1. Susan McKay, Northern Protestants on Shifting Ground, and also Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People. These two books straddle a journalistic and anthropological approach to what the titles indicate. As one Protestant in the text remarked, Irish reunification would work just fine, it is the ten years getting there that everyone is afraid of. It seems increasingly muddled what actually the Northern Irish Unionist is supposed to stand for -- passionate attachment to union with an unwilling or indifferent partner, namely England?
2. David Dickson, The First Irish Cities: An Eighteenth-Century Transformation. One of the best books on cities in recent years, and more general than the title might indicate. I had not known that Waterford was once a rival for Dublin, or fully realized that Ireland has no significant city which is not right next to the coast. Readable throughout, and gives you an excellent sense of how the Irish pecking order for cities evolved. Recommended.
3. Fintan O'Toole, Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks. Most educated outsiders approach Ireland through the lens of its rather prominent literary history (Joyce, Yeats, etc.). That's fine, but also somewhat misleading. This book gives you an alternate tour -- focused on modernism and the 20th century -- through the visual arts, design, television, theatre, and more. It should prove eyeopening to many people, and is also a wonderful book for browsing or as a guide to further study. Harry Clarke's stained glass "Eve of St. Agnes" work, located in Dublin and produced in the 1920s, is much more central to the Irish narrative than many people realize.
