This book, a companion volume to the BBC2 television series, aims to trace the origin, growth, flowering and eventual decline of the Celts, a people who are traditionally portrayed as wild, excitable, warlike, ferocious and uncivilized. Despite their numerical smallness the author contends that they made a major contribution to Western civilization.

Price: £7.19 (* priced in sterling*)

Archaeological evidence; Artefacts into archaeology; The Mesolithic Period, 8000-4000 BC; The Earlier Bronze Age, 2000-1200 BC; The Later Bronze Age, 1200-700 BC 

Price: $29.95

The development of Irish society is traced from its origins as a postglacial culture of hunters and gatherers through the technological and artistic advances of its golden age in second millennium B.C.

Price: $35.95

Since 1980 Morgan Llywelyn has created an entire body of work chronicling the Celts, and Ireland, from the earliest times to the present day. Her critically acclaimed novels, both of history and of mythology, have been translated into many languages around the world. 

Price: $12.76

A comprehensive history of Ireland, complemented by numerous photographs and line drawings, illuminates--from prehistoric times to the present attempts at peace in Northern Ireland--the complete history of the land and its people.

Price: $13.56

From Celtic times to the Viking Wars to Cromwell to the Great Famine, Ireland's distinctive past comes alive. Forty-five double spreads frame all major events in Eire's history with authoritative but accessible text, period art, photographs, and definitive maps. Published to coincide with a PBS series. 

Price: $27.50

A new Companion to a most companionable land, "The Oxford Companion to Irish History" includes 1,800 entries which explore Irish history from the earliest times to the recent past. I freuently dip into this book when I need information on dates or places.

Price: $15.96

For more than 800 years, Ireland has had to define itself politically in relation to its next-door neighbor and sometime occupier, England. That fact has fueled generations of Irish revolutionary activity--and given rise to countless heroes, ordinary men and women who suffered and died in the cause of freedom.

Price: $18.20

The holy men and women of Ireland play a key role in preserving European Western civilization's heritage: they remain unconquered when Rome fell and preserved the bulk of western social and literary heritage. Passages gleaned from historical writings compliment a fine history which often reads like a novel.

Price: $17.46

by Sean O'Faolain
 

Price: $16.95

If you feel you have a gap in your knowledge of Ireland, you must start with this book. The author is not afraid to criticise the post-1922 Irish state and politicians such as de Valera when necessary, but he establishes beyond doubt that the record of British rule in Ireland before that date was patchy and unwholesome at best, ignorant and vicious at worst. 

Price: $13.56