Popular History of Ireland, Book 11

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, himself an Irish refugee who helped forge a nation in Canada, turns his piercing gaze back to the darkened century of his homeland's suffering. Book 11 of his monumental history traces Ireland's descent through the Georgian era, the reigns of George I, II, and III, into the final abolition of the Irish Parliament in 1801. This is not dry chronology but passionate testimony: McGee documents the Penal Laws that stripped Catholics of land, education, and hope; the corruption of the Protestant Ascendancy; the economic strangulation of a people. The work culminates in the Act of Union, a political execution that erased Irish legislative independence entirely. McGee writes as one who knows exile and loss, and his history carries the weight of witness. For readers seeking to understand how a nation was systematically dismantled, how resistance persisted despite crushing odds, this volume offers essential, unflinching documentation.