R.F.Foster Modern Ireland (1600-1972)

just as the front-cover quote from renowned Irish psychiatrist professor Anthony Clare describes this, this book truly is a tour de force; you won't find a more insightful, comprehensive or well-balanced history of Ireland. Modern Ireland then, is precisely that - a description of what made the nation what it is.

The mere fact that Foster, a Waterford born historian, even attempted to cover so much ground with such blatantly excrutiating levels of research in such a modest tome (less than 600 pages in the Penguin paperback reprint), is nothing short of staggering in of itself. The fact he then achieved it with such aplomb makes it a significant achievement.

It won't surprise you to learn though that this book isn't taking any prisoners when it comes to pre-requisite konwledge. You need to know the layout, you need to ahve more than a passing understaqnding of the English Civil War, the Stuarts, the Cromwellian Republic, and pretty much every significant historical detail in England, Scotland as well as Ireland. Geography too. Historical figures. Agriculture and industry. And the whole Ulster hsitory (a book or two in itself) expects a lot of you to even get started. So, assumed konwledge and passing references render this slightly beyond the pale (pun intended) for the uninitiated or for those idly curious but largely ignorant. Not your first book if you want a gentle intro, then.

But what the intrepid reader will learn is an incredibly balanced description of so much of what, even today, remains the stuff of ignorance, bigotry and stereotype. Foster's style of prose is fairly high-brow, again, there's some re-reading to be done for the point to hit home. I am happy to confess I had to turn back a couple of times for what was being shared with me to really sink in. It's worth the double-take.

While Foster's use of essay-style chapters and sub-chapters allows each detail to stand on its own ... I fancy that's how the whole thing was constructed, it also invites inevitable overlap and duplication of information. In a 600 page document, the reader can be cut some slack for rolling the eyes when they see the same thing again and again.

And one final point is that this book stops at 1970. In the first edition in 1988, that end date might have been a sensible and suitable finish point. Nowadays, it yearns for a closing chapter - so much has taken place since. (In 2008 Foster wrote "Luck and the Irish" - which describes changes since 1970; whether this is the conclusion we seek, however, I'm not sure as I haven't read it... but either way this should find its way into a re-print).

Well done Foster for a magnificent achievement - and for all his efforts you, the reader, are obliged to take seriously the task of consuming such a comprehensively constructed manuscript.