the depiction of one of its protagonists, and his white charger. Colonel Robert Byerley and his horse, Turk, were in the vanguard of 'King Billy’s' victories, but it is a lesser known fact that Turk’s estimable speed and proportion were the genetic propensities upon which many generations of racing champions were subsequently founded: his ‘line’ includes such modern luminaries as Galileo, Masar and Frankel amongst many others.
Bunbury’s great skill is to illuminate the past through the picaresque activities of significant contemporary individuals. The approach is profoundly effective. The apparently humourless figure of the English protestant, Joshua Dawson, who went on to be Ireland’s de facto ruler in the early eighteenth century, became the scourge of Catholicism with a series of brutal internecine purges facilitated by an elaborate spy-ring. Whilst the nether end of the moral telescope reveals the louche Richard Parsons, 1st Earl of Rosse, whose stewardship of the ‘Hell-Fire Club’ in Dublin in roughly 1737 is a paean to decadence and indolent excess:
‘Lord Rosse and his cronies are said to have hosted black masses, mock crucifixions and homosexual orgies, featuring women dressed as nuns. Black cats were reputedly sacrificed on the altar while the bucks drank hot scaltheen, a potent cocktail of whiskey and melted butter, and played cards with the Devil’.
Dawson’s own excesses, and the vehement anti-catholicism of Rosse’s young bucks – setting fire to church thatches, murder – give notice of the wider political landscape of the time, whose resonances continue to shadow our time like a cancerous long.
It is a testament, in fact, to Turtle Bunbury’s insight that a bigger picture is vouchsafed throughout this diverting volume. A sense is yielded, both in the easy eloquence of his prose, and in the fine accompanying illustrations, of an ad hoc building process enlivened at every stage by the strange carnival of social and cultural evolution.
Ireland’s Forgotten Past: A History of the Overlooked & Disremembered is published by Thames & Hudson
https://yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/...
October 21, 2022
I enjoyed this a lot! The book was made up of many short stories about Irish history, some were easier to follow than others, and some were also more interesting than others. But in general, I enjoyed the stories and the writer's witty tone. Especially because one of the stories concerned the town where my dad grew up (read: the Butcher's column) I greatly enjoyed relating to the stories and learning more about, for example, columns that I've walked past 100s of times without actually knowing the history behind it. For those that are interested in Irish history, I do most certainly recommend this book, it's a very fun way of expanding knowledge!!
August 26, 2022
Muy buena recopilación sobre algunos hechos (no tan conocidos) que acontecieron en Irlanda desde la prehistoria hasta la edad actual. Lo recomiendo si ya sabes un poco sobre la historia del país, en otro caso algunas partes pueden ser algo densas debido a la gran cantidad de nombres de reyes o de clérigos en las partes de la historia medieval. Las historias más interesantes han sido la de clérigo en una secta satánica realizando orgías homosexuales (LOL) y el del gran huracán que azotó toda la isla en el año 1839 (thanks Cliffs of Moher for saving us). Extra point a la maravillosa edición de Thames & Hudson.
*Ejemplar comprado en la librería The Winding Stair en Dublín.
November 24, 2024
i think this is a very good introduction to see what you want to read more about. this has made me more interested in medieval ireland and now i need recommendations for that. ulster museum also has pieces from the beaker people which was nice to see in real life after knowing the basic history already. i would really recommend especially for people unsure where to start with irish history because it is not particularly political, just the basic information with lovely illustrations.
May 8, 2025
Really nice to read and learn about history I never knew about. There is a lot that's been forgotten and it's important to remember, to know where humanity has come from.
Although I feel like it skipped over the 20th century very quickly. Definitely some biases, conscious or not towards the British but every source is useful despite biases. It would be hard to avoid mentioning British involvement in Ireland cause it was close to a thousand years.
Although I feel like it skipped over the 20th century very quickly. Definitely some biases, conscious or not towards the British but every source is useful despite biases. It would be hard to avoid mentioning British involvement in Ireland cause it was close to a thousand years.
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April 27, 2020This was a really enjoyable read. I would have liked a longer version actually because it was really interesting. I hope there is a volume two soon.
June 3, 2022
A nice, quick read with some lovely illustrations.
January 21, 2025
Well written and easy to read! Great to get a broad overview of Irish history whilst focussing events and individuals that would usually be left out.
