(Part 2) Top products from r/IrishHistory

I would recommend the Atlas of the Great Irish Famine and Cormac Ó Gráda's The Great Irish Famine.

For primary sources, UCC -- sorry, "NUI Cork" -- has always had a superior online archive of Irish and Irish-related laws, documents, etc. They have the text of the 1829 Catholic Emancipation Bill where even Hansard can let you down.

I recommend this book It is very funny and is fairly accurate. And it is short enough you could read it on the plane and get a fairly good background of Irish history with out studying for ages. Are you interested in history? Why not take an irish history class while here?

Well Irish was prohibited in the National Schools run by Britain from 1831 until 1871, and even the Catholic Church's representatives in the schools discouraged its use well after it was no longer prohibited.

There was no real push for it except for areas that spoke it as a first language. Once the famine hit, a lot of native Irish Speakers died or left, reducing the prevalence of the language in rural areas. Unless a kid was going to stick around on the farm, parents wanted their children to learn English. Irish wasn't useful - though a source of national pride, even prevalent figures balked at it. Daniel O'Connell, for example, thought it secondary to English.

As far as books though, while I've never read them I've heard okay things about:

The Irish Language in Ireland: From Goídel to Globalisation - Expensive as a mofo, but if you're in academia you may be able to get your library to borrow it via ILL.

The Politics of Language in Ireland - This is more of a source book, but it will give you an idea of how Language was used as a political tool. Irish is still a political tool honestly, but the reasons for its decline may be found within these sources.

There is also a chapter in Language Issues: Ireland, France and Spain which may be useful.

Hopefully that helps a bit, or at least gets you on track!

This is what you want, an outstanding book that covers Irish and British history. Read this, and you'll be above the herd.

https://www.amazon.com/Isles-History-Norman-Davies/dp/0195148312

How far back do you want to go? Early Irish Myths and Sagas by Jeffrey Gantz has a good collection of several Celtic myths. In my day, it was the go-to primer for starting to learn about early Irish mythology (though it could totally be something else, now. I am not very up-to-date on how this is taught nowadays.)

If you want some basic Medieval Irish history, How the Irish Saved Civilization is a great starting off point. Seamus MacManus' Story of the Irish Race is a tad dull, but it delves into the mythology, legends, and folktales.

Early Medieval Ireland, 400-1200 by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín is a solid one-volume work and accessible to a layperson (like me), and includes the period you're looking for.

The Grass Arena is a brilliant book. It is about a first generation Irish person living in London. So not quite what you asked. Imagine one of the characters in a grimmer Pogues song, the old main drag say, wrote a book.

There's also Maria McGuire's memoirs of her time in the PIRA at the start of the Troubles, though it's hard to get hold of these days: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-Arms-Year-Provisional-I-R/dp/0333145062

She later became a Tory councillor for Croydon. Make of that what you will.

No it's not .

You should be drawing your conclusions from the History and not trying to make the history fit the theory which would be sociology.

Civil rights mid 60's USA & Civil rights late 60's NI.

There was all the love and peace sruff in the 1960s and the Peace Movement NI in the 70's.

Ireland joined the EU in 1973.

So culturally Ireland went to the top of the pop charts. So the 70's was the decade when the diddley eye went out of Irish music .

Dont forget that you also 1st generation diaspora across in the UK .
John Lydon wrote a book and Boy George O'Dowd.

Scruffyroche mentioned

>One particular band you could look at would be The Miami Showband; not a particularly 'rock band' but they suffered immeasurably at the hands of The Troubles when they were caught in an explosion above the border.

One of the survivors wrote a book.

The massacre meant southern bands no longer toured the north.

Sinn Fein were banned in the 'Republic' until the 1990s. The ban was lifted at that point. That ban I'm talking about is a ban in the media. You should read this. Ruairi was the president of SF for quite a while. It's a brilliant read.