This fascinating and innovative study explores the lives of people living in early modern Ireland through the books and printed ephemera which they bought, borrowed or stole from others. While the importance of books and printing in influencing the outlook of early modern people is well known, recent years have seen significant changes in our understanding of how writing and print shaped lives, and was in turn shaped by those who appropriated the written word.
This book draws on this literature to shed light on the changes that took place in this unusual European society. The author finds...

Narcissus Marsh (1638-1713) was an English clergyman who spent his later life in Ireland, initially as Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and ultimately as Archbishop of Armagh. Despised by Jonathan Swift for his pietism and timidity, his achievements as churchman and scholar were impressive. Marsh's recollections, begun in 1690 and continued in diary form up to 1696, are by no means the pious platitudes of a conventional seventeenth-century clergyman. With sometimes startling candour, he recounts dreams and anecdotes revealing his struggle against worldly temptations, his resolute rejection...

This volume brings together the first six towns of the 'Irish Historic Towns Atlas' series, previously published as individual fascicles. These towns - Kildare, Carrickfergus, Bandon, Kells, Mullingar and Athlone - illustrate characteristic periods of town formation in Ireland. Kildare and Kells, with their distinctive round towers, have their origins in Early Christian monastic sites, while Carrickfergus and Athlone, with their strategically-placed castles, are part of the extensive network of colonial towns built by the Anglo-Normans after their arrival in the late 12th century. Bandon is a...