Waterstones Sport and Ireland
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Price: £27.49
Brand: Waterstones
Description: This is the first history of sport in Ireland, locating the history of sport within Irish political, social, and cultural history, and within the global history of sport. Sport and Ireland demonstrates that there are aspects of Ireland's sporting history that are uniquely Irish and are defined by the peculiarities of life on a small island on the edge of Europe. What is equally apparent, though, is that the Irish sporting world is unique only in part; much of the history of Irish sport is a shared history with that of other societies. Drawing on an unparalleled range of sources - government archives, sporting institutions, private collections, and more than sixty local, national, and international newspapers - this volume offers a unique insight into the history of the British Empire in Ireland and examines the impact that political partition has had on the organization of sport there. Paul Rouse assesses the relationship between sport and national identity, how sport influences policy-making in modern states, and the ways in which sport has been colonized by the media and has colonized it in turn. Each chapter of Sport and Ireland contains new research on the place of sport in Irish life: the playing of hurling matches in London in the eighteenth century, the growth of cricket to become the most important sport in early Victorian Ireland, and the enlistment of thousands of members of the Gaelic Athletic Association as soldiers in the British Army during the Great War. Rouse draws out the significance of animals to the Irish sporting tradition, from the role of horse and dogs in racing and hunting, to the cocks, bulls, and bears that were involved in fighting and baiting.
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9780198784517
Delivery cost: 0.00
ISBN: 9780198784517
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Author: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5
Review: This is an excellent book, from an excellent historian. I highly recommend it.
Author: D. Elliott
Rating: 4
Review: There are numerous cultural, social and political aspects of Ireland that make the place special and idiosyncratic, and inevitably these shaped it sports over time. From the 1800s further influence stems from the colonisation and partition of Ireland with opportunity for a unique study of how sport overcame boundaries both in the nature of sport and the allegiances of supporters. ‘Sport & Ireland’ goes back much further and embraces the evolution of sport from medieval times up to our modern day, with commentary on the ever increasing intrusion and influence of the media, and financial contributions and constraints. Author Paul Rouse emphasises the connection between sport and national identity but he avoids parochialism and links his history to that shared with England in particular plus Europe and the wider world. For Ireland his book must be the ultimate in coverage of the history of sport in that country and its connections with neighbours and globally, as confirmed by the huge range of sources set out in a Bibliography, the detail of footnote references, and with a magnificent comprehensive Index. After a brief Introduction the book is divided into 4 sections – Sport: Before 1800; Modernisation of Irish Sport: 1800-1880; Contested Sport: politics, war, and women 1880-1920; and Sport on a Partitioned Island: 1920 to the New Millennium. There is a Conclusion: Meaning of Sport in a New Millennium with reference to what has gone before, the huge changes, and the capacity of sport to endure. To a degree ’Sport & Ireland’ captured feelings and atmosphere but essentially it is a serious piece of research that itself will become a source, and as such it could be regarded as a 5-star academic treatise. For me I found it nicely structured, well-written, full of facts and with insights to ponder, but it lacks something and comes across as overly solemn and sombre. I didn’t expect to laugh out loud, but I did look forward to more Irish humour with amusing stories, and what I found was a narrative repeatedly shifting from considerations of sport to economics, politics, social, class, religion, commercialism etc. It differs from the more usual histories of change within Ireland, but for me it is still too much orientated to being a history of the nation via sport. Hence loss of a star to 4-star rating.
