Ireland: A Concise History from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day

by Paul Johnson, Wanda McCaddon (Translation)

Drawing from a wealth of historical and scholarly sources, Johnson traces the important social, religious and political development of Ireland's struggle to become a unified, settled country. Johnson describes with accurate detail Ireland's barbarous beginnings, Oliver Cromwell's religious "crusade," the tragic Irish potato famine, the Ulster resistance and the outstanding fact of the constant British-Irish connection and the fearful toll of life it exacted. Among the anonymous multitude are famous names such as "Silken Thom" Kildare, Thomas Wentworth, Archbishop Plunkett and Lord Frederick Cavendish. And yet many great men marshaled their energies and wits to settle Ireland: Sir Henry Sidney, Sire Walter Raleigh, Edmund Spenser, Churchill and others.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ireland, Audiobook, Politics, Cultural

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Paul Johnson works as a historian, journalist and author. He was educated at Stonyhurst School in Clitheroe, Lancashire and Magdalen College, Oxford, and first came to prominence in the 1950s as a journalist writing for, and later editing, the New Statesman magazine. He has also written for leading newspapers and magazines in Britain, the US and Europe.

Paul Johnson has published over 40 books including A History of Christianity (1979), A History of the English People (1987), Intellectuals (1988), The Birth of the Modern: World Society, 1815—1830 (1991), Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the Year 2000 (1999), A History of the American People (2000), A History of the Jews (2001) and Art: A New History (2003) as well as biographies of Elizabeth I (1974), Napoleon (2002), George Washington (2005) and Pope John Paul II (1982).

Reviews

[booklady]

12/13/2025: This makes the second book I am 'setting aside' for now in just a few weeks, but I do hope to get back to both of them in early in 2026.

My husband and I listened to the audio version on the way to and back from our family Thanksgiving gathering this year (2025). Irish history is hard to take, hard to understand and hard to follow. It has more than its fair share of woe, confusing, long-lasting and seemingly insoluble problems and a convoluted journey through time. That said, I think the author, Paul Johnson did a fair job trying to make some sense of the Irish and their brother state, the English. For better or worse, the two countries are joined. They share a love-hate relationship which goes back to the beginning of their discovery of each other and though there have been moments of peace, they have never lasted long.

I was surprised how many people I recognised in this book, as I did not think I new very many Irish. However, Ireland has contributed a number of prominent citizens to the world, including: Edmund Burke, W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde just to name a few. She also boasts of a number of revolutionary leaders such as Michael Collins, Charles Stewart Parnell, and Wolfe Tone, born Theobald Wolfe Tone in Dublin in 1763, a leading figure in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. And I learned of a number of new authors which I hope to read.

I am not listing this as 'read' yet though because I napped through part of the book and need to go back and read that section. No, it wasn't on account of the book being boring, it was just me. I told my husband to press on without me.

[Jason Koivu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives you exactly what that subtitle states. Not a bad little primer at all.

[Carol Bakker · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't give a fair assessment of this book. It was difficult to listen, concentrate, and track, and I take full responsibility for that. I listened to many sections twice, but must admit that my greatest feeling on finishing the book was relief. Clearly, it would be better to read with my eyes instead of my ears, but I'll pass on that.

There are so many split countries: Ireland, Korea, Vietnam, China, India, formerly Germany. I read this book to better understand why and how Ireland split, and the rocky history of her relationship with the British.

One of my favorite metaphors for learning is Velcro. The new facts are the hooks and the stuff you are familiar with are the loops. If you don't have some basic information in place (the loops), there is nothing to which the hooks can hold. Those new facts don't stick.

That came to mind while I listened: I know the key players of the Easter Rising, but the Prime Ministers and Irish leaders of the 18th and 19th centuries are blanks. Nothing stuck.

[Tom Rowe · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are some (audio)books that grab you by the lapels and shout in your face demanding you pay attention because you life depends on every word. This book was more like a friend across a crowded room mouthing "let's go" while you have your back to them.

As I finished the book, I realized I knew nothing about the history of Ireland except:
1. The English were terrible people to the Irish.
2. The Irish were really really really poor.
3. The Irish were really really hungry for a time.
4. Some Irish people wore different colored shirts.

This was nothing like Johnson's History of the American People in which Johnson was enthusiastic about his topic. This felt more like a really long encyclopedia entry on Irish history. It lacked depth, and it lacked a human connection to the people. In Johnson's American history, he made it clear that robber barons were cool and Kennedy was the worst choice for president. But the tone of this book was so neutral that the whole thing came off as flat and uninteresting.

