7 things about The Irish (and Other Foreigners) - the trailer of the book

Here’s the trailer for Shane Hegarty‘s new book, just gone online today:

Shane, Assistant Features Editor with the Irish Times and co-writer of The Irish Times Book Of The 1916 Rising, sent me a copy of his new book recently, called, as the title of this post suggests, The Irish (& Other Foreigners) From the First People to the Poles.

Admittedly I haven’t had the chance to delve in properly, which is frustrating because this is a subject that interests me deeply. Why are the Irish the way they are? What is our genealogical heritage and why does that matter? How does it influence who we are as people and as a culture?

The back of the book reads as follows:

“Where did the first Irish come from?
Where have the Celts gone?
What did the Vikings ever do for us?
And why is it that Chippers are run by Italians?

The Irish (& Other Foreigners), Shane Hegarty’s popular History of 10,000 years of immigration into Ireland, answers these and many other questions and reveals the mix of influences and genes that make up the modern Irish.”

In a book that promises to explore whether the Celts ever landed in Ireland at all, it being the least popular destination for early colonisers, located on the periphery of Eastern Europe, why the Vikings left behind such a small genetic trace, the story behind the plantations and a chapter on the recent wave of immigration.

He’s having a launch event on Friday evening in the Stag’s Head, 1 Dame Court, Dublin 2 on Friday 6 November at 6.30pm. To attend, please contact Claire Egan of Gill & Macmillan at [email protected].

I’ll let you know what the book is like when I’ve read it. If I ever get the chance.