Page 4 of 5

Posted: Sat July 16th, 2011, 3:54 am
by boswellbaxter
[quote=""Richard Sutton""]Redemption, from what I've heard, was not met with much acclaim. It made the mistake of trying to bring the two families (Irish and Ascendant Irish) together in the trenches of war -- WWI, I think. Uris' characters are quite memorable, but I'm not sure I'll take the time to read the sequel. Thanks for the troubles links -- those are new titles for me anyway![/quote]

Hey, Richard! Welcome to the board. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introductions thread if you're so inclined.

Posted: Sat July 16th, 2011, 12:27 pm
by Misfit
I haven't read it yet, but there's The Tenants of Time by Thomas Flanagan. Picked it up a while ago at a *free* used book sale. Big fat one, small font.

Posted: Sun July 17th, 2011, 1:19 am
by annis
I loved Flanagan's Irish trilogy. Tenants of Time is the middle one, though it can be read as a stand-alone. My personal favourite is the first one, The Year of the French, which is about Wolf Tone and the tragic Irish Rebellion of 1798 - a brilliant piece of writing.

Good luck with the small print - how ever did we manage to read all those old books without going blind? Uh, come to think of it, maybe that's the reason why my eyesight's nothing to write home about these days!

Posted: Sun July 17th, 2011, 1:32 am
by Misfit
[quote=""annis""]I loved Flanagan's Irish trilogy. Tenants of Time is the middle one, though it can be read as a stand-alone. My personal favourite is the first one, The Year of French, which is about Wolf Tone and the tragic Irish Rebellion of 1798 - a brilliant piece of writing.

Good luck with the small print - how ever did we manage to read all those old books without going blind? Uh, come to think of it, maybe that's the reason why my eyesight's nothing to write home about these days![/quote]

Annis, thanks for that. I had no idea it was a trilogy.

As for the small print - as much as I love these older books I just cringe when I crack them open and see it :(

Posted: Tue July 19th, 2011, 7:46 pm
by Richard Sutton
Done! Finally found it! Thanks for the tip.

Re: Irish Historical Fiction

Posted: Thu November 19th, 2015, 2:13 pm
by PeterKralic
This is an old thread, but I recommend the author Ali Isaacs for Irish Historical Fiction. She brings the old tales alive very well.

Re: Irish Historical Fiction

Posted: Tue December 19th, 2017, 7:59 pm
by Baylou
Everything by Sebastian Barry, starting with The Secret Scripture and continuing through the McNulty Family series. Excellent.

Re: Irish Historical Fiction

Posted: Tue December 19th, 2017, 8:03 pm
by Baylou
My fave hist fiction of 2017 includes a hist fic novel by an Irish writer featuring an Irish-American immigrant protagonist (Days Without End - Sebastian Barry), a novel set in Ireland in the 1850s (The Good People by Hannah Kent) & a novel featuring Irish writers Samuel Beckett & James Joyce (A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker). I have a thing for Ireland and Irish lit.

Re:

Posted: Tue December 19th, 2017, 8:10 pm
by Baylou
Misfit wrote:I haven't read it yet, but I've heard raves about Galway Bay. Its finally on the hold shelf at the library waiting for pickup, and many more waiting for their turn as well so I'd take that its creating quite a buzz.

While it's better classified as a novel in a historical setting and not a historical novel, I loved Susan Howatch's Cashelmara a great deal - this has the added bonus that she parallels the lives of her characters with those of England's first three Edwards.
I’ll have to look that one up for sure. The title reminds me of a folk song poplar with my family.

Re: Irish Historical Fiction

Posted: Tue December 19th, 2017, 8:16 pm
by Baylou
The Wonder by Emma Donaghue, Irish-Canadian author of The Room and other novels, including hist fic title Slammerkin. The Wonder is set in later 1800s Ireland, when a Florence Nightengale-trained nurse goes to an Irish village to tend to a girl who appears to be miraculously serving without food.