3 Review(s)

A splendid guidebook to Ireland's spectacular antiquities - its passage tombs, ring forts, castles, Neolithic settlements, and monastic sites. With its witty and erudite explorations of Irish mythology, history, literature, archaeology, and architecture, this travel book makes for an excellent companion on a journey to Ireland that is also a journey back in time.Along with fascinating overviews of prehistoric, Celtic, early Christian, and early medieval times, Meagher gives the traveler concrete help in finding the most stunning sites that preserve and breathe that history today (some are surprisingly unknown). After the day's exploring is done, readers can consult the same volume to find where to stay and eat - or entertaining bed-time reading in Meagher's lore about these ancient sites.Though there is many a guidebook to Ireland - after all, it's said the country gets 8 million visitors annually - no guide is so informative and useful in combining inquiry with exploration. In Ancient Ireland, Meagher brings both his passionate scholarship and knowledge of the country and its history to a guide that is at once personal, humorous, engaging, scholarly, and still minutely practical.Robert Emmet Meagher is a professor of humanities at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and the esteemed author or translator of nearly two dozen books. Elizabeth Parker Neave is co-author of Ancient Greece: An Explorer's Guide.