E-mail message contentHi Listers..... I was recently sent this review for what is a great book about Ireland (would make a lovely Christmas present) For those interested in books about Ireland check out the following great site http://www.readireland.com or www.readireland.ie The Irish: A Photohistory by Sean Sexton and Christine Kinealy (Large Hardback: Thames & Hudson, 224 pages, with 271 illustrations) The first Irish photographs date from 1840, a year after Louis Daguerre announced to the world his discovery of the photographic process. In the century that followed, Ireland was to know tragedy and triumph, bitter struggle and agonized compromise. In 1840 no one could possibly have forseen the catastrophe that was about to unfold in Ireland. The Great Famine was to kill over a million Irish poor people between 1846 and 1851, and force an even greater number to flee the horrors of their homeland. In the following decades, Irish political life was dominated by the struggle for land rights, for Home Rule, and ultimately for independence. As that story unfolds throughout this book, the reader encounters inspirational leaders and impatient rebels, and their campaigns of persuasion and violence. We glimpse too the injustices that inspired them, above all the mass eviction of destitute peasants from their homes and lands by the heavy hand of the law. Yet these images do mu! ch more than tell a gripping political and historical story. They give an insight into a people, a landscape, and a lost way of life. They evoke the grandeur of life in the Big House, home and symbol of the Anglo-Irish elite. They reveal the hard labour of rural survival: cutting peat for fuel, fishing, gathering seaweed and tilling the soil, against the magnificence of the often harsh Irish landscape. And they show the transforming impact of modernity, as industry, railways and urban expansion slowly brought Ireland into a new era. Covering the first century of Ireland in the era of photography, this enthralling visual history brings the past vividly to life. Read Ireland Web Site Home Page: http://www.readireland.com Read Ireland - THE Source for Irish Books on the Internet! www.readireland.ie