Strangers to that Land, subtitled 'British Perceptions of Ireland from
the Reformation to the Famine', is a critical anthology of English,
Scottish and Welsh colonists' and travellers' accounts of Ireland and
the Irish from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It consists
exclusively of eyewitness descriptions of Ireland given by writers using
the English language who had never been to Ireland before and were
seeing the country for the first time. Each extract, where necessary, is
set in context and briefly explained. The result is a vivid, continuous
record of Ireland as defined and judged by the British over a period of
four centuries. In their general introduction the editors discuss the
significance of these changing historical perceptions, as well as the
impact upon them of literary conventions which played a part in shaping
the emerging texts. It is argued that the relationship between Ireland
and England within a British context constitutes a unique case study in
the procedures of racial stereotyping and colonial representation, the
exploration of cultural conflict and the aesthetics of travel writing.
There are twenty-one contemporary illustrations