This presentation of Irish history offers an account written by a team of scholars, and illustrated throughout. It takes us from the very earliest prehistoric communities and first Christian settlements, through centuries of turbulent change to the present day. The story is one of paradox and ambiguity, as well as of unifying overall themes. Patterns of settlement and colonization, religious confrontation, and the emergence of new political patterns are among the issues discussed. The question of Irish identity, and the meaning of "colonialism" in the very Irish sense, raise important questions about the use of language. A special feature of the book is a chapter devoted to the language and literature which preserve, in their way, a record of Irish history. The conflicts, settlements, discontinuities and unities of Irish history are illustrated with reference to landscape, artefacts, architecture and an enormous variety of contemporary visual evidence.