We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958

We Don't Know Ourselves is a very personal vision of recent Irish history from the year of Fintan O'Toole's birth, 1958, down to the present time. 

Ireland has changed almost out of all recognition during those decades, & Fintan O'Toole's life coincides with that arc of transformation. The book is a brilliant interweaving of memories (though this is emphatically not a memoir) & an engrossing social & historical narrative. 

This was the era of Eamon de Valera, Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey & John Charles McQuaid, of sectarian civil war in the North & the Pope's triumphant visit in 1979, but also of those who began to speak out against the ruling consensus - feminists, advocates for the rights of children, LGBTIQ+people & women all coming out of the shadows they were so long banished into. 

We Don't Know Ourselves is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand modern Ireland and all the changes that have now already taken place, and the effects of those changes on the Irish Population of today & tomorrow - both good & bad.