This work is a chronological account of the events and inviduals that have helped shape Ireland. It provides a review of Ireland's experience of this troubled century, juxtoposing impressions of day-to-day life with a more general assessment of the country's development--whether social, cultural, political, or historical. It includes all the things that dominated Irish thinking between 1900 and the present--the Irish Hospitals Sweep (the biggest lottery in the world in its day); Downey's pub strike, which went on for so long that one generation of picketers was replaced by the next; the cultural glories of the Irish theatre; the price of a pint of Guinness or a dozen oysters; and the trade of Kerrygold butter for Russian oil.