World War I - Irish Experience and Rebellion

On Easter Monday 1916, a small group of Irish rebels took on the might of the British Empire. Although defeated militarily, the men and women of the Easter Rising would soon win a moral victory, with their actions leading to the creation of an independent Irish State and contributing to the eventual disintegration of the British Empire. They have inspired countless freedom struggles throughout the world. Awakening: An introduction to the main characters...

During the Irish Revolution nearly three hundred country houses were burned to the ground. These "Big Houses" were powerful symbols of conquest, plantation, and colonial oppression, and were caught up in the struggle for independence and the conflict between the aristocracy and those demanding access to more land. Stripped of their most important artifacts, most of the houses were never rebuilt and ruins such as Summerhill stood like ghostly figures...

Barely 18-years-old, Willie Dunne leaves Dublin in 1914 to fight for the Allied cause, largely unaware of the growing political and religious tensions festering back home. Evoking the camaraderie and humour of Willie and his regiment, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, this powerful novel underlines the cruelty and sadness of war and the divided loyalties that many Irish soldiers felt. Running throughout is the question of how such young men came to be

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"It's 1903. Nora Kelly, twenty-four, is talented, outspoken, progressive, and climbing the ladder of opportunity, until she falls for an attractive but dangerous man who sends her running back to the Old World her family had fled. Nora takes on Paris, mixing with couturiers, artists, and 'les femmes Americaines' of the Left Bank such as Gertrude Stein and Sylvia Beach. But when she stumbles into the centuries-old Collège des Irlandais, a good-looking...

"The story of a fiery young woman fighting to reunite her family and reclaim their ancestral home during the war for Irish Independence"--Provided by publisher.