[Epigraph:] “She’s not a dull or cold land; / No! she’s a warm and bold land! Oh! she’s a true and old land, - This native land of mine.” (Davis).

[Ded.:] To My Fellow Countrymen / at home and in exile / on the college and the mansion / amidst the green fields or the crowded cities /soon to be /the men of Ireland / I dedicate this little book, which contains / the story of our Country /and subscribe myself / friend the Author.

Author’s Preface [3]
Preface to American Edition [7]
Introductory - How we learn the facts of early history [9]

1.] How the Milesians sought and found “ the Promised Isle” - and conquered it . [11]
2.] How Ireland fared under the Milesian dynasty [19]
3.] How the Unfree Clans tried a revolution; and what came of it. How the Romans thought it vain to attempt a conquest of Ireland [23]
4.] Bardic Tales of Ancient Erinn. “The Sorrowful Fate of the Children of Usna” [26]
6.] The death of King Conor Mac Nessa [35]
6.] The “Golden Age” of Pre-Christian Erinn [38]
7.] How Ireland received the Christian Faith [45]
8.] A retrospective glance at pagan Ireland [51]
9.] Christian Ireland. The Story of Columba, the “Dove of the Cell” [55]
10.] The Danes in Ireland [74]
11.] How “Brian of the Tribute” became a High King of Erinn [78]
12.] How a dark thunder-cloud gathered over Ireland [85]
13.] The glorious day of Clontarf [89]
14.] “After the Battle.” The scene “upon Ossory’s plain.” The last days of national freedom [99]
15.] How England became a compact kingdom, while Ireland was breaking into fragments  [103]
16.] How Henry the Second feigned wondrous anxiety to heal the disorders of Ireland [106]
17.] The treason of Diarmid M’Murrogh [108]
18.] How the Norman adventurers got a footho’ld on Irish soil [112]
19.] How Henry recalled the adventurers.] How he came over himself to punish them and befriend the Irish [121]
20.] How Henry made a treaty with the Irish king -  and did not keep it. . [127]
21.] Death-bed scenes [132]
22.] How the Anglo-Norman colony fared [136]
23.] “The bier that conquered.” The story of Godfrey of Tyrconnell [140]
24.] How the Irish nation awoke from its trance, and flung off its chains. The career of King Edward Bruce [150]
25.] How this bright day of independence was turned to gloom. How the seasons fought against Ireland, and famine fought for England [156]
26.] How the Anglo-Irish lords learned to prefer Irish manners, laws, and language, and were becoming “more Irish than the Irish themselves” How the king in London took measures to arrest that dreaded evil.[164]
27.] How the vain-glorious Richard of England and his overwhelming army]
failed to “dazzle” or conquer the Prince of Leinster. Career of the heroic Art M’Murrogh [160]
28.] How the vain glorious English king tried another campaign against the invincible Irish prince and was utterly defeated as before [177]
29.] How the civil wars in England left the Anglo-Irish colony to ruin. How the Irish did not grasp the opportunity of easy liberation .[182]
30.] How a new element of antagonism came into the struggle. How the English king and nation adopted a new religion, and how the Irish held fast by the old [184]
31.] “Those Geraldines! those Geraldines!” [190]
32.] The rebellion of Silken Thomas [196]
33.] How the “Reformation” was accomplished in England, and how it was resisted in Ireland [207]
34 How the Irish chiefs gave up all hope and yielded to Henry; and how tho Irish clans served the chiefs for such treason [212]
35.] Henry’s successors: Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. The career of “John the Proud ” [217]
36.] How the Geraldines once more leagued against England under the banner of the cross. How “the royal Pope ” was the earliest and the most active ally of the Irish cause [220]
37.] How Commander Cosby held a “feast” at Mullaghmast; and how “Ruari Oge” recompensed that “hospitality.” A viceroy’s visit to Glenmalure, and his reception there [219]
38.] “Hugh of Dungannon.” How Queen Elizabeth brought up the young Irish chief at court with certain crafty designs of her own [235]
39.] How Lord Deputy Perrot planned a right cunning expedition, and stole away the youthful Prince of Tyrconnell.] How, in the dungeons of Dublin Castle, the boy chief learned his duty towards England; and how ho at length escaped, and commenced discharging that duty [238]
40.] How Hugh of Dungannon was meantime drawing off from England and drawing Dear to Ireland [246]
41.] How Red Hugh went circuit against the English in the North. How the crisis came upon O’Neill [252]
42.] O’Neill in arms for Ireland.] Clontibret and Beal-an-atha*buie [255]
43.] How Hugh formed a great national confederacy and built up a nation once more on Irish soil [271]
44.] How the reconstructed Irish nation was overwhelmed.How the two Hughs fought “back to back” against their overpowering foes. How the “Spanish aid” ruined the Irish cause. The disastrous battle of Kinsale [276]
45.] “The last Lord of Beara.” How Donal of Dunboy was assigned a perilous prominence, and nobly undertook its duties. How Don Juan’s imbecility or treason ruined the Irish cause [285]
46.] How the queen’s forces set about “tranquilizing ” Munster. How Carew sent Earl Thomond on a mission into Carbery. Bear, and Bantry [289]
47.] How the lord president gathered an army of four thousand men to crush doomed Dunboy, the lost hope of the national cause in Munster.[292]
48.] The last days of Dunboy : a tale of heroism [295]
49.] How the fall of Dunboy caused King Philip to change all his plans, and recall the expedition for Ireland; and how the reverse broke the brave heart of Red Hugh. How the “Lion of the North ” stood at bay, and made his foes tremble to the last [305]
50.] The retreat to Leitrim; “the most romantic and gallant achievement of the age” [312]
51.] How the government and Hugh made a treaty of peace. How England came under the Scottish monarchy; and how Ireland hopefully hailed the Gaelic sovereign [322]
