Brendan Smith

The thousand years explored in this book witnessed developments in the history of Ireland that resonate to this day. Interspersing narrative with detailed analysis of key themes, the first volume in The Cambridge History of Ireland presents the latest thinking on key aspects of the medieval Irish experience. The contributors are leading experts in their fields, and present their original interpretations in a fresh and accessible manner. New perspectives are offered on the politics, artistic culture, religious beliefs and practices, social organisation and economic activity that prevailed on the island in these centuries. At each turn the question is asked: to what extent were these developments unique to Ireland? The openness of Ireland to outside influences, and its capacity to influence the world beyond its shores, are recurring themes. Underpinning the book is a comparative, outward-looking approach that sees Ireland as an integral but exceptional component of medieval Christian Europe.

The Cambridge History of Ireland: Volume 1, 600–1550

Medieval Ireland is associated in the public imagination with the ruined castles and monasteries that remain prominent in the Irish landscape. Crisis and Survival in Late Medieval Ireland: The English of Louth and their Neighbours, 1330-1450 examines how the society that produced these monuments developed over the course of a turbulent century, focussing particularly on county Louth, situated on the coast north of Dublin and adjacent to the earldom of Ulster. Louth was one of the areas that had been most densely colonised by English settlers in the decades around 1200, and ties with England and loyalty to the English crown remained strong. Its settlers found it possible to maintain close economic and political ties with England in part because of their proximity to the significant trading port of Drogheda, and the residence among them of the archbishop of Armagh, primate of Ireland, also extended their international horizons and contacts. In this volume, Brendan Smith explores the ways in which the English settlers in Louth maintained their English identity in the face of plague and warfare. The Black Death of 1348-9, and recurrent visitations of plague thereafter, reduced their numbers significantly and encouraged the Irish lordships on their borders to challenge their local supremacy. How to counter the threat from the MacMahons, O'Neills, and others, absorbed their energies and resources. It not only involved mounting armed campaigns, taking hostages, and building defences; it also meant intermarrying with these families and entering into numerous solemn, if short-lived, treaties with them. Smith draws on original source material, to present a picture of the English settlers in Louth, and to show how living in the borderlands of the English world coloured every aspect of settler life.

The English of Louth and Their Neighbours, 1330-1450

Crisis and Survival in Late Medieval Ireland

This volume explores the ways in which the English settlers in Louth maintained their English identity in the face of plague and warfare, through the turbulent decades between 1330 and 1450.

The Silence of Divine Love

Jacob had twelve sons, but Joseph was his favorite. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him, especially after Jacob gave Joseph a beautiful, colorful coat. So his brothers plotted to hurt him. One day when they were out tending their flocks, Joseph’s brothers turned on him, tore off his colorful coat, threw him in a well, and then sold him into slavery. The brothers put blood on his coat and told Jacob that Joseph had been killed. But Joseph survived, having been sold as a slave to one of Pharaoh’s guards in Egypt. Lucky for Joseph, he was able to interpret Pharaoh’s dream about a famine in Egypt, and soon became a very powerful man. But when Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt many years later and asked this estranged brother for food, would Joseph forgive them? Or would he get revenge for what they had done to him years ago?The story of Jacob and his sons, the colorful coat, and Joseph in Egypt is a timeless tale about love, jealousy, and, ultimately, forgiveness. Now, for the first time, this incredible story comes to life as part of The Brick Bible for Kids series. Enjoy reading one of the Bible’s most colorful stories illustrated in LEGO as a family.

The Brick Bible for Kids

Joseph and the Colorful Coat

There is a growing interest in the history of relations between the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish as the United Kingdom and Ireland begin to construct new political arrangements and to become more fully integrated into Europe. This book brings together work on how these relations developed between 900 and 1300, a period crucial for the formation of national identities. The conquest of England by the Normans and the subsequent growth in English power required the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland to reassess their dealings with each other. Old ties were broken and new ones formed. Economic change, the influence of chivalry, the transmission of literary motifs, and questions of aristocratic identity are among the topics tackled here by leading scholars from Britain, Ireland and North America. Little has been published hitherto on this subject, and the book marks a major contribution to a topic of lasting interest.

Insular Responses to Medieval European Change

Britain and Ireland, 900–1300

Jeremy Brecher

Tim Costello

Brecher, Costello, and Smith chart out a dynamic and innovative strategy for building the movement to challenge unchecked coporate globalization.

The Power of Solidarity

Globalization from Below

Jill Cutler

A riveting documentary anthology that examines a deeply disturbing question: Is the United States guilty of war crimes in Iraq? Until recently, the possibility that the United States was responsible for war crimes seemed unthinkable to most Americans. But as previously suppressed information has started to emerge—photographs from Abu Ghraib; accounts of U.S. attacks on Iraqi hospitals, mosques, and residential neighborhoods; secret government reports defending unilateral aggression—Americans have begun an agonizing reappraisal of the Iraq war and the way in which their government has conducted it. Drawing on a wide range of documents—from the protocols of the Geneva Convention to FBI e-mails about prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay to executive-branch papers justifying the circumvention of international law—In the Name of Democracy examines the legality of the Iraq war and the occupation that followed. Included in this powerful investigation are eyewitness accounts, victim testimonials, statements by soldiers turned resisters and whistle-blowers, interviews with intelligence insiders, and contributions by Mark Danner and Seymour Hersh. The result is a controversial, chilling anthology that explores the culpability of officials as well as the responsibilities of ordinary citizens, and for the first time squarely confronts the matter of American impunity.

Brendan Smith

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