Shane O'neill

This is an extended and critical study of Shane O'Neill, a 16th-century Irish king. Known as ""Shane the Proud,"" his exploits against the English have been memorialized in drama, poetry, and fiction. Ciaran Brady, a leading historian in Early Modern History, returns this neglected and misunderstood historical figure to his rightful place - at the center of this turbulent period in Irish history. In doing so Brady reveals not only the highly complex nature of the problems confronting Shane and his English adversaries, and the genuine nature of the attempts of both sides to find a permanent solution on mutually acceptable terms, but also the combination of surface contingencies and deeper ideological forces that doomed their efforts to failure.