Irish history is often seen as a mere catalogue of colonial repression. James Hawes argues that Ireland, its unique culture rooted in millennia of continuity, has always assimilated would-be invaders. Moreover, since the roaming saints and scholars of the early Middle Ages, the Irish have helped shape Europe, then America. With its natural wealth, its extraordinary magnetism and its global diaspora, Ireland need only sidestep the last, toxic wreckage of the British Empire to engage with a bright future.