Of all the curses that beset Ireland, one would have to rank the English highest, although even they are bred into its human fabric. In some ways the best chapter is the first one, surveying Ireland's geography, which has so much to do with its destiny-an island riven with mountains and bogs, transected by rivers, green with pasture lands, fertile in some places and rocky in others, and wrapped around with a wild coastline that only occasionally yields to useful harbors. The chapters overlap a bit but that's not a significant problem. As far as books covering 2,000+ years go, this is a solid introduction to an island that has been imaginatively cursed and blessed by waves of intruders, including the Norse, the Normans, the English and to a certain extent the Celts themselves. The Course of Irish History compiled by Theodore Moody is a book drawn from a TV series built on lecture/essays by noted academics.
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