The First Irish Cities |
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25 July 2023
Among the many books I picked up in Dublin last year was David Dickson's The First Irish Cities: An Eighteenth Century Transformation. It's an exhaustively researched book that's exhausting to read. I thought maybe that since I picked it up in Dublin last year I would read it before this year's trip earlier this month, but I didn't make it. It's a social history book, so it helps to be familiar with the history of Ireland in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries to follow along. Schools, architecture, tradecrafts, shipping, population growth, etc. all fall within the purview of Dickson's tome. If you want to do a deep dive in the numbers of 18th century Ireland the book is well done, but for the general reader it's seems to me a bit dry.
