"'Imagining Ireland's pasts' describes how various authors addressed the history of early modern Ireland over four centuries and explains why they could not settle on an agreed narrative. It shows how conflicting interpretations broke frequently along denominational lines, but that authors were also influenced by ethnic, cultural, and political considerations, and by whether they were resident in Ireland or living in exile. 'Imagining Ireland's pasts' details how authors extolled the merits of their progenitors, offered hope and guidance to the particular audience they addressed, and disputed opposing narratives. Nicholas Canny shows how competing scholars, whether contributing to vernacular histories or empirical studies, became transfixed by the traumatic events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as they sought to explain either how stability had finally been achieved, or how the descendants of those who had been wronged might secure redress."-- Dust jacket.

Preface -- The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the writing of Ireland's history in the sixteenth century -- Composing counter-narratives in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -- New histories for a new Ireland -- The 1641 rebellion and Ireland's contested pasts -- Eighteenth-century aristocratic histories of Ireland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -- Enlightenment historians of Ireland and their critics -- The vernacular alternatives composed during the age of revolutions -- Re-imagining Ireland's early modern past : the young Ireland agenda, dissident views, and the Catholic alternative -- Re-imagining Ireland's early modern past during the later nineteenth century -- Fresh unionist re-appraisals of the history of early modern Ireland -- The birth and early demise of a liberal interpretation of Ireland's early modern past -- The failure of the imagination concerning Ireland's past.