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Archaeology: This book has an attractive cover but inside the presentation is poor. The illustrations vary from bad to abysmal and personal names such as ORíodáin, Culfield, Corringwood-Bruce, Coewen, Wagner (Warner!) demonstrate the poor copy-editing which is, in fact, apparent from as early as the acknowledgments page, writes Barry Raftery.

Di Martino is concerned to produce an "independent and balanced history of the inter-relationship between Rome and Ireland" to the arrival of the Vikings. Reflected throughout the book is his desire to demonstrate how the "experts" have so often got it wrong. He seeks to expose the "official view" which has scarcely realised, even denied (not always, he hints, for academic reasons), that extensive romanisation of Ireland took place over the first six centuries AD. For him this denial was "an absurdity" and he now provides "new insights and shows the reality - that Ireland and Rome were not separate worlds".