Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory (History of Ireland & the Irish Diaspora),Used

Remembering the Year of the French is a model of historical achievement, moving deftly between the study of historical eventsthe failed French invasion of the West of Ireland in 1798and folkloric representationsof those events. Delving into the folk history found in Irelands rich oral traditions, Guy Beiner reveals alternate visions of the Irish past and brings into focus the vernacular histories, folk commemorative practices, and negotiations of memory that have gone largely unnoticed by historians.Beiner analyzes hundreds of hitherto unstudied historical, literary, and ethnographic sources. Though his focus is on 1798, his work is also a comprehensive study of Irish folk history and grassroots social memory in Ireland. Investigating how communities in the West of Ireland remembered, well into the midtwentieth century, an episode in the late eighteenth century, this is a history from below that gives serious attention to the perspectives of those who have been previously ignored or discounted. Beiner brilliantly captures the stories, ceremonies, and other popular traditions through which local communities narrated, remembered, and commemorated the past. Demonstrating the unique value of folklore as a historical source, Remembering the Year of the French offers a fresh perspective on collective memory and modern Irish history.Winner, Wayland Hand Competition for outstanding publication in folklore and history, American Folklore SocietyFinalist, award for the best book published about or growing out of public history, National Council on Public HistoryWinner, MichaelisJena Ratcliff Prize for the best study of folklore or folk life in Great Britain and IrelandAn important and beautifully produced work. Guy Beiner here shows himself to be a historian of unusual talent.Marianne Elliott, Times Literary SupplementThoroughly researched and scholarly. . . . Beiners work is full of empathy and sympathy for the human remains, memorials, and commemorations of past lives and the multiple ways in which they actually continue to live.Stiofn Cadhla, Journal of British StudiesA major contribution to Irish historiography.Maureen Murphy, Irish Literary Supplement"A remarkable piece of scholarship . . . . Accessible, full of intriguing detail, and eminently teachable.?Ray Casman, New Hibernia ReviewThe most important monograph on Irish history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to be published in recent years.Matthew Kelly, English Historical ReviewA strikingly ambitious work . . . . Elegantly constructed, lucidly written and inspired, and displaying an inexhaustible capacity for researchCiarn Brady, History IRELANDA closely argued, meticulously detailed and rich analysis . . . . providing such innovative treatment of a wide array of sources, his work will resonate with the concerns of many cultural and historical geographers working on social memory in quite different geographical settings and historical contexts.Yvonne Whelan, Journal of Historical Geography