The number of people taking Irish Studies courses has been increasing rapidly in recent years. Until now, however, there has been no basic introductory textbook which would enable students coming to the subject for the first time to familiarize themselves with its essential elements. This book is for them. The basic approach is historical. Starting with a geographer's account of landscape and habitat, there follows a series of essays surveying Ireland from the middle ages to the mid-nineteenth century through the eyes of historians, linguists and literary critics. The cultural tension between the Anglo-Irish world and the declining Gaelic world is constantly kept in view. Both the cultural and political revivals of the early twentieth century are dealt with and the concluding essays deal with the structures and culture of modern Ireland. This book is an essential reading for everyone interested in an up-to-date account of Irish history, literature, society and culture. Contents: Introduction: What is Irish Studies?; Ireland: Habitat, Culture and Personality, R Mary Cawley; The Legacy of the Middle Ages Gear id MacNiocaill; Gaelic Culture in Crisis: The Literary Response 1600-1850, Se-n D'O Tuama; 'What Ish My Nation?': Themes in Irish History 1550-1850, Thomas Bartlett; Emigration and Exile, Chris Curtin, Riana O'Dwyer, Gear id D'O Tuathaigh; The Irish Tradition and Nineteenth-Century Fiction: A Review, Patrick Sheeran; Writing in Gaelic since 1880, Noel McGonagle; Translation and Transition: Writing in English 1700-1900, Riana O'Dwyer; From United Kingdom to Divided Island: Aspects of the Irish Experience 1850-1922, Gear id D'O Tuathaigh; Politics and Society in Post-Independence Ireland, Tom Boylan, Chris Curtin, Liam O'Dowd; Twentieth-Century Irish Literature, Gerald Dawe, D.E.S. Maxwell, Riana O'Dwyer; A Changing Society: Ireland since the 1960s, Tom Boylan, Chris Curtin, Michael Laver; From Megalith to Megastore: Broadcast