"Taken as a whole, these easily digestible vignettes collectively provide an illustrative, if not quite exhaustive, arc of Irish thought on royalty, adeptly addressing the particular interests of academic specialists without sacrificing clarity for a wider popular audience." – CHOICE

In the twenty-first century there are two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland, and two very different heads of state represent the populations of Ireland and Northern Ireland respectively: the elected presidency of the republic, and the hereditary monarchy of the United Kingdom. But the idea of monarchy, and the related notion of aristocracy, has a long heritage in Ireland. There was a native aristocracy long before the British conquest, and British monarchs were not the only monarchs to matter to Irish people. Now, in the third installment of the collaboration between Pen and Sword and History Ireland magazine, a range of experts examine how the role played by monarchs and their monarchies from the middle ages up to the present has had a role in shaping Ireland and its peoples, exploring some unexpected highways and byways along the way. From the Vikings to the Jacobites, and from the high-kings of Irish mythology to Mrs Simpson, this volume looks at king’s, queens, their followers and their opponents to cast light on Ireland’s history from an unexpected angle.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Contributors
• Introduction: Ireland and the Monarchy
• Chapter One Brian Boru: Imperator Scotorum
• Chapter Two Life after Brian: the high-kingship
• Chapter Three King John and the origins of colonial rule in Ireland
• Chapter Four Thomas Holand: Richard II’s king of Ireland?
• Chapter Five The remonstrance of Irish princes, 1317
• Chapter Six A Lancastrian prince in Ireland
• Chapter Seven James IV, the O’Donnell’s of Tyrconnell and the road to Flodden
• Chapter Eight Contesting the sovereignty of early modern Ireland
• Chapter Nine King Billy: a military assessment
• Chapter Ten ‘Fighting Dick’ Talbot, the ‘Chevalier’ Wogan and Lally-Tollendal: Jacobites, jailbreakers and jailbirds
• Chapter Eleven ‘Erin cordially welcomes the Empress’: Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary in Ireland, 1879 and 1880
• Chapter twelve The chequered fate of a queen
• Chapter thirteen July 1903: Edward VII, the Gordon Bennett Cup and the Emmett centennial
• Chapter Fourteen The theft of the Irish crown jewels, 1907
• Chapter fifteen Edward VIII, Mrs Simpson and Ireland
• Chapter Sixteen The queen was in the parlour
• Chapter Seventeen Commemoration and conciliation during the royal visit, 2011
• Select bibliography