Defining Ireland; economy, society and class; women and politics; the Three Kingdoms; the Boyne and the emergence of a protestant ascendancy; agrarian society in pre famine Ireland; the Famine: dealing with the catastrophe; patriots, nationalists, republicans, unionists, and others: politics and its followers; origins of independence; constitutional developments and the two states of Ireland; economic development; population and social change; education and language; the evolution of popular culture; the Irish diaspora.