Wordwell Books

Christy Boylan

$40 • Hardback • 356 pages 8.3x10.2 • Fully illustrated March 2022 • TRV009100 978-1-913934-14-9

Ireland’s maritime climate combined with its history of demesnes has provided important gardens which are rich in artistic heritage as well as plant collections from around the world. This book is an account of the history and development of over 120 parks and gardens in Dublin, each of which has an interesting story. They include the largest park, the Phoenix Park, to the smallest pocket park around the statue of Anne Devlin in Rathfarnham Village. Dublin has a proud history in the development of public parks, something which was celebrated with a World Parks Congress in 2007. Its managers are in tune with global trends and actively participate in the World Urban Parks organization which means that Dublin’s parks are modern in style but also retain their heritage characteristics.

Dara Downey Liam Downey

$35 • Hardback • 160 pages • 6.6x9.6 40 illustrations/maps • March 2022 SOC055000 • 978-1-913934-63-7

The story of the evolution of Irish dairying is inextricably linked with continuous innovation in technologies. This book presents a chronological perspective of the evolution of dairy products in Ireland. It draws together information spread across a diverse range of historical, archaeological, economic, and scientific publications and it aims to provide a platform that may be used in reviewing the current state of knowledge, and identifying notable gaps pertaining to the development of dairy products from prehistory, through the medieval period, and on into recent centuries.

A History of the Irish Agricultural Advisory Services Mícheál Ó Fathartaigh

$25 • Hardback • 232 pages • 6.6x9.6 Fully illustrated • March 2022 SOC055000 • 978-1-913934-60-6

Rural Ireland and its agricultural way of life are emblematic of this country. For most of modern history, however, rural Ireland and Irish agriculture were comparatively underdeveloped. This changed dramatically in the twentieth century, during which they were transformed. In 1900 they were synonymous with poverty; by 2000 they had become synonymous with progress. Many people and organizations contributed to this, but chief among these were the Irish agricultural advisory services. First established in the early 1900s, they are today operated as a public service by Teagasc, Ireland’s Agriculture and Food Development Authority. With their establishment, agricultural instructors, trained to the highest international standards, were dispatched to every community in rural Ireland. Their brief was to work with farmers, helping them to improve their farm enterprises and, in so doing, to develop rural Ireland. This gradually bore fruit, as each succeeding generation of agricultural advisors and farmers cooperated to adopt the most modern agricultural approaches. This book tells their story.

a miscellany Salvador Ryan

$30 • Paperback • 288 pages • 6.1x9.2 March 2022 • HIS054000 978-1-913934-61-3

Following the success of Death and the Irish: a Miscellany (2016), and Marriage and the Irish: a Miscellany (2019), this third volume in the series Birth, Marriage and Death among the Irish explores the experiences of birth in Ireland, and among the Irish abroad, from the seventh century to the present day. In almost seventy short articles, scholars and practitioners from a range of academic disciplines and professions including anthropology, Celtic studies, folklore, history, linguistics, literature, medicine, obstetrics, pastoral care, and theology, reflect on pregnancy, birthing, and the early period after birth over almost 1,500 years. Topics covered include shameful birth in early Irish religious communities; pregnant behind bars in medieval Ireland; preventing and coping with unwanted pregnancies in nineteenth-century Ireland; mother and baby homes, foreign adoption in Ireland; LGBTQ surrogacy; and birth customers among the Traveling Community. This anthology will serve as an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the social, cultural, religious, and legal history of pregnancy and birth in Ireland and among the Irish from the earliest times to the present day.

The Discovery and Conservation of a Medieval Treaure John Gillis

$50 • Hardback • 320 pages 8.3x11.7 • 100 images • March 2022 SOC003000 • 978-1-914470-00-4

In July 2006, a highly significant archaeological discovery was made in a bog at Faddan More, Co. Tipperary. The remains of an illuminated manuscript from the early medieval period, along with its leather cover, were discovered by chance during turf-cutting operations. The find made international headlines and today represents one of the National Museum of Ireland’s top ten treasures. This book charts the complex and challenging conservation process and the results of a decade of research that followed, including exciting discoveries made along the way. It is the first insular manuscript to be discovered in over 200 years and the first ever retrieved from a wetland environment. The discovery presented many challenges–archaeological, art-historical, and paleographical – and required innovative approaches to its conservation. This book charts the complex and challenging conservation process and the results of a decade of research that followed.

