Historical Fiction Novel taking place in Ireland

Here's a link to Rick Steve's suggested reading (and movie watching) before travel to Ireland. He lists both fiction and non-fiction, both historical and contemporary.

If you are up for something serious, I highly recommend “Trinity” by Leon Uris. But be advised it can be as disturbing as his novels about Israel and the holocaust.

Anyone who can make it through The Dubliners, or anything by James Joyce for that matter, deserves a medal.

You might enjoy “The Princes of Ireland” “and then “The Rebels of Ireland” by Edward Rutherfurd. I loved reading about Ireland before my trip there two years ago.

The books are very big, but easy to read.

Sister Fidelma mysteries (Peter Tremayne) and the Burren mysteries (Cora Harrison) both set in the middle ages. Hours, weeks of reading ahead of you if are into books like this.

Irish Gold by Andrew Greeley blends historical Irish independence with modern mystery. For slices of modern Irish life books by Irish author Maeve Binchey are good but a little slow moving.

A little fluffy, but very well researched - Scarlett, the sequel to Gone with the Wind, takes place in Ireland.

Frank Delaney- "Ireland"

Colm Toibin- "The Heather Blazing", and "Nora Webster"

Several of Edna O'Brien's novels take place in County Clare; parts of her memoir are set in Clare and Dublin. Although not written as historical fiction, she gives vivid descriptions of life going back to the 1950s.

I always had a fondness for R. A. MacAvoy's "Book of Kells". Though it could be because I like her other work (especially her first "Tea with the Black Dragon"). It has a modern character going back to that time and from the other comments I see about it, she seems to have done her homework. It was an earlier work of hers so the writing's not as polished as later, but I still liked it.

Hello from Wisconsin,
My whole family read, separately, the early books by Niall Williams. His 'O Come Ye Back to Ireland' was lovely. It is about his first year back in Ireland, in County Clare. Not really fiction, but better. On the same path as A Year in Provance.

Maive Binchey also has a collection of Ireland based stories. Circle of Friends has been made into a movie.

A speaking of movies, The Field, is a near Shakespearean story of a piece of land along the west coast of Ireland. A lot of history wrapped into that story.

1916: A novel of the Irish Rebellion by Morgan Llywelyn. There's a whole series; 1922, 1972, ……..

If you are going to Northern Ireland, I cannot recommend 'Say Nothing - a True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland' by Patrick Radden Keefe too highly. It;'s not a novel but, like the best history books, it reads like one - absolutely fascinating!