Ireland Historical Fiction

For centuries, the Vikings have swept out of the Norse countries and fallen on whatever lands they could reach aboard their longships, and few could resist the power of their violent onslaught. They came at first to plunder and then to settle, an encroachment fiercely resisted wherever they went. Such was the case in the southern lands of Ireland. En route to the Viking longphort there, known as Dubh-linn, Thorgrim Night Wolf and Ornolf the Restless stumble across an Irish ship.

King. Warrior. Lover. Brian Boru was stronger, braver, and wiser than all other men-the greatest king Ireland has ever known. Out of the mists of the country's most violent age, he merged to lead his people to the peak of their golden era. His women were as remarkable as his adventures: Fiona, the druidess with mystical powers; Deirdre, beautiful victim of a Norse invader's brutal lust; Gormlaith, six-foot, red-haired goddess of sensuality.

Lancater and York is a riveting account of the Wars of the Roses, from beloved historian Alison Weir. The war between the houses of Lancaster and York was characterised by treachery, deceit, and bloody battles. Alison Weir's lucid and gripping account focuses on the human side of history. At the centre of the book stands Henry VI, the pious king whose mental instability led to political chaos, and his wife Margaret of Anjou, who took up her arms in her husband's cause and battled in a violent man's world.

On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, the first great revolution of the twentieth century began as working-class men and women occupied buildings throughout Dublin, Ireland, including the general post office on O’Connell Street. Among the commoners in the GPO was a young staff captain of the Irish Volunteers named Michael Collins. He was joined a day later by a fourteen-year-old messenger boy, Eoin Kavanagh.

In 1913, before there is a rumor of war in Europe, Matthias Wrenn and Con Hatchel, lifelong friends from Ballyrannel in the Irish midlands, decide to see the world at the expense of the king of England and join the British army. A year later, while en route to India, their troop ship is recalled and they soon find themselves in the European slaughterhouse that was World War I.

In 1846 a baby girl is born to a young Irish fisherman and his wife. It is the second year of the Great Hunger and the young couple choose to remain in Ireland, while family and friends are leaving. Their story takes place in the fishing village of Blackrock, Dundalk, but with the cities of Liverpool and Sunderland playing a critical part in their lives. Is their love for each other and their homeland enough to sustain them, or will they be forced to join the one and a half million who emigrate?

Ireland travels through the centuries by way of story after story, from the savage grip of the Ice Age to the green and troubled land of tourist brochures and news headlines. Along the way, we meet foolish kings and innocent monks, god-heroes and great works of art, shrewd Norman raiders and envoys from Rome, leaders, poets, and lovers. Each illuminates the magic of Ireland, the power of England, and the eternal connection to the land.

Somewhere in the shadowy borderland between myth and history lies the territory of Finn Mac Cool. Mightiest of the Irish heroes, leader of the invincible army of Fianna, he was a man of many faces: warrior, poet, lover, creator, and destroyer. Finn Mac Cool is a man taken from one of the lowest classes of Irish society, driven by ambition and strength to rise above his birth and bring new respect and status to his people. He had it all and lost it all, but in the end he gained immortality. Finn Mac Cool is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and awesome adventure.

George Arrow, a good-looking, independently wealthym and single man of 36, has just been diagnosed with a weak heart. A heart so weak, his doctor tells him, he must go to extraordinary lengths to avoid putting the slightest strain upon it. On his doctor's advice, George packs up his life in Dublin and boards a train to the Bay of Galway where he intends to live quietly in a hotel and await the inevitable end. On the train, he meets John Burden, and as they chat, George realizes that his new acquaintance is an odious man.

Following the critically acclaimed success of Dublin, this riveting sequel takes the story of Ireland from the 17th century onwards, picking up at the Reformation, and with it the devastating arrival of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell heralds the inauguration of 200 years of Protestant dominance, throughout which many of the Irish people were impoverished and dispossessed. Dublin is made a Protestant capital, and Catholics become an underclass. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Irish political history, this powerful saga is brought to its conclusion.