I do not recommend.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ireland: A Concise History from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day by Paul Johnson is as the title notes a short detailed history of Ireland. The author draws from a wealth of historical and scholarly sources, tracing the important social, religious and political development of Ireland's struggle to become a unified and independent country. He describes Ireland's barbarous beginnings, Oliver Cromwell's religious "crusade," the tragic Irish potato famine, the Ulster resistance and the fact of the constant British-Irish connection and the fearful toll of life it exacted. Many great men marshaled their energies and wits to settle Ireland: Sir Henry Sidney, Sire Walter Raleigh, Edmund Spenser, Churchill and others. Being of Irish heritage I was happy to finally learned some of the history of the island and its talented people.

[Bookjazzer2010 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could not finish! Boring and audiobook was impossible to listen to.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paul Johnson's Ireland has a definite pro-English bias. The book is overly complicated by the fact of Johnson's conscious (or possibly subconscious) justification of British rule in Ireland. Unlike American historians who tend to be overly critical of their's country's actions in history books, the British are willfully blind to the mess the British have created around the world (such as in Iran and Palestine). Nor does it seem that most British historians are capable of writing with the same clarity and conciseness of their American counterparts. Any objective historian would have to lay the blame for hundreds of years of violence in Ireland at the feet of the English.

[Rishi Garg · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a bit too concise, though I learned a few things since this was my first Irish history. However, there was a persistent undertone of condescension towards the Irish, almost as if a history of English oppression of the Irish was told with a sympathetic voice towards the English. Anyone who quotes Edmund Spencer when discussing the Irish surely holds them in a negative light, and my biggest problem was that this undertone often got in the way of the telling of the history.

[Kaylyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have enjoyed other books by Paul Johnson, and I was looking forward to seeing his knack for a good story and memorable details applied to the Irish. Unfortunately, this book was less a history of Ireland and more a defense of why English interference was not really responsible for any of the ills of Ireland, because the Irish weren't that great to begin with. Boring, frustrating, and disappointing.

[Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seemed really uncontextualized. Surprised to read that it was published in 2005. Seems more like something from the first half of the twentieth century.

[Bill Rogers · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cannot recommend this. The author’s disdain for his subject is quite clear.

[cycads and ferns · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pro-British account of the fight for Irish independence. The epilogue concludes with the statement that the British finally learned that there was no substitution for independence. How very true.

[MG · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating has more to do with the subject rather than the quality of the writing. I have enjoyed reading Johnson's books in the past, but this one felt like he was fulfilling an assignment more than following a passion. The beginning does not set out the scope or significance of the tale but merely jumps into why Ireland was under the control of England for most of its history (they never unified under a central king and Rome wanted to establish order and so the job went to the Norman king in England). From there it is a tale of how the poison of hierarchy and entitlement can spread throughout the social order (so forever more the English aristocracy came first, then Irish aristocracy loyal to England, then Irish aristocracy who leaned toward Ireland and then everyone else--religious differences came after the Reformation, which never came to Ireland) and so the result is not an inspiring tale but more a series of woes, disappointments and tragedies. What I appreciated about this history was how it complicated the simpler story of it being merely Catholics versus Protestants. During the nationalist drives of the nineteenth century, at first the drive for Irish independence was not religiously defined. But because of the Protestant majority in the north and a bias toward them among British leaders, Ulster (the name of the northern counties) violently resisted "home rule," wanting to remain a part of the United Kingdom, and the conflict became Protestants versus Catholics. Those decades of bloody conflicts ended with Irish independence in 1922 with a new Northern Ireland remaining a part of the UK (Ulster). Because the book was written in 1984, it does not deal with "the Troubles" of Northern Ireland, which lasted from the 1960s until 1998. While not inspiring reading, the book filled in much I did not know, and for that I am grateful. Still, mostly I feel fortunate that whenever I visit Ireland, I will encounter a prosperous free state that is shedding much of its troubling past.

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a quick history of the complex struggle for Irish independence—a subject I do not know as much about as I would like to. It starts with a swift overview of Ireland and England in the Middle Ages which showed what I considered to be a moment or two of clear English bias by the author. For example, Johnson states that the introduction of English law benefited everyone in Ireland—an assertion many would argue with. The Irish had a well-developed legal system that was complicated but governed their affairs well into the period of English conquest. It was remarkably different than the English justice system, but that does not mean that many were not well-served by it. The English system was administered by the English and biased in favor of English (and later Protestant) subjects. It’s hard to say with a straight face that all the Irish benefited from the transition to the new legal system.

