Ancestral Voices: Religion and Nationalism in Ireland

by Conor Cruise O'Brien

Overview

Scholar and statesman Conor Cruise O'Brien illuminates why peace has been so elusive in Northern Ireland. He explains the conflation of religion and nation through Irish history into our own time. Using his life as a prism through which he interprets Ireland's past and present, O'Brien identifies case after case of the lethal mixing of God with country that has spilled oceans of blood throughout this century of nationalism and that, from Bosnia to Northern Ireland, still curses the world.

"O'Brien's bravura performance [is] seductive in its intellectual sweep and literary assurance."—Toby Barnard, Times Literary Supplement

"Has the magical insistence which Conor Cruise O'Brien can produce at his best. . . . Where he looks back to his own childhood the book shines. He writes of his mother and father with effortless grace and candor, with a marvelous, elegant mix of affection and detachment."—Observer

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226616520
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	12/18/1995
Edition description:	1
Pages:	30
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Conor Cruise O'Brien (1917-2008) was a leading Irish intellectual of his generation and had a distinguished career in public life as a diplomat, politician, government minister, writer, newspaper editor, critic, and scholar. He published numerous books in subjects such as history, biography, politics, and religion.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword
Ghosts
Ancestral Voices
Postscripts 1994-1995
Further Reading
Index