University College Dublin Press

Presenting the history of Travellers in twentieth-century Ireland, this work describes the people who travelled Irish roads, showing how and why they were distinguishable from settled people. It demonstrates that the alienation and unpopularity of this cultural minority were a consequence of developments in state and society from 1922.

After 11 arduous months, on 24 May 1923, the guns fell silent, and the Irish Civil War finally came to an end. Twelve weeks later, all adults aged 21 or over - regardless of social status or gender - cast their vote in the State's first general election. The 1923 General Election marks the true beginning of modern Irish democracy.

Before gay decriminalisation in 1993, there was no solid gay or lesbian tradition in Irish writing, due to the political and cultural dominance of a conservative, censorious Catholic ideology that conflated itself with notions of national identity and social respectability. Praised today as a beacon of gay rights, Ireland has become the first nation to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote in 2015. Significantly, whereas in the recent past there was much silence, stigma and prejudice surrounding homosexuality, now there is a plethora of voices reclaiming equality, visibility and recognition. Yet today’s liberal culture still silences aspects of gay and lesbian life which go beyond the parameters of the ‘socially acceptable’ homosexual.

The Irish hospitals sweepstake, initially established to provide money for cash-strapped voluntary hospitals in Dublin, provided funding for Irish hospitals for over fifty years. Digging deep into the murkier side of the Irish Sweep, this title reveals scandals, skulduggery and gangsterism, which all played their part in the sweepstakes.

Producing Knowledge, Reproducing Gender gathers essays from scholars across Ireland to investigate just how knowledge itself is created, distributed, and collectively understood in institutional settings, with a sharpened focus on what role gender can play in that process.

Examines the relationship between Protestants and Catholics and the notion that southern Protestants are somehow not really Irish. From interviews with representatives of both confessions, this title demonstrates that there are underlying tensions between the confessions based on 'memories' of events long buried in the past.

In post-independence Ireland, the country house was not regarded as an integral part of the national heritage. Despite this, the relationship between the Irish state and the country house has not been examined in detail to date. White Elephants illustrates the complex nature of attitudes to the country house.

Every three minutes in Ireland someone is diagnosed with cancer. Incidence of cancer is growing and by 2021, one in two of us will be diagnosed with cancer. Due to advances in screening and treatment there are now more than 170,000 people living with and beyond cancer today in Ireland. Almost half of people diagnosed with cancer in England and Wales survive their disease for ten years or more. It is widely recognised that cancer is not just a physical illness. It has significant emotional and psychological impact on the individual and the family of those diagnosed. There is a plethora of information available, sometimes described an 'information overload' by those affected by cancer, it can be difficult to know where to start and, crucially, what to trust.

The Centenary Classics series examines the change and evolution in the Ireland of 100 years ago during the 1916-23 revolutionary period. Free State or Republic? provides eye-witness accounts by two reporters of the Treaty debates of Dail Eireann, held in University College Dublin's Earlsfort Terrace building in December 1921 and January 1922.

Approximately 150, 000 Irish officers and men joined the British Army during the First World War. What happened to them when they returned home? What determining role (if any) did they play? Most importantly, did they fall victims of selective revolutionary violence and face the wrath of the IRA for having fought for the British Crown in 1914-1918?

In Seamus Heaney's volume of The Poet's Chair Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill discusses the importance of place in Irish literature and the need to preserve important sites of Irish literary activity, brings us on a turbulent Turkish adventure, and explores Ireland's rich folklore tradition.

A towering figure in the musical and cultural evolution of modern Ireland, Brian Boydell (1917-2000) has been described as a 'renaissance man' and by President Mary Robinson as a 'tireless wheeler-dealer for music'