Similarly, I felt that Johnson went out of his way to justify the slaughter of Irish garrisons and civilian populations by Cromwell—beyond simply setting a context that this sort of behavior happened elsewhere as well. It worries me when I see bias like this in the areas I know about, because it makes me wonder what I’m missing in the areas I’m ignorant regarding.

That being said, this is quick passage through the early modern and modern efforts of many Irish to gain independence. It shows how the forces of nationalism found support among both Catholics and Protestants before being increasingly divided over the issue of union. It also showed how England fumbled many opportunities to improve this situation. The Land Law issues (first stealing almost all the land in Ireland from Catholics and then the efforts to restore the land to Catholics) was among the most interesting to me.

[Jeremy Johnston · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intended as a high level overview of several centuries of Irish history... however, it still gets needlessly bogged down in the weeds of history. At times it reads like a list of events, dates, and names. At times, Johnson reveals an English dismissive and discriminatory bias toward the Irish. This is especially evident in detailing the violence, counterproductive terrorism, and Nazi and Marxist history of the IRA while glossing over some of the atrocities of British military occupation in Northern Ireland. Taken as a whole, the thesis of this book is that Ireland was, and always will be, a mess. I remain a fan of Johnson's work, but this was a disappointment. The book also ends in the late 70s, which means it does not address the developments and progress in the late 80s and 90s. Although he did predict that the only way forward for Ulster is a peaceful and political solution, which we saw unfold in the 90s and 2000s.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, Johnson was correct to call this a concise history of Ireland even given that he was only starting his history from the 12th century and only went up to 1980.

As a result of trying to cover all of this history in 237 pages, there are moments where he speeds through a mass of events in quick time. So a lot of the detail gets lost and you end up not realising how far forward you have moved.

There are a lot of events and people that are not covered fully, Michael Collins for example, that really should be covered in more detail. And the fact that the book ends in 1980 means that there is a lot more history to add to the story of Ireland.

[Dgj25401 · Rating 4 out of 5]

great narrative and fairly concise

The narrative flows informatively and smoothly. I admire Paul Johnson immensely. The book is short ( but fairly reflects the subtitle) and I thought limited in scope in places with a desire to look elsewhere for more information. But that said, there remains a canopy of detail at times that skillfully inter connects and explains complex political engagements. It ends before the “80’s” so more is desired. Eloquent successors to PJ will have to oblige to add more.

[Kevin Keating · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Irish history is confusing and frustrating. I like his point about the fact that the Irish question for hundreds of years has been the political graveyard for some otherwise-great British politicians. It's generally depressing also, except for the literary history which is hard to describe in an audio book. At first I didn't like the reader but then she kinda grew on me. She had a sorta Irish bias but I"m ok with that, given what was done to them.

[Ian McGaffey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting look at the history of Ireland and how England stepped all over them for hundreds of years. While the content was good I found myself unable to keep track of the many times Britain denied the Irish home rule and by the end didn't really care to try. This story ended up being too much of an overview for my taste, and will mostly serve as a primer for a deeper dive later on.

[Stanley Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book with stops and starts until a concerted effort to read through the work. Not as strong a contender as some of Johnson's other works. Some areas of Ireland's history got significant explanation while other areas seemed to be swiped over with a wand and were briefly mentioned. Overall a decent read...

[Mallory]

Not rating, as I did not finish. I listened to about 2 hours before deciding I could find plenty of other better books about Irish history. This one seemed to have too much focus on England's hatred of the Irish and their diabolical ways of controlling the island.

[Joshua Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johnson does his usual meticulous work well. I found myself wishing he had outlined the narrative arc of certain episodes a bit better before embarking on describing in detail the events. I had a bit of tendency to get lost in the significance of one dispute or another to ongoing context.

[Lukasz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ponieważ w ostatnim czasie odwiedziłem Irlandię dwa razy postanowiłem bliżej poznać historię tego kraju. Niestety Irlandia ma trudną historię, która ma pozytywny finał w dzisiejszych czasach. Przez setki lat była okupowana przez Brytyjczyków, dopiero w 1922 uzyskała niepodległość.

[alex angelosanto · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tory trash.

[Seth Nelson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry as a cow skull in the Mohave desert.

[Micah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its alright

[Bernie Charbonneau · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read to understand the conflicts and politics of this unique island. Can be overwhelming at times as it does cover a wide spectrum of the Irish culture.

[Alex Yauk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history book that read like a history book. I do feel like I know a little more about Ireland than I previously did.

[George Polansky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A readable history of Ireland. Fair enough that both sides will call it biased.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Extremely dry.