The sixteenth century saw the decisive expansion of English royal power in Ireland, together with the failure of the Reformation.

The eighteenth century is in many ways the most problematic era in Irish history. The years from 1700 to 1775 have been short-changed by historians. McBride`s new survey seeks to correct that balance.

A groundbreaking interpretation. In Ireland, the seventeenth century was a war zone, but it was also about politics, about wheeling and dealing. In the end, politics failed, and Raymond Gillespie explains why.

The nineteenth century was dominated by the twin political forces of nationalism and unionism - and by the demographic catastrophe of the Great Famine and its aftermath.