Independent

The Irish parliament has become radical, raucous and rancorous, trawling, brawling and bawling to hide its failure to represent the people equally and fairly. It directs its energy toward character assassination and denigration of its predecessors in opposition, to the detriment of respect and toleration for the Irish people and the institutions of government.

Irish Unionism by James Winder Good (1877-1930). Originally published in 1920, the book explores the role of the Anglo-Irish Protestant landowning elite and unionism in the economic, political and social life of Ireland in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century against the backdrop of the Home Rule and the independence movements.

This is a story; of severe poverty and congestion in rural slums in the west, the selection process by the Land Commission, threats and conflict, the migration process, settlement and social integration in Allenstown, their struggle for survival during the ‘emergency’, their triumph and their ongoing relationship with the western homeland, and the death of a Gaeltacht. The book also gives a sense of the life in the big house and the dismantling of a country estate.

First published January 2021.

First published in July 2020