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Jul 14, 2011haploU5 rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
I enjoy reading books that I can learn something from. I picked up Princes of Ireland as my knowledge of the Emerald Isle was quite poor and reading a history book isn’t always the most appealing way of learning about a culture. The book covers centuries of history from the dawn of the Druids, to St Patrick and the beginnings of Christianity in Ireland to the bloody battles of Brian Boru against invading Vikings to the murder of Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry II and beyond. I found the start of the story interesting enough but by leaping, sometimes centuries at a time into the future, it made it difficult to keep track of the lineage the character’s belonged to, even with the legend at the front of the book to use as a reference. I also found that just as I was starting to familiarize myself and care for the characters, the story took off to another era. This quickly grew tiring and I found myself getting increasingly lost as to who was who and which side their loyalties lay, that I started skimming paragraphs about two thirds through the book. Not a bad read if you are interested in expanding you knowledge of Irish history, however, I think I’ll wait a while before picking up the sequel, Rebels of Ireland. The back of the book has further reading for those interested.