Burning the Big House

“Exaggeration, half-truths and self-serving narratives are unpicked in Terence Dooley’s new book with clarity, nuance and wisdom. . . . Dooley’s scrupulous scholarship, his deep knowledge of rural Ireland . . . and empathy across the confessional divide makes him the perfect chronicler of this often painful subject, where all is not quite as it seems.”—William Laffan, Times (UK)

“In Terence Dooley’s fascinating and troubling new study, a more nuanced picture emerges. Professor Dooley’s pioneering work with Maynooth’s Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses has left him better placed than most to describe these campaigns of intimidation, and he does this with style, giving us what must surely be the definitive account of the burnings. . . . Elegantly and persuasively, he dismantles the myths surrounding the burning of the Big House.”—Adrian Tinniswood, Daily Telegraph

"Illuminates a problematic slice of social history, repositioning the “Troubles” of 1919-21 as a continuation of the Land War of 1879-81, and retailing with brio a story often only half-told."—Roy Foster, Times Literary Supplement 'Best Books of 2022'

“Draws on decades of research to weave together social, political and cultural history in a stunning portrait of a landscape and a social milieu changed for ever.”—Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid, Financial Times

“An impeccably researched and thoughtfully argued gallop through ‘the tumultous history’ of Irish country houses from 1914–23, when a fifth of them were burnt to the ground. However, it is also the story of the fall of the ascendancy, the Irish landed classes.”—Gareth Russell, Times (UK)

“In this important reassessment, drawing on contemporary accounts, earlier regional studies and a wealth of recently released archive material, Dooley argues for a much closer look at the social and economic history of the previous 70 years.”—Maev Kennedy, Art Newspaper

“Professor Dooley’s pioneering work with Maynooth’s Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses has left him better placed than most to describe these campaigns of intimidation, and he does this with style, giving us what must surely be the definitive account of the burnings. . . . Elegantly and persuasively, he dismantles the myths surrounding the burning of the Big House.”—Adrian Tinniswood, Irish Independent

“Terence Dooley’s Burning the Big House is indeed a valuable, detailed, and scholarly study.”—President Michael D. Higgins

“A fascinating, insightful and scholarly study. . . . What emerges from it is a much more complex, nuanced story than that which has been conventionally accepted. . . . The author has made brilliant and extensive use of primary sources. . . . He doesn’t take sides or lapse into nostalgia for what was lost, although the black-and-white illustrations within the text offer a tantalising glimpse of these vanished buildings.”—John Goodall, Country Life

“Dooley is a skilled narrator, capable of crisply exposing the inventions of national myth. . . . It remains the great strength of Dooley’s work that it goes beyond the pious rhetoric of heroic struggle and ancient wrongs to expose the grim brutality that accompanied the birth of a new nation.”—Andrew Gailey, Literary Review

“Sheds light on the complex motivations behind the burnings. . . . In his detailed study of the topic, Dooley delves deeper into a more murky and controversial motive, namely: local land agitation.”—Ciaran Moran, Irish Independent

“Comprehensive, vivid and insightful, Burning the Big House is geared to enlarge the reader’s understanding of all the purposes and motifs pertaining to a historically significant era.”—Patricia Haig, Times Literary Supplement

“Burning the Big House smoulders with insight. . . . Author Terence Dooley [is] perhaps Ireland’s foremost architectural historian.”—Kevin Myers, Irish Independent

"A valuable reminder about conflict and danger close to home and the passion of those who fought to take charge of their own futures, even if the price was high."—Family Tree Magazine

“[Complicates] the narrative of the long Irish Revolution and its often paradoxical outcome, providing an arresting new perspective on a class and culture at the point of its extinction…Dooley conveys the drama and trauma of the times with Bowenesque vividness.”—Roy Foster, New Statesman

“Prof Dooley’s research offers a unique perspective on the complexities of the conflict between the Anglo-Irish landed class and local IRA activists and supporters.” —Maynooth University,  Irish Times

“This book is one of the most substantial contributions to the historiography of modern Ireland to have been written in recent decades, with its originality lying particularly in the way it angles the history of the period to the experiences of the landed elite without constituting merely a history of that elite.”—Philip Bull, author of Monksgrange: Portrait of an Irish House and Family, 1769–1969

“In all the fraught history of the Irish country house there is no more dramatic episode than that covered by this book. Professor Dooley is the ideal person to reveal a compelling if catastrophic story that, to date, has not received the scholarly attention it deserves.”—Clive Aslet, author of The Story of the Country House

“A magnificent intervention into a contested and complex historical field. Building on decades of painstaking research, using insider sources and new approaches, Burning the Big House offers new understandings of issues around the political, economic and cultural challenges faced by Ireland’s Big Houses and their owners during the revolutionary period.”—Annie Tindley, author of Lord Dufferin, Ireland and the British Empire

“This fascinating study presents the Big House burnings of 1920–23 as the final in a chain of economic and political catastrophes which all but eradicated the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Dooley’s masterfully chosen examples illustrate the variety and complexity of reasons for destruction.”—Eunan O’Halpin, coauthor of The Dead of the Irish Revolution