Popular History of Ireland, Book 05

Book 5 of McGee's monumental history enters one of Ireland's most tumultuous centuries at its most dramatic hour. The narrative opens with the rise of the "Red Earl" and plunges immediately into the explosive relationship between Scotland and Ireland during the reign of Robert the Bruce. Here lies a forgotten chapter of Gaelic history: when the Bruce dynasty, fresh from their victory at Bannockburn, turned their attention westward to Ireland, offering military aid to Irish chiefs resisting English rule. McGee traces the fatal dance between the declining Norman lords, the resurgent Gaelic chieftains, and the Scottish invaders who nearly rewrote Irish history before their defeat at the Battle of Faughart in 1318. This is history at its most alive with possibility, when the English grip on Ireland seemed ready to shatter, when Gaelic culture threatened a full renaissance, and when the island's fate hung on the arc of a sword. McGee, himself an Irish refugee who helped build Canada, writes with the passion of a man who understands what it meant to lose a homeland to conquest and to trace, across centuries, the long rhythm of resistance and submission.