January 29, 2025
36 short chapters full of interesting people and events from Ireland’s past. I particularly liked the illustrations.
March 1, 2025
Rating would be closer to 2.5/5 if not for the beautiful cover and carved illustrations.
May 7, 2020
In marvellously entertaining style and with beautifully crafted language, Turtle dips us into and out of historical moments, some of which have great significance. From the emergence of life out of the oceans to pagan rituals adopted by Christian elders, to Vikings, kings, Knights Templar, Cromwell, wars, debauchery, harlots, and brothels and so much more, prepare to be whisked through forgotten or suppressed moments in time.
The chapters are very short and easy to read, and the stories are mostly not connected, so it is possible to pick this book up for short stints over longer periods. It fills in many intervals of history that are perhaps less popular but nevertheless important in explaining how things evolved. The amount of research that had to go into this book is mind-boggling. Thank you, Turtle, for the perfect pandemic distraction.
The chapters are very short and easy to read, and the stories are mostly not connected, so it is possible to pick this book up for short stints over longer periods. It fills in many intervals of history that are perhaps less popular but nevertheless important in explaining how things evolved. The amount of research that had to go into this book is mind-boggling. Thank you, Turtle, for the perfect pandemic distraction.
June 23, 2020
Such an interesting and exciting read!
Enjoy being introduced to a long list of characters from Irish history, some you will have heard of but more than likely these stories will be new to you!
I found myself looking up maps, googling and referencing Wikipedia to help me find out any more about these interesting people.
Prepare to lose hours and hours in this book and also to indulge in reading and rereading!
Enjoy being introduced to a long list of characters from Irish history, some you will have heard of but more than likely these stories will be new to you!
I found myself looking up maps, googling and referencing Wikipedia to help me find out any more about these interesting people.
Prepare to lose hours and hours in this book and also to indulge in reading and rereading!
October 29, 2020
If Turtle Bunbury had been named Joe Smith, would anyone publish him? Such a felicitous moniker must go a long way in the world of journalism and books. His previous coffee table books are lovely, I will say, and here, the woodcuts add interest. But this is truly only for the Irish history aficionado - certainly not the expert - it's a series of light retellings of this king or that desperate hero.
January 30, 2024
Similarly to other reviews that I've read after the fact, I found this book a bit lacking, and to be honest that shouldn't surprise me since I've read another book from this series about Scotland (written by a different author) that likewise was cursory and glanced over many important historical events in exchange for smaller less known and possibly trivial events. The difference that there was for me between the two books was the prior knowledge I had brought into the Scottish history book. I had already read in depth about Scottish history and thus reading the Scotland's forgotten past book was most of an overview with some brief extra stories for me.
Reading Ireland's Forgotten Past however, without prior context or true in-depth knowledge of Irish history, felt lacking. I was often confused or felt like I was missing a big piece of the story. The names were unfamiliar to me and didn't really follow with an explanation. Most of the stories lacked background context that would have helped make the stories make more sense historically. I had that reading the Scottish book because of my own prior knowledge otherwise that book would have made less sense and been more disappointing than it was for me.
Again, like other reviewers, I found some of the chapters more interesting than others. Some had more historical impact, some had none.
Overall, I did find the book a little disappointing but I don't blame that entirely on the author. I should have known better and read a comprehensive history book prior to reading this since I knew having read another book in the series (by a different author) that this series generally provides cursory, non-in-depth looks at minor historical stories throughout a country's history.
Reading Ireland's Forgotten Past however, without prior context or true in-depth knowledge of Irish history, felt lacking. I was often confused or felt like I was missing a big piece of the story. The names were unfamiliar to me and didn't really follow with an explanation. Most of the stories lacked background context that would have helped make the stories make more sense historically. I had that reading the Scottish book because of my own prior knowledge otherwise that book would have made less sense and been more disappointing than it was for me.
Again, like other reviewers, I found some of the chapters more interesting than others. Some had more historical impact, some had none.
Overall, I did find the book a little disappointing but I don't blame that entirely on the author. I should have known better and read a comprehensive history book prior to reading this since I knew having read another book in the series (by a different author) that this series generally provides cursory, non-in-depth looks at minor historical stories throughout a country's history.
