13 FEBRUARY 1926, Page 29

IMPARTIALITY and interpretation are indispensable weapons

in the historian's armoury ; and Mr. Gwynn shows in this book that he possesses and can wield them both. Few men are so well qualified to write the history of their native land as Mr. Gwynn, for throughout his life he has studied Ireland with an uncommon degree of detachment. In this volume, which is not an abridgment of the larger History of Ireland he pub- lished in 1923, but an entirely new book, Mr. Gwynn has suc- ceeded in telling what he himself terms "a complicated and, on the whole, depressing story" in a lively and interesting manner.