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Series
The Irish Century follows successive generations living through Ireland’s struggle for political independence, statehood and peace across the twentieth century. Beginning with the Easter Rising of 1916, the sequence moves through the War of Independence, partition and civil war, the consolidation of the Irish Free State, the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the negotiations that closed the century.
The novels combine fictional members of the Halloran family and their associates with major public events and political figures. By shifting the viewpoint from rebels and journalists to women constrained by the new state and later generations drawn into Northern Ireland’s conflict, the series examines both the ideals of Irish nationalism and the private costs of violence, division and unresolved memory.
Reading order
Fifteen-year-old Ned Halloran survives the sinking of the Titanic but loses both parents, returning to Ireland with little certainty about his future. At Saint Enda’s school in Dublin he comes under the influence of headmaster Patrick Pearse and enters a circle in which language, education and…
Journalist Henry Mooney tries to report truthfully as guerrilla war, reprisals and political negotiation bring the Irish struggle for independence towards a settlement. His work places him close to Michael Collins, Éamon de Valera and the competing factions of the movement, while his love for an…
Ursula Halloran comes of age in the state created by revolution and civil war, where independence has not produced equal freedom for all its citizens. As conservative Catholic institutions shape education, employment, marriage and public morality, she resists the expectation that a woman’s ambitions must be…
Barry Halloran grows up with the revolutionary inheritance of his parents and grandparents but finds the island still divided. At eighteen he joins the Irish Republican Army believing armed struggle can complete an unfinished revolution, only to encounter the secrecy, discipline and moral compromises demanded by…
At the end of the twentieth century, Barry Halloran remains marked by the violence he witnessed and the causes to which his family devoted itself. Ireland is changing rapidly through economic expansion and social transformation, while Northern Ireland’s ceasefires and negotiations create the possibility that political…