Nearly half a million people emigrated from Ireland to Australia between 1788 and 1900. Almost 20 per cent of modern Australians are of Irish descent, and in 1900 this proportion would have been 25-30 per cent. The Irish have played a major role in the shaping of our institutions, attitudes, language and living patterns, and the history which shaped them is still of great importance to Australia today. The Sharing of the Green focuses on that period of Irish history when emigration was heaviest - 1790-1945 (an epilogue covers the past 50 years) - and concentrates on those aspects of modern Ireland that have had the most bearing on our evolution as a people. There is, therefore, a special emphasis on religion, land protest, attitudes to authority, respectability, the imperial connection and above all, politics.Readers will find much here to satisfy their curiosity about a land which may be distant, yet whose heritage is integral to so much of Australian life. An echoing roll call of names runs through the pages, from O'Connell to Parnell, from Redmond to de Valera. The Great Famine, the fight for Home Rule, the Easter Rising and the roots of the present situation in Northern Ireland, are all explained and put into context for Australian readers today.

Oliver MacDonagh is one of the most distinguished historians of Ireland, its history and its people. His books include Ireland: The Union and its Aftermath, States of Mind: Two Centuries of Anglo-Irish COnflict, 1780-1980 and a two volume biography of Daniel McConnell.