Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

These Isles: A People’s History of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales?        Book launch, talk and signing

Brian Groom, Writer

An inventive new look at the entwined histories of Britain and Ireland’s nations – and the people who have called them home. Brian Groom, author of the bestselling Northerners, reveals a colourful and often-contested story of the Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans and others who have occupied these islands, along with their culture, languages and passions.

Brian Groom explores the role of religion and the British Empire, international diasporas and internal migration, gender relations and war in this entertaining narrative. With forays into popular culture, sport, music, language, literature and art, These Isles stretches from 800,000-year-old footprints on a Norfolk beach to the changing fortunes of the early 21st century. It offers a uniquely rich and kaleidoscopic vision of the shared stories of people across Britain and Ireland – past and present.

2.30pm in the Tempest Anderson Lecture Theatre in the Yorkshire Museum on Tuesday 10 March.

YPS Members and students free, non members £5.

Member’s report:

This lecture was based on Brian Groom’s book of the same title and covered the relationship between different parts of Britain. A common term is the British Isles although this can be controversial; alternatives include ‘Britain and Ireland’, ‘Atlantic Archipelago’, ‘Anglo-Celtic Isles’, ‘British Irish Isles’ and ‘Islands of the North Atlantic’. The author chose ‘ These Isles’. Each of his chapters can be read as an individual essay covering the role of religion, British Empire internal migration, gender relations and war, from the first evidence of habitation up to the present day.

Footprints were exposed briefly in 2013 on a beach at Happisburgh in Norfolk, dated to between 850,000 and 950,000 years ago. They are the oldest footprints found outside Africa and thought to be the first of at least four types of humans to have attempted to settle in Britain. More than 99 per cent of human history in Europe took place in the Stone Age and for much of that time Britain was joined to the continent by a wide land bridge known as Doggerland, now under the North Sea. Early humans came in search of food but were driven back by Ice Ages with the climate fluctuating drastically.

Evidence of modern humans in Devon has been dated to 40,000 years ago and to a cave near Swansea 33,000 years ago. The earliest Scottish settlement in South Lanarkshire has been dated as 12000BCE and a site at Star Carr 9000BCE has been described as Britain’s oldest house. The Bronze Age from about 2200BCE saw mining of copper in Ireland and Wales, tin in Cornwall and gold in Ireland. The Iron Age from about 800BCE was notable for numerous fortified sites.

Britons speaking Celtic languages held sway across the Isles for centuries until the Romans under Emperor Claudius invaded in 43CE. They remained until 410 CE but never conquered Ireland or most of Scotland. Anglo Saxons became established by the mid fifth century and controlled large areas from the sixth. The Vikings Great Army led by Halfdan captured York in 866 then overran Northumbria. Their impact was felt around the coast of Ireland though they never dominated the country. Sweyn Forkbeard seized the English throne in 1013, and his son Cnut became king in 1017. William of Normandy invaded in 1066, and England was ruled by a Norman King descended from Scandinavians. William faced rebellions notably in Northern England and his harrying in 1069 resulted in more than 100,000 perishing from hunger.

The inhabitants of the ‘Isles’ have made their mark in many fields of human endeavour, notably by pioneering the Industrial Revolution and creating history’s largest empire, covering almost a quarter of the globe. The relationship between England and the smaller nations has always been a tension. England conquered Wales in the Middle Ages and formed unions with Scotland in 1707 and Ireland in 1801. Wales and Ireland are often considered England’s first colonies yet Welsh, Irish and Scots as well as English became colonisers themselves throughout the world. Factors fashioning the UK include a desire to defend Protestantism against a largely Catholic Europe. A largely Catholic Ireland was never comfortable in the union and broke away in 1922. Nationalism has grown in Scotland and Wales weakening bonds between the UK nations.

Jon Coulson

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