March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, is right around the corner. It’s a day where everybody can pretend to be Irish, for at least one day. We are treated to large parades featuring shamrocks, Irish dancers, bagpipes, corned beef, and beer — lots of beer. St. Patrick’s Day resonates with Americans so much due to the large number of Irish immigrants who have made America their home.
In this blog post I will draw attention to some of the books in our collection that discuss various aspects of Irish history.
The Irish Famine: An Illustrated History by Helen Litton
The Story of Ireland: A History of the Irish People by Neil Hegarty
Voyage of Mercy: The U.S.S. Jamestown the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission by Stephen Puleo
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
The Troubles: Ireland’s Ordeal 1966-1996 and the Search for Peace by Tim Pat Coogan
Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890-1923 by R.F. Foster
‘71 (DVD) A fictionalized tale of a young British soldier, left behind by his unit after a violent confrontation in Belfast.
Novelist Adrian McKinty has a series of crime novels, featuring Detective Sean Duffy, set in Northern Ireland, during the Troubles in the early 1980s.
I Hear the Sirens in the Street