Strangers to that Land: British Perceptions of Ireland from the Reformation to the Famine

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Andrew Hadfield, John McVeagh
Rowman & Littlefield, 1994 - History - 315 pages
Strangers to that Land, subtitled 'British Perceptions of Ireland from the Reformation to the Famine', is a critical anthology of English, Scottish and Welsh colonists' and travellers' accounts of Ireland and the Irish from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It consists exclusively of eyewitness descriptions of Ireland given by writers using the English language who had never been to Ireland before and were seeing the country for the first time. Each extract, where necessary, is set in context and briefly explained. The result is a vivid, continuous record of Ireland as defined and judged by the British over a period of four centuries. In their general introduction the editors discuss the significance of these changing historical perceptions, as well as the impact upon them of literary conventions which played a part in shaping the emerging texts. It is argued that the relationship between Ireland and England within a British context constitutes a unique case study in the procedures of racial stereotyping and colonial representation, the exploration of cultural conflict and the aesthetics of travel writing. There are twenty-one contemporary illustrations

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Contents

PREFACE
1
INTRODUCTION
3
1 GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS AND ENGLISH WRITING ABOUT IRELAND
25
2 JOHN BALE AND THE REFORMATION IN IRELAND
30
3 THE NATURE OF THE IRISH
36
4 THREE TRAVELLERS OBSERVATIONS OF IRISH LIFE
55
5 LAND AND LANDSCAPE
65
6 IRISH SOCIETY
75
1655 9
125
12 PASSAGE AND TRAVEL
136
13 THE SENSE OF DIFFERENCE
150
14 FROM WAR TO UNION
162
15 IRISH LIFE AND CUSTOMS
189
16 IRISH TOWNS
221
17 PICTURESQUE AND ROMANTIC IRELAND
240
18 POVERTY AND FAMINE
253

7 HUGH ONEILL SECOND EARL OF TYRONE 15401616
90
8 WAR AND REBELLION
99
9 COLONISATION
110
10 THE REBELLION OF 1641
117

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