Fintan Walsh

$30 • Paperback • 240 pages • 7.5x9.6 Illustrated • March 2022 • HIS018000 978-1-911633-26-6

The story begins with Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, who foraged in a forested, primeval landscape, and left traces of a campsite on a gravel ridge in Cakestown Glebe, by the River Blackwater. It continues, chapter by chapter, over a span of c. 5,000 years, recording the homes, burial grounds, work and worship of Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age communities. It brings us at last to the threshold of history, in the Iron Age/early medieval transition period, when we meet agricultural workers on tillage land in Kilmainham, stoking the cereal-drying kilns that would secure their surplus grain harvest for the winter. Kells was not yet the seat of a famous monastery at that time but had already become a central place in the region, with a tribal capital at Commons of Lloyd, on the hill that overlooks the town today.

The Archaeology of Edercloon on the N4 Dromod-Roosky Bypass Caitríona Moore

$30 • Hardback • 224 pages 7.5x9.6 • 122 images • March 2022 SOC003000 • 978-1-911633-30-3

The bog in the townland of Edercloon, Co. Longford, first came to archaeological attention in 1964, when a local farmer discovered a prehistoric stone axe that retained a portion of its original wooden handle. Forty-two years later, during test excavations in advance of the construction of the N4 Dromod-Roosky Bypass, the preservative peat of Edercloon relinquished further ancient secrets in the form of a large network of wooden trackways and numerous artifacts. Evidence for human activity at Edercloon extends back almost 6,000 years, where the first narrow track of branches and twigs was laid down on the wet bog surface. This practice would continue for four millennia as further structures were built and wheel fragments, spears, and vessels were deposited among them. The story of Edercloon is not limited to the sites and objects submerged within the peat. Volcanic ash, ancient pollen, microscopic organisms, deep accumulations of peat, beetles’ wings, and the wood of the trackways themselves have been the subject of paleoenvironmental studies.

The Archaeology of the Black Pig's Dyke, Co. Monaghan Cóilín Ó Drisceoil Aidan Walsh

$35 • Hardback • 232 pages 8.2x10.2 • Fully illustrated March 2022 • SOC003000 978-1-9162912-7-0

This richly illustrated book offers a fresh perspective on linear earthworks, perhaps the most enigmatic and neglected of all of Ireland’s prehistoric field monuments. Focusing on one of the best-preserved and largest examples of the monument type in Europe, the renowned Black Pig’s Dyke in County Monaghan — named from a folk-tale that describes how the earthworks were torn into the landscape by the angry marauding of a giant mythical schoolteacher-turned-pig — the authors integrate the results of excavations undertaken by Aidan Walsh in 1982 with new surveys and scientific dating to present a radical reassessment of the chronological and physical development of the monument and its environmental and archaeological setting.

$25 • Paperback • 288 pages 6.1x9.2 • yes • March 2022 HIS018000 • 978-1-913934-20-0

During the Irish War of Independence, the British and the Irish sides often reflected one another. Both the Irish and the British did well in some areas, and were deficient in others. But both sides used terror – murder – burnings – shearing women’s hair – to intimidate the Irish population. British Field Marshal Henry Wilson said of the Black and Tans "It was the business of the government to govern. If these men ought to be murdered, then the government ought to murder them." Michael Collins could equally chillingly say "Careful application of terrorism is also an excellent form of total communication." The actions of the British and Irish frequently mirrored one another – an uncomfortable reality of the War of Independence. This book examines the trauma of the times – both the exceptional and the ordinary – through a diverse range of topics.

From Treaty to Civil War, 1921-23 Darragh Gannon Brian Hanley

$17.99 • Paperback 100 pages • 8.3x11.7 March 2022 • HIS018000 978-1-913934-64-4

The Treaty, Civil War, and partition profoundly shaped the Ireland in which we live. To make the centenary of the Treaty and Civil War, History Ireland has produced a special supplement featuring historians and writers. The Split introduces ground-breaking articles on women and the Treaty, the role of Eamon de Valera, the establishment of the Gardaí, the dead of the Civil War, the global reaction to Ireland’s independence, and the violence inside the new Northern Ireland state and along the border. It discusses controversial questions regarding Michael Collins and military dictatorship, why the Free State won the Civil War and how Northern Ireland came into being. It looks at how the war has been remembered and asks whether the era of Civil War politics has ended.

The Laverys and the Anglo-Irish Treaty Dr. Edith Adrees Logan Sisley

$45 • Hardback • 8.3x11.7 • illustrated March 2022 • HIS018000 • 978-1-914470-01-1

The Hugh Lane Gallery and the National Museum of Ireland are co-curating an exhibition to mark the centenary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It is planned to examine the political and military background to the Treaty, particularly the role of Dáil Éireann and the Cabinet, nascent Free State / Republican military forces, and their representation or otherwise of the Irish people. Negotiations for and signing of the Treaty were crystallizing moments for Ireland during the ‘decade of disturbance’ from 1913 to 1923; from signing to angry Dáil debate to narrow ratification and their aftermath, the Treaty as a vehicle of peace would mutate into a written accelerator for civil war.

