Tuesday 21 February 2017

New book explores the transformation of southern Ireland's Protestant community since the early C20th

http://www.thehistorypress.ie/Buried-Lives__p-730.aspx
Buried Lives – The Protestants of Southern Ireland, by Robin Bury, has been published this month by The History Press Ireland.

The 250-page paperback examines what the author describes as an early-20th-century transformation of southern-based Irish protestants from a once-strong people into an isolated, pacified community. Their political influence, social status and numbers had all but disappeared by the end of the civil war in 1923, he says, largely as a result of exceptional emigration during the Civil War, and they were to form a quiescent minority up to modern times. (The shrinkage of the community is borne out by official statistics – 327,000 in 1911; 220,000 in 1926; 104,000 in 1961.)

The book tells the tale of this transformation and the group's forced adaptation, exploring the lasting effect that it had on both the Protestant community and the wider Irish society, and investigates how Protestants in southern Ireland view their place in the Republic today.

With a recommended price of €20, the book can be ordered from the publisher's website (click image), via good online booksellers, and through Amazon (where a Look Inside option allows you to read sections of the text without purchase).

ISBN: 9781845888800.