Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland

While I appreciate McCourt's laid back approach to Ireland's history, his style in Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland revolved around individuals and I feel that there is so much missing from his narrative. I didn't actually get a sense of the Irish people themselves or any of the major events.

McCourt explains events such as the Easter Rising and Bloody Sunday only in contexts of who was involved. This tactic resulted in a vague and disjointed telling of the story, as well as a lot of redundancies. I read a review that questioned the editing of the book and I totally agree, it wasn't well-formatted.

The sections on Irish writers and Mary Robinson were particularly good, though I found it odd that Oscar Wilde wasn't included in the former. I also noted the absence of Roger Casement from the chapter on the Easter Rising.

Overall, it was very clear that this wasn't necessarily a history of Ireland, but was instead a collection of what McCourt happens to know. Not a terrible waste of time at all, just not very comprehensive, not particularly well written, and sometimes politically dry.