Fr John O'Sullivan and the Famine Poor Colum Kenny

$25 • Paperback 336 pages • 6.1x9.2 • March 2022 • BIO006000 978-1-913934-15-6

This is the story of a remarkable man’s efforts to help starving people during the Irish Great Famine. It reveals their terrible experiences inside and outside one of the national ‘workhouses’ and throws new light on the relationship between class, religion, and poverty in Ireland. John O’Sullivan was an independent-minded priest who clashed with bishops and landlords. He kept journals that have not been published. The author mines these and other sources, including eyewitness accounts, UK archives and Kerry’s workhouse minutes, for new insights into aspects of Irish society, including politics, proselytism, and the status of women.

100 Cork Sporting Heroes John Coughlan

$25 • Paperback • 220 pages • 8.3x8.3 fully illustrated • March 2022 • SPO019000 978-1-913934-22-4

Sport has always been an important part of life in Cork. What is remarkable about Cork sports men and women is their success across the entire range of sporting disciplines. This collection is not meant to be definitive, but rather representative of the many thousands who through the clash of the ash or the wearing of the green have brought happiness and joy to the sporting capital of Ireland.

Victorian Threatening Letters Donal McCracken

$25 • Hardback • 336 pages 6.1x9.2 • 35 illustrations March 2022 • HIS018000 978-1-913934-16-3

Victorian Ireland was global champion of threatening letters. This book reveals the murky world where tens of thousands of these letters and notices were nailed to barn doors or sent by penny post, intimidating, giving ‘fair warning’ and terrorizing the recipients. These victims were sometimes landlords, land agents, and land grabbers. Equally, they could be small farmers disputing land occupancy with neighbors. This book examines the nature, extent, and context of this unusual trend. It investigates who sent threatening letters and why they sent them. It also delves into who received such unwelcome correspondence and what action they took, giving new insights particularly into 19th-century rural Ireland.

Totalitarianism and How We Can Resist It Paul O'Brien

$22.95 • Paperback • 288 pages 6.1x9.2 • March 2022 POL042030 • 978-1-913934-21-7

Authoritarian nationalism is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere. Freedom is endangered in Eastern Europe. In the Middle East, militant Islam threatens peace, stability, and liberty. The US has recently faced an existential crisis, with the rise of populism and the unprecedented polarization of Left and Right. Brexit has endangered the integrity of the EU, which has hitherto operated as a defender of peace and freedom. At the same time, threats have arisen in the West to the traditional value of free speech. Drawing widely on relevant literature, including political theory from Plato to Hannah Arendt, this book highlights the above and related issues. In practical terms, it suggests some ways in which the tendency to undermine freedom might be countered, through a political re-assertion of the value of liberty.

The Evangelical Campaign in Dingle and West Kerry, 1825-45 Bryan MacMahon

$25 • Paperback • 352 pages 6.1x9.2 • 40 illustrations March 2022 • HIS018000 978-1-913934-12-5

Bryan MacMahon gives a comprehensive overview of the origins and progress of the Protestant evangelical campaign in West Kerry from 1825 to 1845. These Church of Ireland missionaries were motivated by a desire to save Irish-speaking Catholics from what they saw as superstitious practices and enthrallment to Rome. This study brings personalities to life and records the long-lost voices and values of those on both sides of the religious divide. The work of the evangelicals was widely hailed as a model of a successful missionary campaign; however, it evoked a furious response from Catholic priests. The war of words between clergymen of both persuasions was fomented by rival local newspapers, reaching a climax in a notorious libel case in March 1845.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty Crisis 1921 Colum Kenny

$14.99 • Paperback • 5x8 March 2022 • HIS018000 978-1-913934-19-4

On the dramatic night of 5-6 December 1921, Irish Delegates at Downing Street signed an agreement for a treaty to end the War of Independence and to create a new Irish state. This is the story of that fraught midnight deal, and of the events and people that lay behind it. The story is told from original sources and eyewitness accounts, and brings to life the Treaty that sparked a Civil War but made modern Ireland. Irish negotiators were under great pressure, caught between an ultimatum from Prime Minister Lloyd George to sign or face outright war, and a refusal by the President of Dáil Éireann, Éamon de Valera, to lead them in London. For two months Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, and three other delegates faced some of the most powerful men in the British Empire, including Winston Churchill and Austen Chamberlain. Kenny turns a spotlight on the key issues and the problems they faced.