Indomitable and bold in an era of royalty and rogues, Skye O'Malley is a woman who embraces her unbridled sensuality as valiantly as she fights for her children, her lovers, her empire. A woman of justice and honor, she will match wits with and challenge the most dangerous and powerful woman of her time: Queen Elizabeth I.

The Yellow House delves into the passion and politics of Northern Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century. Eileen O'Neill's family is torn apart by religious intolerance and secrets from the past. Determined to reclaim her ancestral home and reunite her family, Eileen begins working at the local mill, saving her money and holding fast to her dream. As war is declared on a local and global scale, Eileen cannot separate the politics from the very personal impact the conflict has had on her own life.

In 1920, Annabeth De Lacy’s father is appointed landlord of Galway Parish in Ireland. Bored without the trappings and finery of the British Court, Annabeth convinces her father to arrange an apprenticeship for her with the Jennings family - descendants of the creator of the famed Claddagh ring. Stephen Jennings longs to do anything other than make a career in his family’s jewelry shop. The past has taught him to no longer believe in love and the “lies” the Claddagh ring supposedly promises. How can he peddle what he now finds offensive?

July 8, 1921. Ireland. A British Officer is shot dead on a remote hillside south of Dublin. November 22, 2015. United Kingdom. Former police detective Jayne Sinclair, now working as a genealogical investigator, receives a phone call from an adopted American billionaire asking her to discover the identity of his real father. How are the two events linked? Jayne Sinclair has only three clues to help her: a photocopied birth certificate, a stolen book, and an old photograph.

Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy, a recent arrival to England from Massachusetts, is already a huge hit in 1930s London society. Her status as the daughter of an ambassador puts her at the centre of the most elite social circles but being an American and a Catholic sets her apart, something she only comes to realise when she falls for Billy Cavendish, the future Duke of Devonshire. Their families will never approve the match - if her parents find out about their romantic attachment, she risks being sent back to America.

In 1953, a young Ray Bradbury is summoned to Ireland by the brilliant but terrifying titan of cinema, John Huston. His mission: capture on paper the fiercest of all literary beasts - Moby Dick. But from the moment he sets foot on Irish soil, the author embarks on an unexpected odyssey. As Bradbury works and wrangles with the renowned director to craft a workable screenplay so filming can begin, he also develops a love affair with the beautiful, mysterious land of Ireland and its inhabitants.

Ireland, 1959. Young Christopher Hurley is a tinker, a Pavee gypsy, who roams with his father and extended family from town to town, carrying all their worldly possessions in their wagons. Christy carries with him a burden of guilt as well: his mother's death in childbirth. The wandering life is the only one Christy has ever known, but when his grandfather dies, everything changes. His father decides to settle briefly, in a town, where Christy and his cousin can receive proper schooling. But still, always, they are treated as outsiders.

Lion of Ireland was the breathtaking chronicle of Brian Boru, the Great King who led the bickering chiefs of Ireland in 1014 to unity under his reign. Now, with all the fire and brilliance for which her writing is known, Morgan Llywelyn takes us there, to the battlefield where Brian died, and to Brian's 15-year-old son, Donough, whose mother is the voluptuous and treacherous Gormlaith, with her lust for life and power undiminished by age: Donough, the son who is determined to make the High Kingship of Brian Boru's Ireland his own.

Bound together by a single ancient text, the unforgettable characters of Cloud Cuckoo Land are dreamers and outsiders figuring out the world around them: 13-year-old Anna and Omeir, an orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy, on opposite sides of the formidable city walls during the 1453 siege of Constantinople; teenage idealist Seymour and octogenarian Zeno in an attack on a public library in present-day Idaho; and Konstance, decades from now, who turns to the oldest stories to guide her community in peril.

It's the dawn of the 1930s, and the three privileged Guinness sisters, Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh, settle into becoming wives and mothers: Aileen in Luttrellstown Castle outside Dublin, Maureen in Clandeboye in Northern Ireland, and Oonagh in Rutland Place in London. But while Britain becomes increasingly politically polarised, Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh discover conflict within their own marriages.