The background history of Ireland is vital to an understanding of its people and culture. A Traveller's History of Ireland offers a chronological outline of the country up to the present day as well as an invaluable introduction to a land of poets, saints, illustrious soldiers and inspiring and persistent rebels. The book includes a comprehensive description of modern Ireland, both North and South, and of its two separate Catholic Nationalist and Protestant Unionist traditions. The story opens with mysterious early Celtic Ireland, St. Patrick and the legendary High Kings. It moves on through the arrival of the Normans and the beginnings of the difficult and tragic Anglo-Irish relationship. It includes great historical figures like Hugh O'Neill, Cromwell and Swift who helped change the course of Irish history. The horrors of the Potato Famine and birth of nationalism, and division of the island are all accurately reported.