Today, Galway is home to over 250,000 people and plays host to over a million tourists per year, who come from all over the world to admire and learn about the culture and history of this beautiful county. Galway has not always been so tranquil, however, and The Little History of Galway takes a look at the struggles of the county's people across the centuries, from the arrival of Stone Age man through the coming of the Normans and their conquest of the city, to Galway's eventual battle for independence. Examining pivotal moments such as the siege of Galway by the feared Oliver Cromwell, the Penal Laws and the Famine, Colm Wallace also explores the writers, artists and thinkers that have called the area home, as well as the local people who have worked hard over generations to make Galway the welcoming place that it is today.

The Little History of Lancashire covers the historic county which used to stretch from Coniston Water in the Lake District in the north to the River Mersey in the south. From the formation of the county's terrain in the Ice Age and its earliest occupation by the Celts, we enter history with the Roman occupation. The Normans arrived to form the county that played a major part in the turbulent period of the civil war. The Georgian and Victorian periods saw the Industrial Revolution in Lancashire shape the future of the country and beyond. Lancashire became the most important manufacturing and exporting centre in the land. But the rise of king cotton and its fall led to a traumatic outcome and the present day. All these themes are highlighted in an easy to read, concise and entertaining narrative which helps you to understand the historical importance of the county.

The history of Irish traditional music, song and dance from the mythological harp of the Dagda right up to Riverdance and beyond. Exploring an abundant spectrum of historical sources, music and folklore, this guide uncovers the contribution of the Normans to Irish dancing, the role of the music maker in Penal Ireland, as well as the popularity of dance tunes and set dancing from the end of the 18th century. It also follows the music of the Irish diaspora from as far apart as Newfoundland and the music halls of vaudeville to the musical tapestry of Irish America today.

Apocryphal and Literary Influences on Galway Diasporic History establishes that apocryphal stories, in all their transformations, contribute to collective memory. Common characteristics frame their analysis: irreducible and enduring elements, often embedded in archetypal drama; lack of historical verification; establishment in collective memory; revivals after periods of dormancy; subjection to political and economic manipulation; implicit speculation; and literary transformations. This book contextualises Unsettled, an Australian novel about a convict play, derived from the Irish apocryphal story of The Magistrate of Galway, and documents previously unpublished primary material, including apocryphal stories passed through generations of descendents of settlers, Martin and Maria Lynch, and The Hibernian Father, a play by Irish convict, Edward Geoghegan. It puts forward new hypotheses: that the Irish hero Cuchulain may have provided a template for the archetypal and apocryphal story of the Magistrate of Galway; that disgraced Trinity College medical student and aspiring writer, Edward Geoghegan, enacted and recounted the same father-son archetypal conflict when he was transported to Botany Bay in 1839, and wrote the The Hibernian Father based on the Magistrate of Galway; that working-class Irish families were marginalised in South-east South Australian historical records; that oral apocryphal Lynch stories may be true; that Kate Grenville’s The Secret River (2006) offers an alternative history of the Hawkesbury River settlement, by some definitions apocryphal. The mystery of Geoghegan’s disappearance is solved, and knowledge about his life increased. French theorist Gerard Genette’s notion, advanced in Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree (1997), of all novels being transtextual, provides a model for the analysis of relationships between these key apocryphal texts.