From The Historic Case for Irish Independence by Darrell Figgis
20. The whole nation was in bondage. Neither in matters civil nor in matters religious had it a name or a right. Wandering in wild bands among the hills its people looked upon their own lands in the possession of strangers; or they laboured on those lands as hewers of wood and drawers of water to the stranger. The practice of their faith was forbidden in public; and leading dignitaries of the Church were imprisoned, altars profaned and images hewn down. An oath admitting the English King's religious supremacy in Ireland being required before any public office could be accepted, the nation was excluded from such offices and from the practice of the law. Other devices were employed to complete the subjection. For example, the manufacture of woollen cloths was to be discouraged, because, as Lord Strafford, the English Governor in Ireland, wrote, anno 1633: "In reasons of State, so long as they did not indrape their own wools, they must of necessity fetch their clothing from us, and consequently in a sort depend upon us for their livelihood, and thereby become so dependent upon this Crown, as they could not depart from us without nakedness to themselves and children." "I can now say," wrote the same Governor, "that the King is as absolute here as any prince in the world can be."
Oppressed and enraged the nation only waited for a day of retribution. They established communication with those of their race who had fled the country, and had won distinction in the armies of France and Spain. Preparations were made for a national rising. Their plans were betrayed so far as the City of Dublin was concerned; yet in the Autumn of 1641 and during the winter following every part of the country rose. Wherever there had been plantations there the shock was first felt. The hewers of wood and drawers of water joined with those who swept down from the hills, and the Planters were driven headlong. There were fierce and bitter reprisals, which the contemporary Broadsheets in London represented as great massacres. It is surprising that the reprisals were not more extensive than they were. In Ulster, in Connacht, and in parts of Munster the Plantations were undone during the course of the winter, and the war between the nations was resumed.
Truelove's Journal: A Bookshop Novella
From a sad, comfortless childhood Giles Truelove developed into a reclusive and uncommunicative man whose sole passion was books. For so long they were the only meaning to his existence. But when fate eventually intervened to have the outside world intrude upon his life, he began to discover emotions that he never knew he had.
A story for the genuine booklover, penned by an Irish bookseller under the pseudonym of Ralph St. John Featherstonehaugh.
FREE download 23rd - 27th May
Annals of the Famine in Ireland
Annals of the Famine in Ireland, by Asenath Nicholson, still has the power to shock and sadden even though the events described are ever-receding further into the past. When you read, for example, of the poor widowed mother who was caught trying to salvage a few potatoes from her landlord's field, and what the magistrate discovered in the pot in her cabin, you cannot help but be appalled and distressed.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger
This book, the prequel to Annals of the Famine in Ireland cannot be recommended highly enough to those interested in Irish social history. The author, Mrs Asenath Nicholson, travelled from her native America to assess the condition of the poor in Ireland during the mid 1840s. Refusing the luxury of hotels and first class travel, she stayed at a variety of lodging-houses, and even in the crude cabins of the very poorest. Not to be missed!
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Henry Ford Jones' book, first published in 1915 by Princeton University, is a classic in its field. It covers the history of the Scotch-Irish from the first settlement in Ulster to the American Revolutionary period and the foundation of the country.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
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