52.] “The Flight of the Earls.” How the princes of Ireland went into exile, menaced by destruction at home [327]
53 A memorable epoch. How Milesian Ireland finally disappeared from history; and how a new Ireland - Ireland in exile -  appeared for the first time.] How “plantations” of foreigners were designed for the “Colonization ” of Ireland, and the extirpation of the native race. [339]
54.] How the lords justices got up the needful bloody fury in England by a “dreadful massacre” story. How the Confederation of Kilkenny came about [352]
55.] Something about the conflicting elements of the civil war in [1642-9. How the Confederate Catholics made good their position, and established a national government in Ireland [360]
56.] How King Charles opened negotiations with the Confederate Council. How the Anglo-Irish party would have ” peace at any price” and the “native Irish” party stood.out for peace with honor.] How Pope Innocent the Tenth sent an envoy -  “not empty-handed” - to aid the Irish cause [364]
57.] How the nuncio freed and armed the hand of Owen Roe, and bade him strike at least one worthy blow for God and Ireland.] How gloriously Owen struck that blow at Benburb [370]
58.] How the king disavowed the treaty and the Irish repudiated it. How the council by a worse blunder clasped hands with a sacrilegious murderer, and incurred excommunication.] How at length the royalists and the Confederates concluded an honorable peace. . [377]
59.] How Cromwell led the Puritan rebels into Ireland. How Ireland by a lesson too terrible to be forgotten was taught the danger of too much loyalty to an English sovereign [381]
60.] The agony of a nation [383]
61.] How King Charles the Second came back on a compromise. How a new massacre story was set to work. The martyrdom of Primate Plunkett [394]
62.] How King James the Second, by arbitrarily asserting liberty of conscience, utterly violated the will of the English nation. How the English agreed, confederated, combined, and conspired to depose the king, and beat up for “foreign emissaries” to come and begin the rebellion for them [400]
64.] How William and James met face to face at the Boyne. A plain sketch of the battle-field and the tactics of the day [405]
64.] “Before the battle” [410]
65.] The Battle of the Boyne [414]
66.] How James abandoned the struggle; but the Irish would not give up [422]
67.] How William sat down before Limerick, and began the siege. Sarsfield's midnight ride -  the fate of William’s siege train [426]
68.] How William procured a new siege train and breached the wall. How the women of Limerick won their fame in Irish history. How the breach was stormed and the mine sprung. How William fled from “unconquered Limerick” [435]
69.] How the French sailed off, and the deserted Irish army starved in rags, but would not give up the right. Arrival of “St. Ruth, the vain and brave” [439]
70.] How Ginckle besieged Athlone. How the Irish “kept the bridge,” and how the brave Custume and his glorious companions “died for Ireland.” How Athlone, thus saved, was lost in an hour [441]
71.] “The Culloden of Ireland.” How Aughrim was fought and lost. A story of the battle-field; “the dog of Aughrim,” or fidelity in death.[451]
72.] How glorious Limerick once more braved the ordeal. How at length a treaty and capitulation was agreed upon.] How Sarsfield and the Irish army sailed into exile [462]
73.] How the treaty of Limerick was broken and trampled under foot by the “Protestant Interest” yelling for more plunder and more persecution.[469]
74.] “The penal times.” How “Protestant Ascendancy” by a bloody penal code endeavored to brutify the mind, destroy the intellect, and deform the physical and moral features of the subject Catholics [474]
75.] The Irish army in exile. How Sarsfield fell on Landen plain. How the regiments of Burke and O’Mahoney saved Cremona, fighting in “muskets and shirts.” The glorious victory of Fontenoy. How the Irish exiles, faithful to the end, shared the last gallant effort of Prince Charles Edward [479]
76.] How Ireland began to awaken from the sleep of slavery. The dawn of Legislative Independence [488]
77.] How the Irish Volunteers achieved the legislative independence of Ireland; or, how the moral force of a citizen army effected a peaceful, legal, and constitutional revolution [493]
78.] What national independence accomplished for Ireland. How England once more broke faith with Ireland, and repaid generous trust with base betrayal [501]
79.] How the English minister saw his advantage in provoking Ireland into an armed struggle; and how heartlessly he labored to that end [504]
80.] How the British minister forced on the rising. The fate of the brave Lord Edward - how the brothers Sheares died hand in hand - the rising of Ninety-eight [509]
81.] How the government conspiracy now achieved its purpose. How the Parliament of Ireland was extinguished [520]
82.] Ireland after the Union. The story of Robert Emmet. [534]
83.] How the Irish Catholics, under the leadership of O’Connell, won Catholic Emancipation [542]
84.] How the Irish' people next sought to achieve the restoration of their legislative independence. How England answered them with a challenge to the sword . [548]
85.] How the horrors of the famine had their effect on Irish politics. How the French revolution set Europe in a flame. How Ireland made a vain attempt at insurrection [556]
86.] How the Irish exodus came about, and the English press gloated over the anticipated extirpation of the Irish race [564]
87.] How some Irishmen took to “the politics of despair.” How England’s revolutionary teachings “came home to roost.” How General John O'Neill gave Colonel Booker a touch of Fontenoy at Ridgeway [568]
88.] The unfinished chapter of eighteen hundred and sixty-seven. How Ireland, “oft doomed to death,” has shown that she is “fated not to die.”  [576]
Valedictory [582]