“To understand trends in the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican Council II (1962-1965), Finbarr Corr’s new book Broken Promises is required reading. With his skill as an Irish storyteller that was vividly evident in his prior books, Corr, a former priest, constructs an important new window on what he describes as ‘the Church’s third major crisis since Jesus Christ established it on Simon Peter, the Rock.’ Drawing on decades of vital experience as a crusading priest, innovative family therapist, and provocative educator and author, Dr. Corr asks if the Church can survive its failure to follow through on the dictates of Vatican Council II which was initiated by Pope John XXIII to ‘open up the windows of the church and let in some fresh air.’ Dr. Corr provides a fresh look at the fifty years since Vatican II and presents a rich study of the Church’s relationship to the modern world. Broken Promises provides new insights into this challenging topic.” Tom O’Connell, B.A., M.A., S.F.O. Publisher of sanctuary777.com and Author of Power, Politics & Propaganda: Observations of a Curious Contrarian

Post-war Marshall Plan aid to Europe and indeed Ireland is well documented, but practically nothing is known about simultaneous Irish aid to Europe. This book provides a full record of the aid – mainly food but also clothes, blankets, medicines, etc. – that Ireland donated to continental Europe, including France, the Netherlands, Hungary, the Balkans, Italy, and zones of occupied Germany. Starting with Ireland’s neutral wartime record, often wrongly presented as pro-German when Ireland in fact unofficially favoured the western Allies, Jerome aan de Wiel explains why Éamon de Valera’s government sent humanitarian aid to the devastated continent. His book analyses the logistics of collection and distribution of supplies sent abroad as far as the Greek islands. Despite some alleged Cold-War hijacking of Irish relief – and this humanitarianism was not above the politics of that East-West confrontation – it became mostly a story of hope, generosity and European Christian solidarity. Rich archival records from Ireland and the European beneficiary countries, as well as contemporary local and national newspapers across Europe, allow the author to measure and describe not only the official but also the popular response to Irish relief schemes. This work is illustrated with contemporary photographs and some key graphs and tables that show the extent of the aid programme.

Seán Lemass enjoys unrivalled acclaim as the 'Architect of Modern Ireland'. Yet there remain great gaps in our knowledge of this mythic figure and his golden age. Up to now Lemass, a colossus of twentieth-century Irish history, was airbrushed to fit a narrative of national progress. Today, this narrative is undergoing an agonising reappraisal. This groundbreaking study reveals the man behind the myth and asks questions previously skirted around. What emerges is an authoritarian, cunning, workaholic patriot; a shrewd political tactician whose impatience lay not just with the old Ireland, but with democracy itself. This is the untold story of a great man and his lasting impact on a nation's imagination.

Exploring the neglected history of Britain's largest migrant population, this is a major new study of the Irish in Britain after 1945. The Irish in Post-War Britain reconstructs, with both empathy and imagination, the histories of the lost generation who left independent Ireland in huge numbers to settle in Britain from the 1940s until the 1960s. Drawing on a wide range of previously neglected materials, Enda Delaney illustrates the complex process of negotiation and renegotiation that was involved in adapting and adjusting to life in Britain. Less visible than other newcomers, it is widely assumed that the Irish assimilated with relative ease shortly after arrival. The Irish in Post-war Britain challenges this view, and shows that the Irish often perceived themselves to be outsiders, located on the margins of their adopted home. Many contemporaries frequently lumped the Irish together as all being essentially the same, but Delaney argues that the experiences of Britain's Irish population after the Second World War were much more diverse than previously assumed, and shaped by social class, geography, and gender, as well as nationality. The book's original approach demonstrates that any understanding of a migrant group must take account of both elements of the society that they had left, as well as the social landscape of their new country. Proximity ensured that even though these people had left Ireland, home as an imagined sense of place was never far away in the minds of those who had settled in Britain.

A comprehensive examination of the complex triangular relationship between the Irish government, the bishops and the Holy See from the origins of the Irish State in 1922 to the end of the de Valera government.

St. Bernadette’s impoverished childhood, her work as a shepherdess, visions of Our Lady, harsh treatment as a nun, and tragic death at the age of 35 are recalled in this groundbreaking book. Numerous Irish miracles and cures at Lourdes are recollected. Recoveries from cancer, epilepsy, lung problems, skin disease, pain, paralysis and physical disability are included. John F. Kennedy, Grace Kelly, Brendan Behan and Seamus Heaney are among the millions who have visited the shrine. You can read their stories, along with those of other Irish pilgrims. Using first-hand testimony, this moving and inspirational book brings you up-close to the wonders of Lourdes in a way you have never experienced before. Reviews 'Riveting story of St. Bernadette and why the Pyrenean town is a place of pilgrimage and peace’ -RTĖ Radio 1 'A deeply felt, warmly sympathetic and humane book' - The Irish Catholic 'Terrific read'’ - Belfast Telegraph 'A book that will make you believe in miracles’ - C103 'Brings readers close up to the many wonders of Lourdes' - Shannonside FM

A New History of Ireland is the largest scholarly project in modern Irish history. In 9 volumes, it provides a comprehensive new synthesis of modern scholarship on every aspect of Irish history and prehistory, from the earliest geological and archaeological evidence, through the Middle Ages, down to the present day. Volume VII covers a period of major significance in Ireland's history. It outlines the division of Ireland and the eventual establishment of the Irish Republic. It provides comprehensive coverage of political developments, north and south, as well as offering chapters on the economy, literature in English and Irish, the Irish language, the visual arts, emigration and immigration, and the history of women. The contributors to this volume, all specialists in their field, provide the most comprehensive treatment of these developments of any single-volume survey of twentieth-century Ireland.

This book focuses, from a legal perspective, on a series of events which make up some of the principal episodes in the legal history of religion in Ireland: the anti-Catholic penal laws of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century; the shift towards the removal of disabilities from Catholics and dissenters; the dis-establishment of the Church of Ireland; and the place of religion, and the Catholic Church, under the Constitutions of 1922 and 1937.

A detailed study of the political relations between church and state in modern Ireland, this work is also an analysis of domestic politics within the context of Anglo-Vatican relations. Dealing exclusively with high ecclesiastical politics, it assesses the relative political strength of both the British and the Irish at the Vatican and challenges 'the myth of English dominance over the Papacy'. Dermot Keogh traces the 'quiet diplomacy' of bishops, politicians and the Vatican from the turbulent years of 1919-21, through the civil war period and the rule of William T. Cosgrove and Cumann na nGaedheal, to the re-emergence of Eamon de Valera and Fianna Fail as exponents of Catholic nationalism in the 1930s. The book draws extensively on unpublished documents and, for the first time, explores with the aid of primary sources the exchanges between bishops, politicians and the Vatican over a twenty-year period. It is an important contribution to the history of modern Ireland, Irish-Vatican and Anglo-Vatican relations, whose findings will lead to a radical revision of interpretations of Irish church-state relations.