The Unhappy the Land: The Most Oppressed People Ever, the Irish?

There is a widespread belief, amounting almost to an article of faith, that the Irish historical experience was uniquely painful. Such assumptions guide much writing on modern Irish history. It is only by placing Ireland in a larger European context that the issue can be effectively resolved. Liam Kennedy’s original and challengingly collection confronts some of the major controversies in modern Irish history, ranging from the Ulster plantation of the early seventeenth century to the Irish War of Independence. Populist interpretations of the Great Hunger of the 1840s are questioned and notions such as the Famine as a kind of Irish Holocaust are critically reviewed. The malign implications of the Ulster Covenant are highlighted, while the contradictory sentiments within the text of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in 1916 are given a more complex, multi-layered reality tinged with contentious conclusions. Liam Kennedy’s findings are unexpected, deeply disquieting and inevitably controversial, while his understanding of the ‘Why Us’ argument is destined to create a stimulating and timely debate.