In 1798, Irish patriots, committed to freeing their country from England, landed with a company of French troops in County Mayo, in westernmost Ireland. They were supposed to be an advance guard, followed by other French ships with the leader of the rebellion, Wolfe Tone. Briefly they triumphed, raising hopes among the impoverished local peasantry and gathering a group of supporters. But before long the insurgency collapsed in the face of a brutal English counterattack. Very few books succeed in registering the sudden terrible impact of historical events; Thomas Flanagan's is one. Subtly conceived, masterfully paced, with a wide and memorable cast of characters, The Year of the French brings to life peasants and landlords, Protestants and Catholics, along with old and abiding questions of secular and religious commitments, empire, occupation, and rebellion. It is quite simply a great historical novel. Named the most distinguished work of fiction in 1979 by the National Book Critics' Circle.

Ireland, 1867: A time of unbridled courage and rage. Here Robert Delaney and his young friends join the Fenian uprising and, in one night of violence, seal their fates with a secret that shapes the rest of their lives. Ned Nolan chooses terrorism and the gun; and Delaney himself becomes Ireland's champion, rising to power as a politician - and falling in love with a beautiful, forbidden woman who can destroy him as mercilessly as the haunting truth of his past. Together, they are The Tenants of Time...embodying, embracing, and echoing all the passions of this most passionate land.

Set in Ireland at the time of the Troubles, during the watershed year of 1919, Thomas Flanagan's epic The End of the Hunt chronicles the years following World War I, in which the British attempted to put down once and for all the centuries-old dream of an independent Ireland. On the pages of this gripping novel, we are transported from the smoky pubs of Dublin, where men argue eloquently but action has the final word, to the Irish countryside, where lonely roads become paths to the grave as fast as a rifle shot; from stately manors, where an ancient way of life is threatened, to the gleaming London conference table, where men like Lloyd George and Winston Churchill play games of power, tainting the triumph of their Irish opponents; through the painful dilemmas and grievous losses of men and women for whom old certainties have been splintered and new sides must be chosen. The End of the Hunt is fiction of a very high order. It brings us face-to-face with history as it was made, and life as it was given and lost.