A tale of fierce battles, hot-blooded romances, and family and political intrigues, “Rebels of Ireland” brings the story begun in “The Princes of Ireland” to a stunning conclusion. Abridged. 8 CDs.

Edward Rutherfurd's stirring account of Irish history, the Dublin Saga, concludes in this magisterial work of historical fiction. Beginning where the first volume, “The Princes of Ireland,” left off, “The Rebels of Ireland” takes us into a world transformed by the English practice of “plantation,” which represented the final step in the centuries-long British conquest of Ireland. Once again Rutherfurd takes us inside the process of history by tracing the lives of several Dublin families from all strata of society - Protestant and Catholic, rich and poor, conniving and heroic.
From the time of the plantations and Elizabeth's ascendancy Rutherfurd moves into the grand moments of Irish history: the early-17th-century “Flight of the Earls,” when the last of the Irish aristocracy fled the island; Oliver Cromwell's brutal oppression and confiscation of lands a half-century later; the romantic, doomed effort of “The Wild Geese” to throw off Protestant oppression at the Battle of the Boyne. The reader sees through the eyes of the victims and the perpetrators alike the painful realities of the anti-Catholic penal laws, the catastrophic famine and the massive migration to North America, the rise of the great nationalists O'Connell and the tragic Parnell, the glorious Irish cultural renaissance of Joyce and Yeats, and finally, the triumphant founding of the Irish Republic in 1922.
Written with all the drama and sweep that has made Rutherfurd the bestselling historical novelist of his generation, “The Rebels of Ireland” is both a necessary companion to “The Princes of Ireland” and a magnificent achievement in its own right.

Edward Rutherford was born in Salisbury, England, and was educated in Wiltshire and at Cambridge. He has since lived on both sides of the Atlantic, in Dublin and New York, but he returned to his roots to write his first novel, the best-selling Sarum, a history of Salisbury. This was followed by the best-selling Russka, a sweeping history of Russia from the cossack horsemen to the Bolshevik revolution.
Until the 1980s, Edward Rutherfurd pursued a business career — he attended Stanford Business School, worked for W.H. Smith, and was employed by Tory Party Central Office. As a child, he had