Old Touraine The Life and History of the Famous Chateaux of France Book

I’m frustrated that this history is so sparse in some areas. How on earth can Terence MacSwiney rate only one sentence that doesn’t mention any of his writing or plays? The Easter Rising has no entry.

Here are some examples of entires which belie the editor’s political beliefs.

“Irish diaspora. Diaspora is a concept that during the 1990’s became fashionable in world history and in the specific Irish context as well...”

“Irish-American nationalism, a product of the Irish emigrant experience from the 1840’s, shaped by national identity, nostalgia, Anglophobia, and social rejection in a new homeland.”

(I truly cannot believe the word “Anglophobia” was used here. I’d say having antipathy for a country that committed genocide on your homeland results in something more complex than “Anglophobia.”)

The entry for Irish language makes no mention of the suppression of the language and the resultant fact that it is considered an endangered language now.

There are no entries for Bobby Sands, Long Kesh Prison, the Blanketmen, and it occurred to me that the editor does not believe Northern Ireland to be a part of Ireland, as is the political reality, yet not the geographic reality. This book is entirely from the English perspective of Ireland.

Decolonize Irish history. I guess it’s not going to be done by the men of Oxford.