October 29, 2020
A fascinating whistle-stop tour of Irish history, going from the first "inklings of humanity" - the remains of a bear that had been hunted by humans in County Clare about 12,800 years ago - all the way to the present Decade of Centenaries. The author writes in an engaging manner, choosing 36 lesser-known vignettes of Irish history. Included in the book are how Cork became known as the Rebel City in the late 15th Century; the handshake through a doorway of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin that led to a truce in military hostilities and was also the origins of the idiom "to chance one's arm"; and the even bloodier origins of the name of The Bleeding Horse pub. There's also the tale of an opportunistic Dublin tailor who made his fortune supplying uniforms to Cromwell's soldiers. As red was the cheapest dye he could procure at the time, this led to the redcoats becoming synonymous with the British Empire. Some of the best descriptions are of the Night of the Big Wind: the hurricane that struck Ireland on the night of 6-7 January 1839, causing waves to pass over the Cliffs of Moher, and resulting in more people being made homeless in a single night than all the sorry decades of eviction that followed it. A very enjoyable history of the overlooked and disremembered.
June 12, 2025
Ok I rate things highly often bc I don’t think I really ever encounter books that I consider bad. But this book was… not… good.
After getting my Irish citizenship I thought I would endevour in a little Irish history and connect to my grandma and my roots etc but good lord this book is actually the barrier to my entry lol
It’s most definitely written for people who live there or already know HEAPS about Ireland. I know the broad brushstrokes of the history just from what my nan has orally passed down to me but goodness, this had so many names and places that are just not explained and brushed over.
Moreover, I understand that Irish history is so deeply impacted and influenced by the colonisation there. But GOOD GRIEF I wanted IRISH history. So much of this is just what the English and the Spanish did. That’s what I didn’t want when I picked up this book. I wanted the unknown lesser told Irish history. Uhgggg
One cool thing that I did learn is that the earliest known proof of humans being in Ireland is in the county where my family is from! Wow! Isn’t that cool.
So yeah, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone really. Except the book is beautiful but it did feel childish reading such a small book with some pages of MASSIVE PICTURES at work and at the cafe lol
After getting my Irish citizenship I thought I would endevour in a little Irish history and connect to my grandma and my roots etc but good lord this book is actually the barrier to my entry lol
It’s most definitely written for people who live there or already know HEAPS about Ireland. I know the broad brushstrokes of the history just from what my nan has orally passed down to me but goodness, this had so many names and places that are just not explained and brushed over.
Moreover, I understand that Irish history is so deeply impacted and influenced by the colonisation there. But GOOD GRIEF I wanted IRISH history. So much of this is just what the English and the Spanish did. That’s what I didn’t want when I picked up this book. I wanted the unknown lesser told Irish history. Uhgggg
One cool thing that I did learn is that the earliest known proof of humans being in Ireland is in the county where my family is from! Wow! Isn’t that cool.
So yeah, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone really. Except the book is beautiful but it did feel childish reading such a small book with some pages of MASSIVE PICTURES at work and at the cafe lol
June 22, 2023
Almost Five Stars!
This book is made up of short chapters that are vignettes of historical moments, moments in history that are, in fact, generally, overlooked — not sure about disremembered, but then I’m an American and we don’t actually remember Irish history at all, so there’s not much to actually disremember. Some of the chapters begged for context and sent me running to general Irish history books to fill in the whole story of which Mr. Bunbury’s chapter is a vignette, others are more self-contained and suffice on their own with a cup of tea. All are delightful reads, great fun, and well worth the price of admission. The only reason I gave this a 4 is because it’s not a masterpiece of literature, it IS a delight of history — especially for the person not sure about history. I am actually interested in Irish history (which is how I happed to have general Irish history books laying around). I am delighted to add this to my library!
This book is made up of short chapters that are vignettes of historical moments, moments in history that are, in fact, generally, overlooked — not sure about disremembered, but then I’m an American and we don’t actually remember Irish history at all, so there’s not much to actually disremember. Some of the chapters begged for context and sent me running to general Irish history books to fill in the whole story of which Mr. Bunbury’s chapter is a vignette, others are more self-contained and suffice on their own with a cup of tea. All are delightful reads, great fun, and well worth the price of admission. The only reason I gave this a 4 is because it’s not a masterpiece of literature, it IS a delight of history — especially for the person not sure about history. I am actually interested in Irish history (which is how I happed to have general Irish history books laying around). I am delighted to add this to my library!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews