The Birth of Ulster

First published more than sixty years ago, The Birth of Ulster still remains unquestionably relevant to the political scene in Ireland today. Cyril Falls' masterly account of the birth of Ulster takes us back beyond King Billy, beyond the great rebellion of 1641, to that crucial period in Ireland's history known as the Plantation: the organised settlement in Ulster of English and Scots farming tenants who would make it their country and their home.A dramatic episode in itself, the Plantation lies close to the heart of the agonising and perennial Irish Question. Here Falls describes with great clarity the political confusion out of which it grew - Elizabeth I's disastrous attempts to annexe and subdue - and the absorbing story of the settlement's development and struggle to survive.