Kevin Whelan Volgorde van de boeken (chronologisch)

Billy Colfer's Wexford Castles expands his look at the Irish landscape by taking a thematic approach, while still staying loyal to the central landscape focus. Rather than adapting a narrowly architectural approach, he situates these buildings in a superbly reconstructed historical, social, and cultural milieu. County Wexford has three strikingly different regions -- the Anglo-Norman south, the hybridized middle and the Gaelic north -- which render it a remarkable version in parvo of the wider island. Colfer's wide-angle lens takes in so much more than the castles themselves, as he ranges widely and deeply in reading these striking buildings as texts, revealing the cultural assumptions and historical circumstances which shaped them. The book breaks new ground in exploring the long-run cultural shadow cast by the Anglo-Normans and their castles, as this appears in the Gothic Revival, in the poetry of Yeats and in the surprisingly profuse crop of Wexford historians and writers. While most books on a single architectural form can end up visually monotonous, creativity has been lavished on this volume in terms of keeping the images varied, fresh and constantly appealing. The result is a sympathetic and innovative treatment of the castles, understood not just as a mere architectural form, but as keys to unlocking the mentalite of those who lived in them.

Provides a lavishly illustrated overview of the 1798 rebellion as well as an exciting historical analysis written by one of Ireland's leading specialists on 1798 and its effects.

The Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape combines many different approaches to understanding the immense ecological, educational, aesthetic and economic significance of the landscape. As with many parts of Europe that landscape is threatened and Ireland is faced with the daunting task of balancing the needs of competing rural activities. Using state of the art computer cartography, the atlas analyses the complex assemblage of features, both physical and human which gives the landscape its distinctive character. The editors and contributors have harnessed a wide range of illustrative materials including maps, paintings, photographs and remote sensing data, all reproduced in colour throughout. A substantial explanatory text vividly summarizes our growing knowledge of Irish landscape history while demonstrating its relevance in education and public policy. By analysing forces of current change the atlas suggests ways in which desirable developments can be implemented in sympathy with inherited landscape character.