Popular History of Ireland, Book 07

Thomas D'Arcy McGee was an Irish revolutionary who became a founding father of Canadian confederation, and his multi-volume history of Ireland was written from the perspective of a man who understood what it meant to lose one's homeland to imperial power. Book 7 examines the Tudor conquest of Ireland, that catastrophic century when the ancient Gaelic order finally collapsed under the weight of English military might and political maneuvering. McGee traces Henry VIII's campaign against the independent Irish kings, the forced surrenders and regranting of titles that dismantled traditional Gaelic governance, and the systematic destruction of Irish political autonomy that had survived for centuries. Written in the nineteenth century by an exiled nationalist, this history carries the weight of a people remembering their lost kingdom. For anyone seeking to understand how Ireland fell under English control, and why that loss haunted generations of Irish patriots, this volume illuminates one of the most consequential periods in Irish history.