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  • The Border

  • The Legacy of a Century of Anglo-Irish Politics
  • By: Diarmaid Ferriter
  • Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
  • Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (162 ratings)
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The Border

By: Diarmaid Ferriter
Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
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Summary

For the past two decades, you could cross the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic half a dozen times without noticing or, indeed, without turning off the road you were travelling. It cuts through fields, winds back and forth across roads and wends from the mouth of the Newry River to the mouth of the Foyle. It's frictionless - a feat sealed by the Good Friday Agreement. 

Before that, watchtowers loomed over border communities, military checkpoints dotted the roads and bridges had been demolished to prevent crossings. This is a past that most are happy to have left behind, but it may also be the future.  

The Irish Republic-Northern Ireland border has been a topic of dispute for over a century, first in Dublin, Belfast and Westminster and now, post referendum, in Brussels. Diarmaid Ferriter charts its history from the divisive 1920s Act to the Treaty and its aftermath, through 'the Troubles' and the Good Friday Agreement up to the Brexit negotiations. With the fate of the border uncertain, The Border is a timely intervention into one of the most contentious and misunderstood political issues of our time.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our Desktop Site.

©2019 Diarmaid Ferriter (P)2019 Hachette Audio UK
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about The Border

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Irish history every English person should know

I have been interested in modern Irish history for a long time and have never really understood the border other to know it had caused a lot of trouble in my lifetime. This book explains the history of Ireland’s independence from the British Empire and how the border and subsequent troubles came about. It tells the painstaking politics it took to bring about a fragile peace. It also talks about the damage Brexit could do to that peace and of English exceptionalism and magical thinking.

A great bit of history seriously misunderstood by many.

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5 people found this helpful

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The most accessible history on the border

The best book I have listened to on the border to date! Gives an in depth background into the border and how it came about and the implications of it past, present and future. A must read!

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4 people found this helpful

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History Lesson for Little-Englanders

A good synopsis of the results of British imperial arrogance & cultural ignorance in its own back yard

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3 people found this helpful

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Good until the Brexit supports terrorism chapter 7

The guy who writes it is knowegable about the Border
The writer hates Brexit so much he defames the Brexiteers as basically people who encouraged gun-running, civil war and army mutiny, whilst at the same time say it is rational to think that IRA terrorists would suddenly start blowing up border posts. He sees no irony is stating the opposing side supporters of extremists and those who don't care about Northern Ireland, which is a shameless defamation, whilst basically stating that Brexit leads to terrorism because NI won't get subsidy from the EU (funded by the UK tax payer) or the if the EU imposes a border to enforce its external tariff.

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars

Lots of dates

Perhaps not easily digestible in audio form for everyone. Some folk might appreciate this more if they're able to keep track of dates and names on paper. I found myself getting a little lost, especially in areas/decades where I had very little background knowledge. The content is solid, the narrator was good, but the scope of the task and the speed with which we moved through time made it hard to grapple with everything in the book.

That said, I might just listen again to the chapters I struggled with.

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Reasonably good

We read this book for a book club.

What the book does very well is describe the evolving perspectives and priorities of Britain and the Republic of Ireland on NI, and in places vividly depict the realities of life near the border.

The key weaknesses is that the book is neither short and basic enough for those without a basic understanding of the key historical events (colonisation, bloody Sunday), not long enough to give real detail into those key events. So while the book is solid, we weren't sure it was really ideal for anyone.

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Holding our collective breath again.

The regular and in most respects fair criticism of the English is that neither know nor care about Ireland / the Republic / Northern Ireland / the Island of Ireland etc. I often think it’s similar to English complaints that the US knows nothing about the UK [and it should]. Well in the car-crash of the last few years in UK / Little Englander politics, this book should be compulsory reading. In fact it should have been compulsory reading before 2016 when many in the UK lost their tiny collective minds. This book brings together very swiftly all the complexity and nuance, and not so nuanced, aspects of the conundrum that is Ireland. I like to think myself as one of the exceptions. I’ve lived and worked in Northern Ireland, travelled extensively across the Republic of Ireland, and am a self-confessed Hibernophile for as s long as I can remember (40+ years). And if these DNA kits are to be believed I have recently found out that I am of ‘common stock from Ireland / Wales and North Scotland. Not England, but also interestingly – not Northern Ireland (C20th version of Ulster) either; there is distinct difference from NI and the remainder of the Island.

And it got me thinking. Ulster (original form) was once the poorest and “most Gaelic” of the Provinces, resisted the Vikings more than the rest of the Ireland, and of course, whilst Ireland exported Gaels to Scotland, it was the Lowland Scots (and English) – a different breed - who were ‘planted’ back into the North East of the Ireland – the beginning of the Province becoming the most wealthy (at the expense of the indigenous Irish) and the ‘least Gaelic’ of the Ireland. Apart from Donegal. And so - influenced by great writers as Simon Winchester (what is the geological as well as the cultural effects?) and Tim Marshall – what revenge does geography take, and how much is Ulster a ‘prisoner of its own Geography’. And what about the ‘invention of GAA’ – the brilliant and both public and private, conscious and subconscious strategy that banned the ‘foreign [British] sports’ so loved by Irish people today, and endures under extreme ‘external pressures’. I think I would have appreciated perhaps some of these perspectives ‘in the mix’ – even the ‘DNA map’ – to look at whether there might be another path – now that UK’s exit from the EU has put peace back into in jeopardy again. It is easy to say that eventually the ‘North will vote itself back into the South’ (assuming the Dail will be able to afford the Public Sector tariff that comes with NI) but if these differences are more than cultural and religious, but also geological, geographical (prisoners and ‘revengeesque’,and possibly ethnicity (in the wider DNA sense).

And so, a brilliant little book, that all the British should read. Understand the complexities of the Island, reconcile that whilst the UK Flag is used to represent half of the NI people, this only makes them ‘not Southern Irish’ - their own form of Irish, that is both similar and different in equal measure. I loved living in NI, I have many close friends from the moderate middle rump who are compelled to vote for one extreme or the other (their origins) but wish to simply get on with their lives. This book might be a few years old now but it holds true as not only an accurate account of how we got here, but also, in 2023, why we might all be holding our collective breaths again.

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1 person found this helpful

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Excellent overview. Short but learned

Despite its relative brevity, this is no Brexit-era cash-in work on the Irish border. Or more accurately, the Irish-British border. Fair to all traditions, condensing considerable scholarship, this is a must-have survey. Especially for those new to the history. Good narration as well.

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Good book, annoying narration

A clear view of the legacy of the British border in Ireland. Learned a lot even as an Irishman. Narrator uses that false pronunciation of 'r' as 'a' that is creeping into the south of Ireland e.g. "borda" rather than "border", "eva" rather than "ever". Every sentence had that false "ah" sound. Drove me nuts even though he was otherwise good.

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Excellent overview of the Irish Border

A really enjoyable listen about the Irish border - the historical context, creation and management of this squiggly line are covered in a great mix of stories, research and statistics. Informative, entertaining and very relevant as the NI protocol saga rumbles on. Highly recommend.

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